A news By yahoofreeshop:HP has named Leo Apotheker as CEO.
Apotheker was CEO of SAP until February when he resigned after SAP decided not to renew his contract.
Apotheker was only solely in charge of SAP for 7 months. (He was co-CEO for a year prior.) He was with SAP for 20 years.
This is a surprising move from HP, as most people believed HP would hire from within.
Specifically, Todd Bradley, head of the mobile and PC division was seen as the potential pick.
In the release announcing the hire, HP said Apotheker, “transformed R&D and technology platforms and expanded business models and customer segments,” at SAP. Apotheker was in sales at SAP.
Apotheker’s short stint as the boss at SAP did not draw rave reviews, but he may have inherited a bad situation. He took over just after the recession was at a low point.
Here’s CIO’s take on his run:
There were missteps, for sure: The ‘Olive Branch’ to Larry Ellison (re: Sun and European holdup) that backfired; the ill-advised “pledge” to get to 10,000 Business ByDesign customers by 2010; the maintenance embarrassment and flap with SUGEN; and simply not having the ability to anticipate and act on the historic transformation happening in enterprise software, and why Big ERP is D.O.A.
But somebody at the top had to be out, right? Somebody had to be the fall guy, right? Somebody needed to be blamed for SAP’s misfortunes, right?
In many respects, I always felt like Apotheker’s reign was similar to U.S. President Barack Obama—both men inherited a glamorous, high-profile position that was in a world of hurt when they were sworn in.
