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HP's Dunn Stepping Down
XJHardware writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Patricia Dunn is stepping down from the chair of HP." From the article: "Hurd will retain his existing positions as chief executive and president and Dunn will remain as a director after she relinquishes the chair on Jan. 18. 'I am taking action to ensure that inappropriate investigative techniques will not be employed again. They have no place in HP,' Hurd said in a statement. Dunn apologized for the techniques used in the company's probe, which included 'pretexting' in which private investigators impersonated board members and journalists to acquire their phone records."
This really isn't a surprise if HP wanted to hold together as a company. This damage may be deeper than you think as their Head of Global Operations, Giles Bouchard is leaving by October 31st. It doesn't indicate what his reasons are but he's been working there for two years, why now? Will we see others follow or will Dunn's resignation stop others from jumping ship?
My work here is dung.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned. But in my day we called it 'lying'.
So calling the phone company and pretending to be somebody else to get their records is called Pretexting??? I kinda thought that was called fraud. As for Dunn stepping down, the buck stops here, and if she can't keep control of her ship, then she would step down. Of course, it's probably a case of Nixonitis, i.e. everybody does it, but HP got caught.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I left HP, Boise during the disaster that was Carly.
Her "I-came-up-from-the-mailroom" speech was enough to make most in the Departmental LaserJet Division to wretch. But, at least she didn't go all Richard Nixon on everyone and send out eaves-dropping goon squads.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
When you hit the cover of Newsweek as a shining example of corporate misbehaviour, it's safe to say your days are numbered.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Urr, isn't this just stating the obvious since she's the one responsible for the inappropriate techniques in the first place. Or at least, she signed off on them in some fashion. Isn't this a little like a thief retiring from thievery so that no more robberies will be committed?
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Why is it that I get a visit from the police when I do some good ole' social engineering and get caught? And this woman gets a seat as a director?
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in essence, this is the boss attaining your private information -- stuff of yours that's yours, outside of your work, and stuff that you had no say whenever they got it.
It's one thing when the government abuses power (patriot act, federal investigators prosecuting if you lie to them, but they can lie to you to also charge with a crime), but it's another when, now, "the man" is doing it. What's next? Paying you in company notes instead of real money -- where you can only shop at "the company store?" This whole incident opens up a huge can and everyone who participated should be promptly fired....
Say hello to 1920....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
It's badPR when your CEO gets arrested for wire fraud...
Best Slashdot Co
dunn will still be around, and hurd just changes chairs. the only things of note is the board meetings over the phone were chaired by the lead lawyer for the outfit that hired the pretexters in the first place, and hurd made a nice little "never again" speech.
HP is going to be roiled hard over this when the state and feds get done. there will be new law, and pretexting is going to be outlawed. HP is going to stain like a cheap rug when Congress is done with them.
since HP can't clean up their own house, they will be distracted and owly, and they're on a slide. the sharks are in the water, and they're snapping at everything.
if you own the stock, dump it. I'm not buying HP anything. you shouldn't either. they have now proven that they are untrustworthy with your information and secrets at the top.
buncha weasels run the joint now. your father's HP is long gone.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I guess you can say his time at HP is... DUNN for! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... sigh.
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
Heckofa Job Pattycake.
Have the phone companies, or any other company that deals with customer's sensitive data is to mail the report to the person's mailing address along with a letter saying that you asked for this data to be sent, from a phone call on this date, from such-n-such phone number.
They should then refuse, 100% to fax or email the information out.
Change of address? Certainly, after we send out a letter confirming your address change.
Just like when I change my address (or do anything else) with my 401(k), IRAs, and banking.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
At least she did the right thing there.
I don't know if it was a King Richard II thing ("Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?") or if it was a cold-blooded decision ("Commander, tear this ship apart, and bring me the passengers... ahem, I mean, dig up anything and everything you can on whoever seems a likely target."), but either way there was no way that HP could have kept any customer or shareholder faith with her remaining at the helm.
What I find interesting is that the Justice department is checking this "pretexting" business out. Are they interested in prosecuting it... or duplicating it?
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
At least the slimy mofo George Keyworth who was blabbing to the press got his name slimed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Thank you, that is all.
The CEO is now the chairman of the board. While
Hurd was probably exasperated, and rightly felt
he had to take the reigns to prevent further
damage to his company, the post-Enron concept
of an independent board has just taken a big
step backward. In the long run this is bad
for shareholders (not just HP shareholders).
