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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (44993)	3/10/2005 4:41:18 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 196740

Succession at Xerox ... << Regarding succession, I would add that Xerox is a good example of what happens when a finance type replaces an engineer. >> Art, You and I always seem to see things differently <g>, and in this case what I see is that at Xerox a finance type didn't replace an engineer. A concept guy, a sales and marketing type, replaced an engineer (Joe Wilson) whose finance guy (Harold Kuhns) kept very tight reins on him and didn't succeed him. Peter McColough who joined Haploid in 1954 before it became Xerox and headed the sales force that led Xerox out of obscurity with their original volume commercial product (the 914) took over from Joe Wilson as Xerox President in 1966 (when they were ranked 145th in the Fortune 500) and became CEO in 1968. The move of executive offices to Stamford were made in 1969. When he gave up the CEO position in 1982 Xerox was ranked 38th in the Fortune 500 and they still were when he retired as Chairman of the Board in 1985. The climbed as high as 21st in 1993, when the decline began. Some might blame the decline on Peter since under his reign they got highly diversified, became a multinational. perhaps got too big too quick, failed to capitalize on the computer market, and eventually got eaten by the Japanese in their original core competency. I'm not inclined to that view, and consider him to be one of the great corporate leaders of the last 40 years. Peter was not a tech, and not a finance guy. Peter took his MBA at Harvard, but his discipline was sales and marketing, much like John Chambers of Cisco. Best, - Eric -