Let me preface this opinion by stating that a) I think HP's doing a great job in the server business, which fortunately for them comprises the bulk of their worth, and b) if a CEO wants to expense hookers for his clients, then who am *I* to judge him?  Maybe it was necessary to win the deal, you never know!  :)  I mean, let's be real here.  HP is an IT company.  That means this guy was dealing largely with unsavory neckbeards who probably feel entitled to a little more play than they can normally get in the wild, who also have the added disadvantage of working almost exclusively around people just.like.them.  Even if they turned gay, it's not like they'd even have any attractive dudes to hit on at work either!!

Ok, while you clean your snorfed coffee off your keyboard, I'll explain the short coverage here.  It's got nothing to do with HP's healthy server business, which is attaining a cachet reminiscent of HP's heyday many years ago, and only very little to do with the  executive iniquities.  Hurd's follies only affect the stock as much as the media's wagging finger can affect it.   Wasn't he a printer and ink guy in the first place?  Get real.

 The real problem here is PALM.  It's useless, and while it makes up only a minuscule amount of HP's worth at such an attractive firesale price, I'm worried that new management will be tempted to play with the new toy.  Stay away!  If they are smart, then they will establish a permanent residence for Palm in a dark corner of the HP museum.  However, I'm betting that the new guy(s) will not do smart things, in a vain attempt to impress Wall St while Wall St is having a crisis of its own.  Palm is a dangerous card that they will inevitably draw as other strategies don't work.  And that, my friends, will prove to violate the first rule of holes*.

If you've got a smartphone, and almost everyone does by now, then look at it and tell me if it says "Palm" anywhere on it.  No, not a picture of a palm, that's your own hand.  No?  I didn't think so.  If you are a developer, please comment on this article exactly as many times as you've developed a WebOS app.  That's what I thought.

Of course, this is a nibbling coverage and HPQ is already plummeting, so anything could explain a 9% drop.  But at least I got my PALM dig in. 

* The first rule of holes: STOP DIGGING!