I don't think employees will miss Mark Hurd. It's true that HP's profits are soaring and the stock price is high, but he was an extremely disliked CEO. The rabid cost cutting in recent years made HP an awful place to work. Glassdoor ranked HP has the 3rd worst company to work for in tech in 2009. Product quality has definitely slipped as a result of the low morale. SquareTrade's 2009 laptop reliability survey ranked HP as the least reliable notebook manufacturer. Product delays and cancellations aren't about sending a message to Microsoft, what they're really about is an inability execute on ideas.