Tag: fiorina

Fiorina’s attempts to dig up Jobs fails

carlyfiorinaFormer HP CEO turned US presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has been targeting the Apple fanboy vote by claiming she was friends with late Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Iit appears that if they ever were friends, that did not stop the self-serving megalomaniac from getting one over on her. Fiorina has forgotten the sad story of the HP/Apple deal which went sour.

Apple wanted HP to stop installing Windows Media Store on its PCs and replace it with iTunes Music store. Jobs basically offered Fiorina the chance to sell iPods branded with HP’s name if she did this.
Fiorina nodded and the deal went through. However Apple upgraded the iPod, making HP’s version outdated and HP was still stuck with iTunes.

It got worse for HP. After it purged Fiorina in 2005, HP ended the iPod deal in July that year, but because of Fiorina’s deal HP was banned from selling its own music player until August 2006.

All’s fair in love and business, but it does seem odd that Fiorina would suggest that she was a “good friend” with a bloke who mugged her and HP’s shareholders for his own evil cunning plan.

Jobs had effectively got his software installed on millions of computers for free, stifled his main competitor, and got a company that prided itself on invention to declare that Apple was superior.

Fiorina seems to think that Jobs was her mate because he rang her to say he was sorry she got canned. Of course, that could have just meant that Jobs was upset because he did not think he would get another deal like that past a different HP CEO.

Former HP boss “90 percent sure” of presidential bid

carlyfiorinaFormer HP boss the winsome (and lose some) Carly Fiorina said the chances she would run for the US presidency in 2016 were “higher than 90 percent” and that she would announce her plans in late April to early May.

Fiorina said she could not yet announce the bid because she was working to establish her team and put together what she described as “the right support” and financial resources.

Fiorina was seen as a divisive figure at HP. Her wielding of the corporate axe made staff scared of losing their jobs. It is also not clear if HP ever did that well from her massive buy out of Compaq which left HP as the world’s largest hardware maker just in time for the economic rut which gutted PC sales.

In 2005, Fiorina was forced to resign as chief executive officer and chair of HP following “differences with the board of directors about how to execute HP’s strategy.”She has frequently been ranked as one of the worst tech CEOs of all time, although we would suspect that at least one of those who followed her into the HP chair were a lot more apocalyptic [surely Apothelkayptic. Ed].

Potential Republican presidential candidates including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first major figure from either political party to formally announce his 2016 presidential bid.

Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton is expected to be the front-runner for the nomination, although she has yet to formally announce her plans.

 

Former HP goddess aims for US president

6874335353_8791daf3a9_bFormer HP boss  and peddler of expensive printer ink Carly Fiorina is apparently going to have a crack at being the next republican president of the US and is standing on a ticket that she is the only woman candidate and the only CEO.

Fiorina has been talking privately with potential donors, recruiting campaign staffers, courting grass-roots activists in early caucus and primary states and planning trips to Iowa and New Hampshire starting next week.

She would be considered an outsider. She has sought but never held public office and her last campaign was in such a disarray it could hurt her current one.  After all how can you stand saying you are an effective manager when you owe nearly $500,000 to consultants and staffers from your failed 2010 Senate bid in California?

Republicans have spoken about Fiorina with disdain, saying she has an elevated assessment of her political talents and questioning her qualifications to be commander in chief.

However analysts say that she might make a better candidate than the suited men that the GOP traditionally chooses.

She is also a free-market advocate who would act as an antidote to the “left wing” views of Elizabeth Warren.

The GOP also has a problem attracting women voters with some of its prominent members favouring stances on issues like rape, abortion and glass ceilings which are so backward they were out of date when the book of Leviticus was written. The party claimed to supporting women during the mid-terms only to award all the committee chair roles to white men after the election.

Helping Fiorina chart her political future are consultants Frank Sadler, who once worked for Koch Industries, and Stephen DeMaura, a strategist who heads Americans for Job Security, a pro-business advocacy group in Virginia.

When Fiorina was CEO at HP she was famously described as more important than the King of Spain, by an aide.