It’s not easy being CEO. Just ask AT&T head honcho Randall Stephenson, who isn’t exactly swimming in fanmail. And HP CEO Mark Hurd has a few words on why HP did–and more importantly, didn’t–buy Palm.
Yesterday, Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive Mark Hurd said that his company didn’t buy Palm with the intention of entering the smartphone business, but rather his company has plans to use the newly acquired technology to fuel “small form factor web-connected devices.”
Hurd added that HP is not going to spend the time or money attempting to enter in the smartphone business as another contedor. “That doesn’t in any way make any sense,” he said. “We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business…we bought it for the IP [intellectual property]. The webOS is one of the two groound-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment.”
There are speculations about whether or not the company will look towards other mobile operating systems for their yet-to-be-produced handsets, and that HP is considering producing mobile tablets. However, if HP really doesn’t plan on entering the smartphone market than that means one less competitor for Apple, though it is a difficult market to avoid considering that the mobile handset industry has shifted towards smartphones.
Via AppleInsider
HP is buying Palm because it wants the company’s operating system to use in Web-connected printers, Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd said on Tuesday.
As if Apple CEO Steve Jobs needs to be on another list of the rich and envied! Be that as it may, Jobs has shown up on another list of the 30 most respected chief executives.
AppleInsider is reporting on the new honor bestowed upon Apple CEO Steve Jobs, which comes as part of Barron’s annual list of the best CEOs in the world. Included in the list of 30 executives, Jobs returns from last year and joins Amazon.com’s Jeffrey Bezos, Hewlett-Packard’s Mark Hurd and mega-billionaire Warren Buffett.
"Probably the world’s most valuable CEO is Steve Jobs of Apple, as shown by stock dips on news of his medical problems," the report says. "Apple recently hit a record, with a market value topping $200 billion, a reflection of the Street’s confidence that a healthy Jobs (at least from what we can tell) continues to keep Apple ahead of the game. Jobs likely accounts for $25 billion or more of Apple’s market value."
Jobs is a particularly good choice for the “world’s most valuable CEO”: After all, he co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, wound up being fired later by a man he hired to protect his interests, and triumphantly returned to the throne in 1997 to save Apple at their most dire period.
"The Mac was and remains brilliant, but it was just the beginning," the report continues. "With the iPod, iPhone, iTunes and the App Store, Apple has forced dramatic changes in the music, movie and wireless businesses. With the iPad and the iBookstore, he’s taking on the rest of the content industry, including textbooks, bestsellers and newspapers."
This isn’t the first time Jobs has been praised so highly, either: Back in December, The Harvard Business Review named him the world’s best-performing CEO “for increasing his company’s market cap a whopping $150 billion in the last 12 years.”
A finalist for Time magazine’s 2009 “Person of the Year,” Jobs was also given the title “CEO of the Decade” by Fortune magazine in November for being “a groundbreaking technology leader and [Apple] the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.”
(Image courtesy of AppleInsider)
