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To: edamo who wrote (129274)	5/27/1999 11:41:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

ed - from what I have been hearing, CPQ is looking for a strong "outside guy" as the CEO - a well known name, strong charismatic leader with experience running a multi-billion-dollar international company. There has also been talk that this new person would head up an "office of the CEO" with 2 internal guys - probably operations and products being represented. I doubt that CPQ will be looking for a technical type. After all, this is not a "turn-around" situation. CPQ is the number one PC company and #2 overall in computers, and is running a profitable business which just needs some pruning and tuning. This is not a "chainsaw al" situation. I would like to see armstrong but don't know why he would take the job - he is currently riding a pretty good horse and in a few more years his work will have really paid off. Still, a guy can dream... Heard a rumor (from an HP employee) that HP is interested in Pfeiffer for the CEO slot. Thinking is that Pfeiffer knows the channel based PC business better than anyone, and got tripped up only by the high end. HP has a great, smooth running high end business and their channel-based PC business is in disarray. Could be a natural match.

To: edamo who wrote (129274)	5/27/1999 12:16:00 PM
From: John Koligman	Respond to of 176387

Hi Edamo In my mind it really depends on the situation. Well run 'management farms' like GE seem to follow the 'orderly succession' model. As for tech firms, I think at least in the larger ones a technology heavy is less important than other qualities these days. Your mentioning Armstrong is a good example of this. The long term CEO before him was a guy that even looked a bit like CPQ's Pfeiffer, his name was Richard Allen. In my mind he kind of ran T the way IBM was run in the '80's. Not much strategic change, stock price down, etc. They brought in a guy name Walter from Donnelly, realized their mistake, paid him off, and then brought in Armstrong. Kind of like turning on the light switch at that point, lots of strategic changes, alliances, and the stock price took off. Many of these firms need a person with customer/marketing savvy, understanding of logistics, and the ability to synthesize and make good strategic decisions. If we look at CPQ, the problem is not technology, it's execution, product service, logistics, corporate reporting systems, and so on. The problem at IBM was never that they did not have the technology, it was infighting between groups, arrogance toward the customer, and lack of strategic vision. They let problems fester way too long. So yeah, bottom line these days is really important, but it has to be combined with a long term plan. The rap by the bears on IBM for years now is that they grow by financial engineering, and to some extent it is true, but they are now starting to show some stronger growth in hardware to go along with their services push. In any event, WS has bought the argument for some time now. Regards, John