Archive for Smart or Lucky?
Can Meg Whitman Save HP?
This article was first published in Bloomberg BusinessWeeks’s online site. It was published several days before the October 3rd HP financial analyst meeting. On Oct. 3, Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) current and fourth chief executive in the past seven years, will meet with Wall Street analysts. Investors, customers, and employees better hope Whitman starts channeling Lou Gerstner, the former IBM
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Back to the Future: Getting back to integrated systems
Back when computers were a shiny new concept, the hardware and software were tightly linked together. This tight coupling was mandatory because of the costs and technical immaturity of computing. The most powerful computers in the 1970s had less computing power than a smartphone has today. Over time as systems became more powerful and less expensive vendors began decoupling
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Predicting 2012: What’s old is new again – or is it?
Maybe I have been around the technology market too long but it appears to me that there is nothing new under the sun. The foundational technologies that are the rage today all have their roots in technology that has been around for decades. That is actually a good thing. Simply put, a unique technology concept often will not be commercially
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What does it mean to transform the customer experience?
When I started working on my latest book, Smart or Lucky? How Technology Leaders Turn Chance into Success, I thought a lot about what makes one company sustain itself over decades while other companies fade away. What does innovation really mean and how does it happen? Innovation is not an easy achievement. Many companies that find themselves in trouble
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Can HP survive its DNA?
This blog was originally published in Harvard Business Review I remember attending a Hewlett-Packard meeting for industry analysts in the early 1990s and hearing HP proudly declare that it was becoming a software company. Software had turned into a stronger driver of revenue in the computer industry than hardware, and HP management had realized that it had to make the
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Is Big Data Real and Can IBM Execute on its Vision?
It is inevitable that data would emerge as the most complex and important topics of the next decade. The expansion of the amount and types of data that we have been accumulating across more systems—physical and virtual, applications, and electronic devices – is astounding. These environments generate huge amounts of data – from structured to unstructured – and with increasing
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What Are Three Smart Moves Brought LinkedIn This Far?
The following is a guest blog that I wrote for the Harvard Business Review. I joined LinkedIn in 2007. I can’t remember why. After connecting to a few dozen people, I still couldn’t fathom what the purpose of LinkedIn was, especially for an already-established professional. Yes, I knew these people, but to what end were we connecting on this site?
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Can Hewlett Packard Make its Own Luck?
The following is a guest blog that I wrote for the Harvard Business Review. HP finds itself in a complicated position. While the technology giant’s second-quarter revenue increased by 3%, its relatively new CEO, Leo Apotheker, was forced to lower the forecast for revenue for the fiscal year. He blamed the Japan earthquake, the anemic PC market, and a troubled
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Can the Power of Open Source Change Industry Dynamics?
After spending two days at the Red Hat Summit last week, I started thinking about the power of open source software and how it has transformed the software industry. When I was writing my new book, Smart or Lucky, How Technology Leaders Turn Change into Success, I analyzed the success and failures of companies that attempted to cement their offerings
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Judith Hurwitz is an author, speaker and business technology consultant with decades of experience. 