Dunn: "Now, just give me my 'agreed-upon compensation that will pay the salary for 100 people over a lifetime' and I'll be gone."
... our new UNIX-replacing daemon overlords!
crushing a woman simply because she is powerful. Well, and amoral. Illegal, too.
Anyway, it's just the establishment putting someone down just because they are female and criminal.
Perkins quit when he heard about the spying and lying. He held his fire, then he outed Dunn and the board. The company was supposed to disclose why Hackborn quit when he did. And the board should have disclosed the investigation started by Dunn as well as the results of the investigation.
I agree that the rest of the board, including Hackborn, has some responsibility. But how to get rid of them? I usually withhold my votes, but the big institutions usually vote for the boards.
Best regards.
Enough of this "pretexting" mumbo jumbo. It's "lying", fraud. Just because an exec does it doesn't require a euphamism to protect them from punishment like a mere human would get. They're not royalty who must be referred to with a "royal we" or "your highness". Their problems aren't "issues".
They're criminals. If anything, their crimes are worse, because they have more power and do more damage, while requiring more trust.
--
make install -not war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent
HP started as a company making electronic test equipment. The computer stuff came much later. During the 1970s, HP made really excellent engineering workstations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workstation Those were something like a really powerful (relatively for the time) desktop computer devoted to engineering and scientific calculations etc. They also built plotters. You could do your drafting on the workstation and plot it on an HP plotter. In that light, the computer business was a logical extention of their other business of making engineering and scientific instruments. Their target market was still engineers.
With the increased power of run-of-the mill PCs, the market for workstations dwindled. The computer division morphed into a maker of general purpose PCs. Now the target market was no longer just engineers. The business dynamic of the computer division had changed.
The test equipment business still existed though and was eventually spun off as Agilent. It is there that the original spirit of HP resides (if anywhere).
I find out that people won't calling what they did by the proper name:
LYING
Pretexting? It sounds so much nicer, like what a kid would do to talk to their friends on a cell phone. And I blame the press for buying into it and reporting it rather than saying "Patricia Dunn lied to the phone company to fraudulently obtain phone records".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
moral: don't pick your women in a bar... or through an executive recruiter.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Two people hardly makes for a useful sample, and ethics know no gender or educational background. Since the overwhelming majority of such decisions are made by males, you might as well ask why so many companies have problems with men. Like HP's, for example, who had a male board member leaking information to the press. What's HP's problem with men?
Good point. If the company supplied the SSN's of the board members to the investigators, I'd expect some criminal action against the company.
Best regards.
Is HP still based out of Oregon? If so then identity theft is what they should nail them for. Oregon has some very harsh anti identity theft laws.
A friend in an Oregon insurance office had a computer stolen. Because the computer contained customer's personal data the police went after the thief mostly as identity theft because the those penalties were higher then the ones for breaking and entering and for theft!
So maybe now GNU/Hurd will finally be Dunn...
Y
Power is power, regardless of gender. There are lots of male CEOs who do the same or worse out there. And no, the CEO hardly speaks to the engineers.
Whoever said that was a fool, not a wise man. Capitalism has never been anything to do with right, wrong, good or evil, it's about self interest. It's human nature and will happen no matter what type of society we have. What do you propose as an alternative?
Deleted
Lying is not illegal in any way, and is extremely unlikely to become so because the people who write the laws are lawyers and they do it all the time.
Call it pretexting, or call it fraud, or call it invasion of privacy -- but do not try to water it down by calling it lying
It's a ship of fools. See here: http://malfy.org/
Does anyone know whether Steve Balmer ever engaged in pretexting?
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Ha-ha! [/nelson]
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Hmm. I'm sorry that you're prejudiced, bitter and negative. I too am almost 40, have lived through divorce, and statistically speaking, am more intelligent than most in the general population.
I'm neither prejudiced, bitter nor negative. Skeptical? Sure, at times, however I hope that's an indication of wisdom based on experience in life where things are not as they seem on the surface.
I have tremendous hope in life based on my relationship with God. I hope that you can find some reason for hope - based on truth and not mere speculation. If you are interested in finding out more about the hope that I have, please email me.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
A corporate officer? Going to jail? What are you, some kind of communist?
Look what happened the last time we put a corporate officer in jail, he had a heart attack. Your jealousy of the rich & powerful is overwhelmingly hateful in its magnitude.
