She destroyed HP, and she got the job because she has internal genitalia.
HP was a staggering colossus. IBM was bigger and better, but they too are on the downside of their corporate life.
It’s inevitable. It used to be IBM and “the BUNCH”—including Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC and Honeywell—were the big players.
Then HP rose with a bunch of minicomputer vendors. Remember DEC? DG? Wang? Prime?
PCs were squeezed on margins, but they were a play that shared distribution with HP printers and reinforced a position in the enterprise.
Actually, she didn’t. I just read in the WSJ a few days ago that the changes she made at HP started to pay off after she left. The paper gave her the credit for the company upswing.