5 Companies That Dropped The Ball This Week
HP-Autonomy Debacle Worsens With War Of Words, Lawsuits
HP's Autonomy acquisition fiasco worsened this week as a public war of words erupted between the tech giant and former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch (pictured), who published an open letter defending his former company and criticizing HP for making public allegations of accounting improprieties. The fiasco also grew as HP was hit with a class-action lawsuit over the Autonomy acquisition.
KPMG, Deloitte Hit With Lawsuit Over Autonomy Acquisition
Speaking of the HP-Autonomy crisis, two big-name accounting firms were pulled into the matter this week as KPMG and Deloitte were hit with an HP shareholder lawsuit. The suit accuses the two firms, as well as HP's board and other executive officers, of breach of duty and negligence for allowing HP to make the acquisition of Autonomy and not recognizing the alleged accounting improprieties that led to HP taking an $8.8 billion charge over the deal earlier this month.
AT&T Finishes Last, Again
AT&T Wireless came in last place again in Consumer Reports' annual cell phone service study, finishing behind Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. This marks the third consecutive year that AT&T has been tagged as the worst major wireless carrier, hardly a good sign for the telecom giant.
More Heads Roll At Apple Over Maps Flap
Apple reportedly pushed out another executive this week following the heavy criticism of its new Maps app for iOS 6. Richard Williamson, senior director of iOS platform services and the lead on the Maps app development, was shown the door; his exit follows the high-profile dismissal of Scott Forstall, Apple's iOS software chief, who was pushed out for reportedly refusing to publicly apologize for the buggy app.
Another Facebook Privacy Update Raises Concerns
Facebook issued yet another change to its "data use policy" regarding how the company uses personal information. And this time the update was sent out the night before Thanksgiving (very sneaky, Facebook). The new update led to confusion and panic among many Facebook members, some of whom began updating their statuses with copyright notices that they (falsely) believed would protect their personal information. To make matters worse, Facebook did away with its member voting system, which allowed subscribers to voice their approval or disapproval for various privacy policy changes.