Hewlett-Packard to Cut 14,500 Jobs

The cuts mark the second major move of Hurd's tenure leading the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company and a continuation of an expected corporate overhaul. Hurd joined H-P at the end of March following the very public dismissal of then-CEO Carly Fiorina.

By mid-June, Hurd separated the printer and imaging unit from the personal computing unit, reversing what was one of Fiorina's final acts before being ousted as CEO. Fiorina had put the units together at the year's start to leverage the strengths of the printing unit, which contributes the bulk of H-P's profit, to the flagging PC division. The move was hoped to yield more bundling and cross-selling opportunities.

Hurd completely reversed that move, fitting with his reputation as someone who delegates authority and makes each business unit responsible for its own fate.

So, too, do the headcount reductions fit with Hurd's past. When he finally moved into the corner CEO office at NCR after 23 years there, the Dayton, Ohio-based company's stock was at its lowest point since it became a stand-alone company, and its sales had declined for three straight years. He implemented a two-year restructuring program to enable NCR to save $250 million annually.

With this latest move, Hurd has sliced away a significant chunk of the company, but he's been able to bring aboard some high-profile players. He hired R. Todd Bradley, former CEO of palmOne(PLMO), to lead the computer unit and he named Randall Mott as H-P's chief information officer, the same position Mott held at rival Dell(DELL).

All of Hurd's actions so far have been designed to make H-P leaner and meaner. H-P has been getting squeezed by the hyper-efficient Dell on the low end and the ultra-broad IBM(IBM) on the high end. Fixing the company's structural issues is a start in getting it better positioned, but more must happen to get the company growing again.

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