Does HP need a dose of anarchy?

asks the NY Times as it catalogs that HP

• “arrived late with a line of netbooks”
• “has struggled to make its name synonymous with so-called cloud computing.”
• “trails rivals when it comes to building the most sophisticated business software”
• “continues to sell a relatively unpopular smartphone”

On this blog, I have cataloged HP

• is addicted to overpriced printer ink
• has not been able to convert internal data center and other efficiencies into customer successes
• with EDS missed an opportunity to expand into application outsourcing and BPO

The world was simpler just 4 years ago when Mark Hurd arrived at HP. Beat IBM, Dell and Xerox and be pals with Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. And he looked dazzling doing it like the solid tennis player he is.

Somewhere along the way, the world changed.

The new world includes Apple, amazon, Acer, Cisco, Google, salesforce, TCS - and when it comes to smartphones, clouds, netbooks, telepresence, application outsourcing they are the ones blazing a trail not the IBMs and Oracles HP focuses on.

They are giving HP more than a dose of anarchy. Buckets of it, actually.