Prior to launching that deal, Carly had said her intention was to pattern HP after Lou Gerstner's version of IBM, which had successfully leveraged its low-margin hardware business to sell high-margin consulting services. To that end, she initially negotiated to acquire the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global accounting firm. She punted at the last minute, and IBM ultimately acquired PwC's jilted consultants at a substantial discount.

Undaunted, in 2002 Carly moved to acquire Compaq, which was bleeding market share to Dell and losing money at an even faster rate than HP's PC business. Never mind that no big merger in the history of high tech had ever really worked; never mind that Compaq itself had already made two big acquisitions -- Digital Equipment Corp. and Tandem Computer -- that had failed to add any value; never mind that Dell rapidly seized on the inevitable uncertainty to take even more customers away from both HP and Compaq. Even the pointed opposition of founder's son Walter Hewlett didn't dissuade Carly and the HP board from this historic blunder.

At the time, I was on staff at a consulting firm that was retained by one of the family foundations to analyze the merger. In the process, we spoke with a number of people close to both companies and their remarks were stunning. "The collision of two garbage trucks," was how one put it. "Doubling down on a dog," was another take. Without naming the firm, or their specific recommendations, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that Carly's projections could only materialize if IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems took a collective nap for the next five years, and every single one of her rosiest scenarios came true at once. Any resemblance to the Bush budget is entirely coincidental, I'm sure.

So why did she do it? For one reason: Wall Street loves big mergers. The investment banks collect immense fees for their roles as advisors, regardless of the ultimate soundness of the deal. And their securities analysts all write positive reports, which prompt a lot of rubes to buy shares, which generates a flood of trading commissions. Big mergers and acquisitions are almost always a net negative for the companies and communities involved, but a win-win for the bankers, lawyers and other deal makers.

A second reason is that it should have worked well enough for Carly to declare victory and move on to the political stage. Despite their dismal long-term success record, big mergers usually can "achieve synergies," Wall Street-speak for massive layoffs, which reduce costs enough to show a big if fleeting bump in earnings per share.

There was a brief period where the credulous might have believed that this merger was working, thanks entirely to such redundancies eliminated and other corporate bloodletting. But it didn't last, as Carol Loomis' masterful article in last week's Fortune magazine made all too clear. Loomis did the tough analytical work that the board should have done, published it for all to see, and in the end, HP's recalcitrant directors had to act.

To those who will inevitably say that Carly has been singled out for harsh treatment because she is a woman, nonsense. Anne Mulcahy of Xerox, Meg Whitman of eBay and Carol Bartz of Autodesk, among others, have all shown that a Y chromosome is no prerequisite to performing the CEO's role with quiet competetence. What these leaders share besides their gender is they don't make promises they can't possibly keep.

As the Fortune article makes clear, Carly's numbers didn't work because they couldn't work, which is of course what folks like Walter Hewlett were saying three years ago. And so a once great company is a shadow of its former self, and Fiorina is out of a job. But don't cry for Carly. Given her way with numbers, there's surely a spot for her in the Bush administration. Secretary of the treasury, perhaps.

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