Won't somebody think of the CEOs, oh the horror of it all!!!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
close, the idiotic federal government apparently thought it needed an important sounding new word
There ought to be a law... There is!
Pretexting: Your Personal Information Revealed
When you think of your own personal assets, chances are your home, car, and savings and investments come to mind. But what about your Social Security number (SSN), telephone records and your bank and credit card account numbers? To people known as "pretexters," that information is a personal asset, too.
Pretexting is the practice of getting your personal information under false pretenses. Pretexters sell your information to people who may use it to get credit in your name, steal your assets, or to investigate or sue you. Pretexting is against the law.
How Pretexting Works
Pretexters use a variety of tactics to get your personal information. For example, a pretexter may call, claim he's from a survey firm, and ask you a few questions. When the pretexter has the information he wants, he uses it to call your financial institution. He pretends to be you or someone with authorized access to your account. He might claim that he's forgotten his checkbook and needs information about his account. In this way, the pretexter may be able to obtain personal information about you such as your SSN, bank and credit card account numbers, information in your credit report, and the existence and size of your savings and investment portfolios.
Keep in mind that some information about you may be a matter of public record, such as whether you own a home, pay your real estate taxes, or have ever filed for bankruptcy. It is not pretexting for another person to collect this kind of information.
There Ought to Be a Law -- There Is
Under federal law -- the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act -- it's illegal for anyone to:
* use false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or documents to get customer information from a financial institution or directly from a customer of a financial institution.
* use forged, counterfeit, lost, or stolen documents to get customer information from a financial institution or directly from a customer of a financial institution.
* ask another person to get someone else's customer information using false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or using false, fictitious or fraudulent documents or forged, counterfeit, lost, or stolen documents.
The Federal Trade Commission Act also generally prohibits pretexting for sensitive consumer information.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Why is it that I get a visit from the police when I do some good ole' social engineering and get caught? And this woman gets a seat as a director?
She disclosed their social security numbers and other info but did not commit the fraud herself and claims ignorance. We'll see what the AG does about that but the fall guy "investigator" will be nailed. When someone asks you to do something wrong, just say no.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
At least the slimy mofo George Keyworth who was blabbing to the press got his name slimed.
I'd love to know just what he "leaked" and why you hate him for doing it. The nearest I can tell from reading the Wikipedia, the "leak" was about Fiorina's $42,000,000 severance package which has two HP investors suing HP for violating their own payment caps. If that's all there is, Keyworth is a whistle blower. If you know something, I'd love to hear it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
[telephone rings]
"Hello?"
"Hello, this is Sergei Brin, owner of Google."
"Why, hello Mr Brin. What a surprise! I just had an interview with Google. I thought it went well, but those were some tough questions!"
"Yes. Er... Look, I am calling to let you know personally that Google is a terrible place to work."
"It is?"
"Yes... um... The 'Do No Evil' slogan is nonsense. We do plenty of evil."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. Evil like you can't believe. And, um, we're not nearly as visionary as the people at Microsoft. Have you ever worked there? Wonderful place."
[pause] "This is Steve Ballmer, isn't it?"
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" [sound of crashing furniture]
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Capitalism gives an incentive for this sort of selfishness that leads to a culture where they believed this was okay for them to do. Sure, such actions could occur under other philosophies; the point is that capitalism provides no disincentive for this behavior.
:(){
(CNN) Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dump will leave her post in January after a company investigation into media leaks erupted into a boardroom scandal. She will be succeeded by CEO Mark Thurd.
It seems like the HP board decided to flush the system.
If only I had points...
Pete/Petri "damn, my chainsaw is clogged with 1's and 0's again." --clyde
they might have demoted her to SVP...
There are TWO issues here, and I fear that one of them is being overshadowed by the other. It is not at all clear that they are unequal in magnitude, at least from the point of view of a HP shareholder, or even a board member.
One of the members of the board was leaking company information, and in a way that exposes HP to punitive action by the SEC.
Leaking a company's moral wrongdoings (whistleblowing) is one thing -- a valuable service to all stakeholders, but leaks that expose corporate strategy to competitors prematurely, are used to manipulate stock prices for personal gain, or expose the company to legal action because of potential for the former are no virtue.
Frankly, unless the leaking involves whistleblowing, I think that companies should have some legal recourse against the journalists to help them find the leaks. The existance of which would've prevented the need for the phone-record mining.
