There is no question that Carly Fiorina’s departure from Hewlett-Packard’s CEO post will have a broad impact throughout the industry, spanning from HP’s technical strategy to the role of women as heads of large corporations. InfoWorld reporters Ed Scannell and Bob Francis spoke with industry analysts this morning about how they anticipate her resignation will change HP. Editor-at-large Scannell spoke with Stephen O’Grady, senior analyst with RedMonk, and asked how this will change HP’s technical direction. “HP has consistently pursued a strategy of divesting itself of what I consider to be fairly critical software assets. So the software story is scattered and lacking some direction,” O’Grady said. “They have some very nice technical capabilities, and have done some great work in the labs around things like OpenView and Linux kernel work. But when you look at them from an enterprise software perspective, how do you view them?” O’Grady continued that HP is conflicted and struggling to answer that very question internally. “From a macro perspective, I think they do lack direction. It is hard to look at that company and determine what they are about,” he said. InfoWorld senior writer Bob Francis spoke with Illuminata analyst David Freund, who unknowingly echoed O’Grady’s words about HP lacking direction. “I am not sure it is clear that HP knows what the mission is for the company,” Freund said. “At the end of the day, you need to be able to articulate that. I haven’t heard a good clear articulation of a strategy and that means you have different divisions doing different things.” Freund added that HP’s storage strategy, in particular, has been fractured. At the center of Fiorina’s resignation, naturally, is a raft of criticism concerning the success of HP’s Compaq acquisition. Despite critics nay saying, the jury may still be out on whether HP can reap profits from Compaq, but Carly & Co. also swallowed other ventures during her time as CEO, including the nearly $500 million Bluestone purchase, which ultimately ended in HP abandoning the J2EE app server and tools it had bought Bluestone for in the first place. “Under Carly, HP has made a number of acquisitions and developed some great products in the labs, but they don’t seem to be able to bring those products to market. A major part of execution is converting science to actual products, taking things out of labs and making successful products. That has not been HP’s forte. So, it seems to be a matter of execution and I think that has frustrated both the board and HP’s customers,” Freund said. O’Grady said that financial analysts have recommended to HP that it spin off one or more of its business units, the consumer product division being one possible candidate. “I have heard a lot of talk in a number of quarters about breaking up the organization. Do I anticipate them doing that over the short term? Probably not,” O’Grady explained. Spinning off the consumer division would leave a huge server and desktop operation that is barely profitable, Scannell pointed out. “The problem in looking at them is it is difficult to determine what their game plan is going forward,” O’Grady said. “You can look at the other players like Oracle, Microsoft, Sun etc. and get an idea of what they want to do. You might not agree with it but at least you know what their direction is. With HP you just do not know. In the past they have been committed to platforms like application servers and they divested themselves of that, they committed to CFS and they divested from that.” Both analysts agreed that HP under Fiorina lacked a clear direction. Meanwhile, as I pointed out in an earlier post this morning, the statement HP issued suggested, albeit rather vaguely, that the board hopes to continue with the strategy Fiorina instituted. Presuming they move forward with a similar strategy, HP would be wise to begin outlining that direction immediately. “What are they all about?” O”Grady asked. “That is ultimately what has lead to the events that have transpired today.” Software Development