Should the worst/obvious happen, and Mark Hurd leaves HP, you have to wonder what type of shape the company will be in to pick another leader.

The last time HP needed to hire a new CEO it relied on the services of Patricia Dunn, Jay Keyworth and Tom Perkins. The three then board members formed the very "screening team" that interviewed CEO candidates and settled on Hurd as their "top choice." Well, all three board members have now resigned as a result of the company's spy probe, leaving HP with a weakened board to say the least.

And the Hurd that Dunn, Keyworth and Perkins hired doesn't seem to be the Hurd who is running the company.

The old Hurd, for example, wrote, "Of course, the ultimate erosion of trust is fraud . . . Success is at jeopardy if fraud needlessly undercuts the value of a company," in his book The Value Factor.

The new Hurd, however, says things like, "I was informed by the investigation team that they intended to send an email containing false information in an effort to identify the source of the leaks. I was asked to, and did approve the naming convention that was used int he content of that email."

The old Hurd makes no mention of "integrity" in his book. The new Hurd uses "Integrity" all the time. But then, the new Hurd has a line of Integrity servers to sell. Might as well get an ad in where you can.

Given that HP is in no shape to pick a new CEO to replace its current CEO who is just a shadow of his former self, we think that the company has one option moving forward.

Hire Mike Capellas.

Capellas knows this company - probably better than Hurd does. He's been through a huge scandal at Worldcom/MCI. He's, as far as we know, available at the moment.

You can't find a better man for the job. At least, that's what our screening committee tells us. ®

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