I'm not saying we should reduce condemnation of what amounts to identy theft, but we should step up the condemnation on what amounts to stock manipulation.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Why do 10% of the people own and control 90% of the resources?
Redistribution of wealth, pure and simple.
Less than 1% of the people are responsible for more than 99% of production. People like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Linus Torvalds, and Bob from Account Temps should, by right, own and control their fair share of the resources. But the government robs them of their right.
Actually, part of the reason is benevolence. Ford wanted to pay his workers (he employed jews, also) a fair wage, and Torvalds wanted to spread his communist ideology to opiate the religionless masses, so they gave away more resources than they were required to by law (while still paying their required taxes.
The question of the inherited wealth controlled by the corporations founded by the likes of Ford and Edison is a different topic, though.
...Dunn hired a third-party who subcontracted an individual who fraudulently collected the phone records.
IMO, Dunn and the third-party should be convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud (or something, anything, just to give the bitch some jail time), and should be forced to hand over the name of the individual who collected the phone records in order to charge him with fraud.
Dunn knew how the phone records were collected. Perkins called her on it. And CERTAINLY the third-party knew what the individual was going to do.
:(){
The problem is that you mentioned capitalism, as though you were saying something distinctive about it, or that different economic systems might not have powerful people who think they can get away with being assholes.
Imagine if I went to the zoo and dropped 16-ton weights on all the animals. They all died. Then I said, "The problem with parrots is that they fail to resist a 16-ton weight." It sounds like I'm talking about parrots, but parrots actually have nothing to do with it. The real issue is the 16-ton weight.
Instead of "the ills of capitalism" it would have been more precise and less silly to say something along the lines of "the ills of human nature" or "some people are such assholes" or "power corrupts".
Some of the ills of capitalism is that people are mortal, there is evil in the world, and we still don't have "Mr. Fusion" under the hoods of all our cars. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Dunn, Fiorina. Wall Street is probably just sexist. Or maybe it's a fact that men manage companies better. Or maybe misguided thinking elevates inadequate people to positions they aren't qualified for merely for the sake of filling some quota of diversity.
http://www.hp.com/ hpinfo/execteam/email/bod/index.html
What? This isn't anything to do with capitalism, it's the political system and the law.
So what's your suggestion to replace capitalism, because it's going to have to force people to part with their goods and services somehow.
Deleted
he stepped down because if the SEC finds out he knew about an internal board level leaker on his watch, he'll be guilty of security fraud for not disclosing. There's potential for insider trading where the leaker is telling tails outside offical channels. He's a much bigger fish to fry. Dunn is just a boss doing her duty a little to zealously.
...has apparently been redefined as "to hell in a bucket".
I've read a fair amount about this, but I'm no expert. I agree that the methods were unorthodox, and even perhaps misdemeanor illegal, but am I missing something on the reason for this?
Was the director that was leaking the info not doing anything wrong? While it might not excuse Dunn's actions (but, it might) wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that Dunn would never have been in a position to make a bad decision like this if George Keyworth had NOT been leaking inside information? Maybe the ends doesn't justify the means, but I tend to lean towards taking off the kid gloves when someone is playing dirty against you in the first place.
I read that Keyworth said something to the effect of "he would have stopped if they had come to him about it" but why should they have had to do that? Isn't that part of the cushy board position? You make a lot of money. You make some big decisions and you keep confidential things confidential?
I guess I don't understand why ALL the outrage is directed at Dunn and none at Keyworth?
So spying on the rank-and-file employees is OK, but do it to the members of the board, who in all likelihood sit on many other boards of major corporations, and suddenly it's like, "oh. my. gosh! haw cud they doo thaat?"
On the other hand, Dunn had to be pretty stupid to piss off the members of the board, who in all likelihood sit on the boards of many other major corporations. Suddenly, Congress itself is investigating. Yes, those people have that kind of juice.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Capitalism does not require people act unethically, illegally or immorally. My fear is that people like you will simply use this situation to "prove" how capitalism is bad (and why whatever brand of economics you prefer is "right"), rather than understand it for what it is: PEOPLE that are bad, and would be just as bad, in any other economic system.
unfortunately, you went overboard in your attempted apology of capitalism: nobody honestly thinks capitalism REQUIRES people to act unethically - but all honest people know that it ENCOURAGES it
the supposition that they would be "just as bad" in another system is not only unprovable but irrelevant - the point is that capitalism, by its very nature, encorages and rewards them
nice try though
Another pisser is that by blaming capitalism, you are releasing her from fault, as it is "capitalism" that is at fault, and not an overzealous and unethical person, Ms. Dunn.
nope, wrong again: the quote talks about "evil men, doing evil things", and that's where, regardless of her gender, she falls: NOT "blameless"
keep trying
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...I can still get ink refills for my HP printer/scanner/copier...I don't care. :)
Sugapablo
...is it any time anyone criticizes capitalism, it turns into "what's your suggestion?" Since I can come up with no better substitute, I should be disqualified from performing a critique?
