Rock Star 0, Classical Musician 10

An opinion column on page 16 written by Paul Collins rehashes the Carly Fiorina-HP saga with an eye towards propping up the fired CEO. Fiorina has enjoyed a great deal of hope in her succeeding at HP. Perhaps it was a story of a woman hired to run a technology company and fight with the entrenched males, or the fact that she was easy on the eyes that caused it to morph into an almost biz-tabloid feature. In any case a lot of ink was spilled on her behalf. Prior to the board giving Fiorina her walking papers, the biggest aspect of the story was the showdown with board member, and son of one of the founders, Walter Hewlett over the merger with Compaq. Hewlett was portrayed as bookish and not particularly given to change. He was the classical musician, she the rock star. Public relations-wise it was no match and Hewlett lost, left the board and sold his stock. Through it all, in failure she gets the send-off. Walter Hewlett gets nothing--except to note that he had the right thought and sold high.