I think HP has an opportunity to become the next Apple, under the right leadership. They have the WebOS, the design architecture and the distribution network to make it happen.

The brilliant and charming Warren Bennis wrote in Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader that “There is a profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial.” And in one of his most famous lines, he added, “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.”

Inspiration is half the battle. Bring in somesone who can cares, leads and inspires. Mark’s employees didn’t really like him with one of the lowest employee approval ratings in the tech industry. (BTW, Steve Jobs is at 98%, a cult like following among the employees).

http://www.thebiggertruth.com/2010/08/hps-next-ceo/

Analyst Steve Duplessie offers his suggestions for the characteristics HP should look for in the next CEO, given Mark Hurd’s sudden resignation. “HP needs to make Hurd’s former job the COO position and bring in someone who can reshape the boring old company into a hot, sexy one…This time the company [HP] is in an entirely different place and as such should look for an entirely different type of leader to propel HP to the next level…This is an opportunity for new ideas and new blood.”