I've been criticized on my post yesterday (HP head does the decent thing) for not calling what has happened at HP 'incompetence'.

James Earl, who commented this fact, has some other strong opinions on what should have happened, and I don't in any way disagree with him.

Incompetence is not the right word though; Incompetence implies that HP don't have the skills to do the job properly.

What the chairwoman did here was not incompetent, it was malicious, AFAIK illegal, and well executed, if , as we'll all agree, very badly thought out. What the board did when they found out was not incompetent either, it was instead the comparatively typical response for a group of people who's responsibility is to the shareholders and the company. As I mentioned yesterday, those shareholders hold a significant amount of sway in any company.