From Computer Business Review, a sister publication.
Who will be the next chief executive in the computing industry to get fired? A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that the boards of high technology companies are becoming less and less patient with failure and that more and more executives are being dumped overboard, or made to walk the plank, than ever before. The paper listed Robert Frankenberg (Novell), Ian Diery (AST Research), Mark Hoffman (Sybase) and Michael Spindler (Apple) as recent casualties – and it could have added Marc Por at (General Magic), Carlo de Benedetti (3DO) and Andrew Ludwick (Bay Networks) to its list of departees. But perhaps the more interesting question is: Who is next? Among those under scrutiny are Bob Palmer of Digital Equipment, which recently plunged back into heavy losses after fouling up its move into high volume PCs; Jo Alsop of Progress Software, where sales of its application development tools have slumped; Trip Hawkins, who has remained as CEO of 3DO Corp in spite of poor sales and a decision to give up on its games machine designs; Doug Carlsen of Broderbund Software, which seems to have lost the magic that the produced the chart topping Myst game; and Ben Algamen, who has held onto his position as chief executive of struggling Packard Bell despite that fact that NEC of Japan and Bull of France now have a significant say in how the privately owned company is run. So far though, the boards have given all these managers their full support.
