4. HP, you are a fickle, nutty beast

4. HP, you are a fickle, nutty beast

Memo to Hewlett-Packard: An outfit that employs about 25 million people and generates more revenue than all the companies of the United Kingdom combined (we jest, by not by much) should not careen between executives and business plans like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Overstatement? Not really. Earlier this year, then-CEO Leo Apotheker announced plans to pull out of the PC business. Yes, that was the business HP--two CEOs ago--fought a bitter campaign to enlarge through the acquisition of Compaq. Also, in an apparent effort to look just like IBM without the great ad campaign, HP also spent $12 billion on Autonomy, a software company that specializes in unstructured data. (We'll avoid talking about the WebOS turkey that's already on our list.)

Hilarity ensued: Investors freaked out, Apotheker was canned, the board went on a CEO search, decided board member Meg Whitman was the right person for the job, and determined that being in the PC business wasn't such a bad thing after all.

We in the tech press love a good story, and HP has provided plenty of wackiness over the last year (Heck, the last 10!). We thank them for that. But maybe HP employees and that very real legacy as one of the most admired companies in the country deserve just a little bit better.

--By Jim Kerstetter