I purposely avoided saying that we need something better. The point is that capitalism focuses on the profit motive. The profit motive drives corporations to do whatever they need to do to make a buck. This puts the dollar above and beyond morals and ethics. Thus the government needs to step in and regulate in an attempt to put morals and ethics back into business, which only works occasionally due to the fact that the government also subscribes to $ > morals/ethics.
Nowhere does capitalism punish an evil entity. But capitalism, which focuses on the profit motive, certainly does start to give people with shitloads of money the idea that they can get away with anything. Most of them do.
:(){
Wrong.
And if so, that decision was almost certainly made purely based on sexism.
So, not only was Dunn NOT the one behind Fiorina's elevation to CEO (in 1999), she was also the one leading the charge in Fiorina's firing.
Do you feel enough like an idiot yet?
If not, consider that the largest demonstration of sexism and incompetence in the past X minutes has been your post.
Next time, use all caps AND bold, we could barely see your post. And I think it is important that people SEE posts like yours, to demonstrate how insane some people are. Thank you.
Sure, avoiding the public backlash is nice, but the only reason this is even a problem is because it made the news. If no one talked about it, Dunn wouldn't have had to step down. Therefore it's actually the press and the public that is responsible for this. Capitalism did jack and shit to dissuade them from their unethical actions. They had a shit load of money, and money was at stake, so they spent some money to try and figure out who was leaking.
The ethics of the situation were less important than the potential loss of money - capitalism is directly related to their decision.
:(){
How about leaking HP's strategy for managing relationships with chip manufacturers (AMD, Intel)?
You going to lionize him for this, too?
Just some of George's work...
Also, the SEC prohibits companies from leaking material information to securities analysts, institutional investors or other market participants before releasing the information to the general public (source).
Well, this IS an election year, and the President is a global lame duck. From the parent statement, "...10 more who did far worse go free..." During these elective times, nothing says yum like a mess of "Caught Red Handed Corporate Leaders." I'm certain the FBI, SEC, and DHS can supply the cooking ingredients, all they need is a HINT of "Evidence".
Far too intelligent and thoughtful to receive mod points, though. A shame.
'I am taking action to ensure that inappropriate investigative techniques will not be employed again [by the board]. They have no place in HP['s boardroom]'
Dunn will remain as a director, where she can practice her management skills directly on employees and customers.
Parent is inveterate sexist and idiot... who probably hasn't ever gotten laid. He deserves our sympathy.
r eshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=16088813#1 6089990
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=196365&th
Perhaps even worse, he has no idea what "soar" means -- the stock is up 2.3%; maybe that qualifies for exceptional performance for him?
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=HPQ
I thought this was called "social engineering" at one time. The weakest link in an IT system were the human administrators. You could sweet talk them into breaking the system.
Quote from the article: "... Dunn will remain as a director after she relinquishes the chair on Jan. 18."
What's the message here? Do something unacceptable, and you can still be a director, you just can't be the Chairperson?
I can remember when HP was a good company. Now when I try to install HP products, it is common that I get error messages... during installation.
It is inconceivable to me that HP's outside counsel actually said that it wasn't unlawful. Yet that is exactly what they did.
You are absolutely right, this is a case of fraud clear and simple.
The Private Investigators should be charged criminally, The HP lawyers that okay'd this should be go before the state bar and explain why they didn't consider fraud to be unlawful and Dunn should be barred by the SEC of ever serving on the board of or in an executive position at any public company ever again.
A corporation no matter how big cannot just assume powers the police don't even have without a warrant.
It's too late - what's Dunn is done. /rimshot
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Just because "Dunn signed off" on the assignment does not mean that the private investigators had to follow through. If Dunn had ordered that the private investigators should break into the homes of the board members, you can bet the private investigators would have protested and refused to have done it. If Dunn had ordered that the private investigators should shoot someone with bullets, you can bet the private investigators would have protested and refused to have done it.
