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Backfire: Carly Fiorina's High-Stakes Battle for the Soul of Hewlett-Packard
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.761004165
EAN: 9780471267652
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0471267651
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: February 15, 2003
Publisher: Wiley
Studio: Wiley
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Editorial Review:
An insider's look at the internal turmoil at one of the world's premier high-tech companies
This is the inside story of Hewlett-Packard Company's struggle to regain its former glory, and of the high-stakes battle between CEO Carly Fiorina and family scion Walter Hewlett over how best to achieve that goal. For decades, HP was admired not only for its innovative products and soaring stock price, but for its egalitarian corporate culture and father-knows-best integrity. Backfire explains how the company fell on hard times, recounts the historic decision that made Fiorina the world's top-ranking female executive, and brings to life the backlash that resulted when she tried to impose her charismatic salesmanship on the aging icon. Top BusinessWeek journalist Peter Burrows gives the dramatic blow-by-blow of Hewlett's effort to kill Fiorina's most controversial move of all, her $19 billion purchase of rival Compaq Computer. Fiorina won by a whisker, after the most expensive proxy fight in history and a dramatic lawsuit that accused the company of illegally fixing the vote. This gripping, ongoing story includes fascinating personalities and dramatic boardroom and courtroom drama.
Peter Burrows (Alameda, CA) has been a technology reporter for BusinessWeek for nine years and has covered the HP saga from the start. The department editor for BusinessWeek's computer coverage, he has been the principal chronicler of Fiorina's tenure at HP, and has written three cover stories on the subject. He has also written numerous other cover stories, including looks at Steve Jobs's Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Better than fiction
This book gives us a better insight on what's going on at "the top." Oh, those company layoffs. I am just glad to have survived many of them. Even just a rumor of them is sure to diminished one's morale. But now I know why they have to happen.
I admire Fiorina's toughness, poised and confidence. BUT....It breaks my heart to find out the ridicules and bad treatment that Hewlett received. Come on, he is Hewlett!
Here is a scene where Hewlett arrived with Neal at Steve ... Read More
Rating:  - OK intro to HP, but stops short
HP is a company in transition. For decades one of the fastest growing companies in history, it is now seen as a beleaguered giant, risk averse and unable to transform itself.
This book situates the company's crisis in the context of the ascension of Carly Fiorina to the position of CEO and her brutal fight to acquire Compaq while changing the company.
The origins of Hewlett-Packard have become the stuff of legend. During an electrical engineering class at Stanford in 1934, ... Read More
Rating: - You will understand why she raised to the top and ...fell!
This book will give you some good understanding how Carly Fiorina got the top job at HP and how she reingineered the company before falling into disgrace after the merger with Compaq.
Rating: - CEO impact on lower-level managers needed in book
This book contained a lot of good material concerning the interaction of Carly Fiorina and her highest-level executives. However, Burrows' coverage of her impact on lower level managers in critical positions was inadequate. The failures of such managers can have major impacts on HP for potentially decades and thus deserve scrutiny. A good example prior to the Fiorina era was when HP lost over 60 points of market share in the technical workstation market in the 1980s which also led over time to a weakened ... Read More
Rating: - Computer server business assessment needed in book
I enjoyed this book as it contained substantial original reporting that is not duplicative of the work that others have done. I would have liked to see more material concerning bottom line issues. The bottom line issue that has the most resonance for me is the Wall Street assessment, both now, and at the time of the merger, that HP's non-printing businesses have no value on the Street. In other words, if HP were to be bought by some other firm, the Wall Street consensus is that such an acquirer should simply ... Read More
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