Who's Next?

But that task is shaping up to be a long, strange trip as HP Director and newly appointed Chairman Patricia Dunn said the board would consider internal candidates but would focus its search outside the company. Moreover, she said the search would begin "immediately." However, HP interim CEO Robert Wayman acknowledged that he will be in that post for "the next few months."

HP solution providers have some advice for the HP board: Look outside the company, speed up the recruitment timetable, and find a channel-friendly CEO. They say Fiorina had difficulty delegating authority and tended to limit her management team's reach and make the big decisions herself. Because of this, solution providers say the leading internal candidates being mentioned, such as Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP's Imaging and Personal Systems Group, and Ann Livermore, executive vice president of HP's Services Organization, remain dark horses.

HP needs to come up with someone who's been in a similar situation and can demonstrate they can get the job done, said Timothy Joyce, president and CEO of Roundstone, an HP enterprise solution provider in Alameda, Calif. "HP is a broken organization. They have bad morale and their customer service is dipping, but they have great products." Joyce said his ideal candidate would be Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO of EMC. "A few years ago EMC was getting kicked, not because they didn't have good products, but because they were abusing every customer they had. Tucci changed the attitude at EMC to be very partner-friendly and it's made a huge difference."

Former HP president and former Compaq chairman and CEO Michael Capellas quickly emerged as a possible successor. But some solution providers look back in anger at Capellas' Compaq legacy, noting that he tried to match Dell's direct efforts rather than leverage Compaq's once-loyal channel.

"I'm not a big Capellas fan," said Gary Melillo, vice president at Melillo Consulting, an HP enterprise solution provider in Somerset, N.J. "I think you are seeing some of the internal Compaq people going out and recruiting some of the people they know and maybe some longtime HP people offering up names like Belluzzo [former HP executive Rick Belluzzo is now Quantum chairman and CEO]. To bring it together you need someone without a Compaq bias or an HP bias and just look at the business for what it is."

As such, Melillo said a management heavyweight rather than an executive like Oracle's Larry Ellison or Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy would be best for HP. "This is a similar situation to when IBM reached out for a Lou Gerstner," he said.

Still, Capellas garnered some support. "If there was a way to bring him back, he'd get my vote," said Rich Baldwin, president and CEO of Nth Generation, a San Diego-based HP solution provider and the head of HP's enterprise VAR council. "Capellas understood technology and was very passionate about it."

Marlene Brill, president of Digitask Consultants, a New York HP partner, said she would be pleased if IBM Senior Vice President and Group Executive John Joyce or Capellas got the job. "Joyce built a global consulting practice basically from nothing," she said. "I think Joyce would bring marketing and field execution." As for Capellas, "He was someone who went into the field and met with customers. Carly was Hollywood. You need someone who is going to make people want to do business with HP."

Brill said she hopes HP execs have a clear message for partners at the conference. "They are going to have thousands of partners who are waiting to hear what they have to say. If they start in with this restructuring crap again, forget about it."

Said John Marks, CEO of JDM Infrastructure, a Rosemont, Ill., HP partner: "At first blush, the list of channel-friendly potential candidates looks like the list of Atkins dieters at the Wonder Bread outlet store—there just isn't that much channel-friendly history among [them]. The new CEO needs to understand that the best way to maximize profits is embracing channel partners as the extended sales force rather than building up a direct-sales model that has led to the demise of many manufacturers."

JOSEPH F. KOVAR contributed to this story.