When it was just a rumor on Wednesday, the tech world shuddered at the mention of Meg Whitman taking over as HP's CEO. On Thursday afternoon, the company's board made it official, naming Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay, in the immediate wake of Leo Apoteker's resignation. In the 24-hours between the initial report of the leadership shuffle, critics weighed in at length about pluses and minuses of Whitman running HP. Kara Swisher offers an executive summary: "Whitman herself will need a lot of help. She has had a successful career in the consumer Internet space but has little experience in enterprise and hardware, which are at the heart of HP’s big businesses."

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Adam Clark Estes