HP board meets but makes no move on CEO ouster, WSJ says

Hewlett-Packard's board met tonight to consider ousting CEO Leo Apotheker, but apparently reached no decisions about a successor, according to a Wall Street Journal report that cites unnamed sources.

The board is being watched closely following reports earlier today that HP's board of directors is nearing a decision to remove Apotheker as CEO and hire former eBay CEO Meg Whitman in his place. Whitmanjoined the company's board in January.

The Journal reached Whitman today, but she declined comment, according to the report.

HP did not immediately respond to an e-mail from CNET seeking comment on the matter.

Apotheker, the former CEO of German software giant SAP, took the helm at HP in November, replacing CEO Mark Hurd. Apotheker was viewed by many as an odd choice for a company that had a major consumer-facing component to its operation. With SAP, Apotheker was heavily invested in the enterprise. But HP heralded Apotheker as a strategic thinker with broad experience.

He quickly started taking the company down a different path with his focus on "cloud services, connectivity among devices, and software."That vision was made reality last month when HP announced that it was discontinuing its TouchPad tablet and considering spinning off its PC business into its own operation.

But financial performance has become a concern. During Apotheker's tenure as CEO, HP has continued to disappoint investors. The company has already been forced to slash sales forecasts a few times, and the impact that a spun-off PC business could have on its business could be major. And the stock price has dropped significantly, although shares shot up this morning following reports of Apotheker's impending ouster.

CNET's Don Reisigner contributed to this report.