Whitman's Communication Skills Impressive

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Monday night was Meg Whitman's first earnings call since she took over as CEO of HP(HPQ). I have been a vocal critic of her being selected as HP's CEO, but I thought she did a good job.

My past criticisms of Meg to be the next CEO have been:

1. She's done best in a small consumer company and that's very different from a large enterprise company like HP.

2. She got progressively worse as a CEO at eBay(EBAY) as the company got larger.

3. She made increasingly erratic and over-priced acquisitions at the end of her eBay tenure.

4. She was very piggish in her pay and perks at the end of her eBay tenure -- not a model of good corporate governance.

HP CEO Meg Whitman

The most impressive part of Meg's performance on the earnings call (and in the subsequent press interviews since) is that she's been a very crisp and effective communicator. It stands in such stark contrast from her predecessor Leo Apotheker. She's only been on the job for a couple of months and only on HP's board since earlier this year, but she showed a remarkable adeptness in speaking about the different aspects of the business and the issues facing the company.

It made a positive impression that she could speak so well. In that way, HP's board does look smart for switching horses the way it did earlier this year. But this board doesn't get off so easily. The contrast between her discussing the business and Leo only further mystifies you how this board could have selected Leo in the first place.

There were two things that Meg announced as part of the earnings call that negatively hit the stock on Tuesday: First, they announced that they would no longer give revenue projections by segment or as a whole. Instead, HP will only project earnings. And second, they lowered earnings expectations for 2012.

It's understandable that the market reacted by taking the stock down 4% on this news. However, from Meg's point of view, she's all about lowering expectations for her and her team. Therefore, she'll look all the better if and when she exceeds those lowered expectations down the road.