Private investigators are licensed and must always act within the boundaries of the law.
This opens up a different can of worms: Focus should now be aimed at the world of private investigators. Did the private investigator firm contracted by HP use pretexting routinely in previous cases with other clients, and this is the first time they were caught? Does pretexting and general law breaking occur typically in the private investigator community? Who is charge with auditing the investigators, especially when investigators break the law searching for "dirt" on innocent people (which means that such practices will never go into court and thereby never be made public)?
Now that Dunn is out of the picture, let's see if the media will ever reveal the name of the private investigators and the name of their firm. They deserve to be raked through the coals as much (if not more so) than Dunn.
A Pulitzer Prize to the journalist is does a thorough investigation of the private investigator world.
Here is my conspiracy theory. They hired Mrs. Dunn, told her they had leaks on the board. She accepted the position, taking orders from some one else. She will be well paid for taking some slack on this whole ordeal. Everyone will walk, except the company that was hired, they will go out of business, HP will blame them that it was their fault. Mrs Dunn will retire, she is ready to, she's been fighting cancer for far too long now, ready for some R&R on HP's money. Just my imagination here but stranger things have happened.
You going to lionize him for this, too?
From you link:
On the chip front, although HP and Intel have had a long relationship involving their collaboration on the Itanium chip, delays by Intel have created frustration in the HP camp, the source said. As a result, HP may use Intel's archrival Advanced Micro Devices as a cattle prod of sorts to the chip giant, the source noted. "We plan to use AMD's Opteron more and more," the source said.
Lionize? No. I asked you to justify calling him "slime" who deserves to be fired. The above, an anonymous threat to Intel over obvious and public technical failure, does not do it for me. You can mumbo jumbo it all up by calling that "proprietary information" but you can't call it a serious offense or even pin it to Keyworth. Anyone who'd have bet money on an anonymous report like that is crazy, so what harm could it have done? Companies talk about switching suppliers all the time when they are not engaging in illegal trusts to drive out competition. You will have to do better than that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Many in here seem to be dedicated to mocking Patricia Dunn using variously insulting names of her. It might be justified or not, but many replies display the posters seeing only one side of the story, and only with a single interpretation: Private investigation company impersonated HP board members et al to gain their private information from AT&T, the investigation was requested by Dunn, so she is evil.
Having spent a few hours reading all about the case from CNET News.com, I try to explain to you the whole story in a bit more detail but leaving out everything non-critical. I start with quoting the article HP chairman: Use of pretexting 'embarrassing', bold emphasis mine:
I don't doubt any of the claims above. Companies depend on their ability to do great business before everyone else is doing the same, so everyone involved in upper-level management understands that keeping certain things secret is critical to the company. So does every major shareholder, ie. the people who actually own the company.
Now if leaking one single time certain small details about the company could have negative impact, that's small compared to what HP has faced. Like the above citation shows, there had been repetitive leaks for a while already, and they weren't small ones either: HP outlines long-term strategy.
When a company cannot decide when to publish this kind of information, it is in serious trouble. HP wasn't ready to publish any of this yet, but someone sitting in HP board of directors made it all public ahead of time. Maybe some parts were never intended for anyone outside the board to know. Read the article to get a view on what the press got to publish.
The leaks were a serious problem for HP, so I bet Patricia Dunn as the chairman of the board was put under a lot of pressure to solve the case. She succeeded in that, but to her misfortune, wasn't able to get it done in a manner that would be legal and wouldn't cause major heat from the media (CNN has been keeping the flame up a big time, probably wanting a payback for Reporter's records accessed in HP probe).
In the process board member Tom Perkins resigned, and stated afterwards that "I did not resign from the board for frivolous reasons, but because HP was standing into dangerous waters--waters hazardous with both illegal and unconscionable governance practices--and because my advice was being ignored". CNET's articles try to draw a picture of him having resigned simply because he suspected immoral and/or illegal methods to have been used in the probe, but somebody replying in a previous Slashdot story on the subject claimed that he got only mad because it was among his duties to solve the whole leaking case and Dunn had thus stepped on his toes. Haven't seen a link to any data backing that up though so I wouldn't encourage making any judgments yet.
Whether or not us non-experts in corporate management decide to take an opinion or anot
For all of you in the high-tech industry and journalism who do this all the time to people when you deem it a "good reason", your outrage rings hollow.