Apotheker

Mr. Apotheker, meanwhile, plans to put his own money where his mouth is.

Five months after taking over the top spot from ousted chief Mark Hurd, new CEO Leo Apotheker spelled out his plan to transform HP.

Apotheker was only put in the position less than a year ago, and he will be the third straight CEO to be fired by the company.

A person familiar with the matter said Mr. Apotheker would leave H-P with an exit package worth $10 million to $12 million.

Directors are said to support Mr Apotheker's public musing about whether or not to sell the company's PC business.

When Mr. Apotheker's hiring was announced almost a year ago, it was a surprise.

In the wake of that incident, Mr. Apotheker in an interview blamed Mr. Hurd for not investing in H-P's services and software businesses.

At the same time, Mr. Apotheker disclosed plans to potentially spin out the company's $40-billion-a-year PC business.

In the interview, Mr. Apotheker said he wasn't happy with the performance of H-P's tablet and smartphones.

And salary raises will soon be reinstituted at HP, which could help turn at least some employees into Apotheker fans.

In choosing the IBM resurrection model over the Apple one, Apotheker has also better aligned his company for a full-on battle with Oracle.

Mr Apotheker, who also reported less-than-brilliant quarterly results during the conference call, asked for patience.

In an interview Thursday, Mr. Apotheker said 'we need to sharpen our focus, ' and that to do so 'you need to take significant action. '

Since former CEO Leo Apotheker took over last November, the company lowered sales forecasts three times.

Mr. Apotheker looks like the 'fall guy, ' argues analyst Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities.

On an earnings call in May, Mr. Apotheker said H-P was regaining market share in its personal-systems group, which includes PCs.

What drew most of the attention was the public cloud Apotheker announced.

While Apotheker has been at the helm, the company has lost 47% of its stock market value.

Mr. Apotheker said H-P is paying 'a fair price' for Autonomy, though it has less than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Apotheker also decided to close HP's Palm Web OS tablet and smartphone unit and sell or spin off its PC division.

Two insides revealed to Bloomberg that the HP board of directors is planning to hold a meeting to discuss the removal of CEO Apotheker.

H-P took its time developing the device, and Chief Executive Leo Apotheker promised the TouchPad would be 'perfect. '

Last week, Mr. Apotheker canceled a scheduled appearance at a Dana Point, Calif. , conference for corporate technology executives.

Mr. Apotheker said in a February interview that being in the consumer businesses like PCs gave H-P 'an immense competitive advantage. '

In March, Mr. Apotheker unveiled his vision for H-P that focused on software and computing services delivered over the Internet.

If Mr. Apotheker is fired, it's unclear whether H-P will reverse course on some of the CEO's strategic decisions.

Mr. Apotheker never testified; Oracle won the lawsuit, but a judge recently ordered a new trial.

September: Meg Whitman, who took over as H-P CEO after Apotheker was pushed out, gave herself some wiggle room to hold onto PCs.

All customer-facing units -- including software, sales, servers and storage -- now report directly to Apotheker.

August: Apotheker said 'we need to sharpen our focus, ' and that to do so 'you need to take significant action. '

"We are at a pivotal part of our history, " Mr Apotheker told the Financial Times on Sunday.

Some board members also believe Mr Apotheker has failed to win broad support within HP.

Mr Apotheker said SAP, whose main competitor is US software company Oracle , aimed to gain significant market share this year.

If H-P's board needs to been pushed, it has three billion reasons to consider firing Apotheker.

Investors interpreted Mr Apotheker's burst of dealmaking, allied to the outlook, as evidence not of vision but of panic.

She made the remarks on a conference call right after the board confirmed Ms. Whitman would assume the helm, succeeding Leo Apotheker.

It allows people like Mr Apotheker to rise, and means that two entirely different personalities can run the firm side by side .

"Technology is a brutal business, " says Mr Apotheker. "If you don't innovate and reinvent yourself, you will become obsolete. "

HP may also license webOS to other hardware manufacturers, HP CEO Leo Apotheker said here on Wednesday.

'We talked strategy, we just failed to execute in the past, ' Mr. Apotheker said at the time.

Indeed, shares soared as much as 11. 7% Wednesday on news that Mr. Apotheker might be out.

Sources inside HP also told Fortune Apotheker suffered for not having former-CEO Mark V. Hurd's aptitude for numbers.

Since his arrival, Mr Apotheker has had to lower HP's revenue forecasts three times (see chart).

While Mr. Apotheker and other top H-P executives visited investors to reassure them, many investors said they remained unconvinced.

Nevertheless, the cruel arrow of the stock market already has digested the possible ouster of Apotheker, and it votes yes.

SAP should have dug deeper, but nothing in all the e-mails and other documents indicates that Mr Apotheker knew the answer.

Mr. Apotheker would be H-P's third CEO to depart under fire in six years.

"It's not a three-month job, " Lane said, adding that Apotheker is focused on HP's long-term growth.

Ellison's suggestion that H-P might try to keep Mr. Apotheker from appearing in court.

Make sure Mr. Apotheker's memo gets leaked to the media -- the one that says 'watch every penny and minimize all hiring. '

He did, however, agree to join the board as chairman if Apotheker was hired as CEO.

Mr. Apotheker overhauled the board after joining H-P, naming six new members this year.

In the melee that followed, a policeman on horseback knocked out two of Apotheker's teeth.

Apparently, HP hired Mr Apotheker without his ever meeting the full board.

"We will only vet applications for security and interoperability, " Apotheker said.

Mr. Apotheker didn't immediately publicly discuss a strategy for H-P and how it might grow, leading to angst on Wall Street.

Then in August, Apotheker announced HP's $10 billion acquisition of software-maker Autonomy that seemed a little too rich to some investors.

Mr Ellison's accusations against Mr Apotheker are overblown.

Apotheker promised that the HP cloud would truly be open.

Despite H-P's challenges, if Mr. Apotheker departs, the job should be attractive for somebody.

Mr. Apotheker was fired and replaced by Ms. Whitman last month.

Apotheker doesn't disagree: "It was a mistake, " he says. "We should have taken more time. "

Tell the new CEO, Leo Apotheker, that Mr. Hurd 'left H-P in great shape. '

Mr Apotheker spent two decades at SAP before joining HP.

H-P's price per share has fallen more than 45% since Mr. Apotheker took over.

Mr. Apotheker emphasized the importance in China of 'cloud services, ' a thrust of H-P's global strategy since he joined in November.

Who might replace Mr. Apotheker isn't clear.

In a brief interview, Mr. Apotheker dismissed the idea that H-P was lagging rivals overall in China.

"HP employees are a highly competitive group that want to win, and they are winning, " Apotheker said.

The firing of Mr. Apotheker, 58 years old, had been in the making for several weeks, said people familiar with the matter.

Lane reportedly was offered the CEO job last year before (now deposed) Leo Apotheker, but turned it down.