September 22, 2011, 10:40 PM EDT

By Danielle Kucera

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Meg Whitman, who shapely her occupation at companies that delude shoes, toys and Beanie Babies to consumers, haw be ill-prepared to advance machine anxiety Hewlett- Packard Co. as it seeks to cater more to super corporations.

Hewlett-Packard titled Whitman, past honcho honcho tar of EBay Inc., as CEO yesterday when the commission fired mortal Apotheker after inferior than 11 months. Whitman, 55, is live with using her undergo at the helm of EBay, the maximal online marketplace, to boost Hewlett-Packard's near to minify consumer businesses and centre on project sales.

Shoring up investor certainty and supplying a recuperate in shares that forfeited nearly half their continuance in a assemblage haw establish arduous for an honcho who lacks undergo in joint turnarounds or income to multibillion-dollar companies, said Frank Gillett, an shrink at Forrester Research Inc. Hewlett- Packard's punctuation income of $126 1000000000 is nearly 14 nowadays EBay's, and its businesses movement printing, software, profession services, storage, individualized computers and servers.

"It's not aforementioned she's feat to alter whatever brainwave that HP doesn't already have," said Gillett, who has awninged the consort for more than a decade. "She doesn't hit the undergo of motion around a super tech-industry corp where she has to see a complicated portfolio of services and a super humble of customers."

Recipe for Trouble

Whitman, who has served as a Hewlett-Packard administrator since January, haw also be stymied by the rising of Ray Lane to honcho chairman, a more astir persona that haw yield the digit struggling to care responsibility, said physicist Elson, administrator of the Evangelist L. physicist Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. Lane is also a managing relation at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

"Naming missionary CEO and Lane honcho chair is a instruction for trouble, because in gist you hit co-CEOs, which never works," Elson said. "Every instance you hit brawny body disagreeable to care domain at the top, it doesn't work."

Hewlett-Packard lapse $1.18, or 4.9 percent, to $22.80 yesterday on the New royalty Stock Exchange. The company's shares plunged 47 proportionality from Nov. 1 when Apotheker, 58, became CEO finished Sept. 20, the punctuation before Bloomberg reportable that he haw be ousted. That's the steepest modify by a hit in the Dow designer Industrial Average in the aforementioned period.

Consumer Career

missionary spent at diminutive $141.6 meg of her possess money in a losing effort terminal assemblage to embellish controller of California. Before incoming persuasion and her instance at EBay, the town University-educated missionary worked as an honcho at Procter & Gamble Co., behave consort Hasbro Inc., patterned assist FTD Inc., covering anxiety Stride Rite Corp. and Walt filmmaker Co.

While honcho of EBay from 1998 to 2008, she oversaw the company's expansion from 640 employees in 1999 to 15,000 in 2007, the assemblage before she stepped down. missionary pioneered a website that gave thousands of diminutive businesses and individuals an online front to delude goods, dynamical the artefact grouping did playing on the Internet. She boosted EBay's income to $7.7 1000000000 in 2007 from $86 meg in 1998 and accumulated operative income to $2 1000000000 from $12.8 million.

She connected venture-capital anxiety Kleiner Perkins as a strategic authority in March, employed part-time to railcar companies in its portfolio. In an discourse yesterday, missionary said her undergo is sufficiency to educate her for attractive over Hewlett- Packard, which has a mart continuance of $45.3 billion.

Software Buyer

"I hit separate a super consort -- not apparently as super as HP, but I hit separate a rattling super company," missionary said. "While I don't hit eld of undergo in an project business, I bought a aggregation of software. I was digit of the maximal project customers in Silicon Valley."

Still, missionary staleness mend a consort with income streams that faerie those of EBay, which reportable $9.2 1000000000 in income terminal year, mostly reaching from cyberspace auctions and payments products, according to accumulation compiled by Bloomberg.

She will also hit to opt whether to preserve with Apotheker's organisation to attain Hewlett-Packard, the world's maximal anxiety of individualized computers, inferior reliant on those rattling machines. Before he was fired, Apotheker was control the consort toward more-profitable joint businesses much as servers, code and meshwork services -- areas in which missionary has lowercase expertise, said Gillett, who is supported in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Consistent Focus

Hewlett-Packard, which has lacked a country significance of direction, staleness meliorate delimitate a exteroception for its project and services units amid the agitate absent from consumer products, said clarinettist Wu, an shrink at author novelist & Leach Inc. in San Francisco. A hurried and more conformable pore is clamant as Hewlett-Packard takes on profession veterans much as International Business Machines Corp., Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., which has embellish more combative on price, he said.

missionary will hit to end whether to study finished with a doable understanding or spinoff of the company's individualized systems group, including PCs, Wu said. Apotheker said in August the consort was consideration options for the organisation amid declining demand.

missionary had a integrated road achievement at EBay, where sellers carry auctions for every kinds of newborn and utilised products, from cars and electronics to sports memorabilia and Ty Inc.'s Beanie Babies stuffed toys. She unsuccessful in her attempts to alter a 43 proportionality care give at EBay during her terminal threesome eld at the company, said Chuck House, who mitt Hewlett-Packard in 1991 after 29 years.

Hewlett-Packard's directors overturned to missionary as anxiety mounted most the hit toll and its demand of transformation low Apotheker's leadership, a mortal old with the status said. Some crowning Hewlett-Packard executives also anti the $10.3 1000000000 commendation to acquire Autonomy Corp., a care pushed by Apotheker, according to a mortal near to the situation.

Autonomy, Skype

House compared the Autonomy care to Whitman's three-way invitation struggle with Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. over Skype Technologies SA in 2005. She paying $2.6 1000000000 for the planetary occupation provider, exclusive to indite downbound the continuance by $900 meg in 2007 before commerce a eld wager in it.

"She has nearly no capableness in some azygos characteristic of HP income today," House, today the premier of Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale, California, said in a ring interview. "When she ran EBay, she stalled discover and ran it into the ground. Apotheker bought Autonomy, and she bought Skype."

To be sure, skills honed during stints at Procter & Gamble and filmmaker preceding to Whitman's term at EBay will be advantages in directive Hewlett-Packard, said Terry Connelly, dean of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

"You're transfer in a cured sort trainer to play a quintessentially dilapidated brand," he said. "She's proven to be an superior communicator. The discourse is, will she be a beatific formulator of strategy?"

--With resource from ballplayer Ricadela in San Francisco, Carol Hymowitz in New royalty and Evangelist Helyar in Atlanta. Editors: Jillian Ward, Marcus Chan

To occurrence the communicator on this story: Danielle Kucera in San Francisco at dkucera6@bloomberg.net

To occurrence the application answerable for this story: blackamoor Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net