Year in review: Point/Counterpoint
News.com's Newsmakers section provided a boxing ring for the likes of Carly Fiorina and Walter Hewlett, the MPAA's Jack Valenti and Gateway's Ted Waitt, and Scott McNealy and Uncle Sam.
Tech's movers and shakers put up their dukes.
Carly Fiorina versus Walter Hewlett. Jack Valenti against Ted Waitt. Scott McNealy versus Uncle Sam...
Throughout 2002, CNET News.com provided an arena in which the technology world's movers and shakers could take their best shots.
The storied battle between Hewlett, one of the scions of the Hewlett and Packard families, and Fiorina, the controversial CEO determined to break with tradition, made for the most dramatic soap opera since "The Sopranos."
Outsider Fiorina bet she could convince Hewlett-Packard shareholders to approve a controversial plan to acquire Compaq Computer. Nothing less than her job was on the line--and when it was over, she got what she wanted.
But not before Walter Hewlett, son of an HP co-founder, and a board member himself, gave her a serious run for the money.
In the weeks before the big merger vote, both sat down with News.com to plead their cases.
In other areas, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer spent the better part of a year struggling to explain just what his company's .Net strategy would mean to customers and developers, and the big shake-up at AOL Time-Warner claimed former highfliers Bob Pittman and Barry Schuler, neither of whom was able to revive the media giant's sagging online service. Now it's up to Jonathan Miller, who can either enter the tech history books as the man who saved America Online or the captain who went down with his ship.
Scott McNealy, for his part, proved yet again that he's not one to mince words. "I'm glad it makes everyone feel good," McNealy said of Washington's post-Enron fuss about corporate accountability, "but it's not going to do much."
And what compilation of the year's top newsmakers would be complete without including interviews with Jack Valenti, the Napster-hating chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America; and Gateway CEO Ted Waitt, whose no-holds-barred Q&A expressed Silicon Valley's prevailing contempt for the entertainment industry's position on CD burning and copyright protection.
--Charles Cooper |  | |
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Point/Counterpoint Tech's movers and shakers put up their dukes.
Throughout 2002, CNET News.com provided an arena in which the technology world's movers and shakers could take their best shots. The storied battle between Hewlett, one of the scions of the Hewlett and Packard families, and Fiorina, the controversial CEO determined to break with tradition, made for the most dramatic soap opera since "The Sopranos." Outsider Fiorina bet she could convince Hewlett-Packard shareholders to approve a controversial plan to acquire Compaq Computer. Nothing less than her job was on the line--and when it was over, she got what she wanted. But not before Walter Hewlett, son of an HP co-founder, and a board member himself, gave her a serious run for the money. In the weeks before the big merger vote, both sat down with News.com to plead their cases. In other areas, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer spent the better part of a year struggling to explain just what his company's .Net strategy would mean to customers and developers, and the big shake-up at AOL Time-Warner claimed former highfliers Bob Pittman and Barry Schuler, neither of whom was able to revive the media giant's sagging online service. Now it's up to Jonathan Miller, who can either enter the tech history books as the man who saved America Online or the captain who went down with his ship. Scott McNealy, for his part, proved yet again that he's not one to mince words. "I'm glad it makes everyone feel good," McNealy said of Washington's post-Enron fuss about corporate accountability, "but it's not going to do much." And what compilation of the year's top newsmakers would be complete without including interviews with Jack Valenti, the Napster-hating chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America; and Gateway CEO Ted Waitt, whose no-holds-barred Q&A expressed Silicon Valley's prevailing contempt for the entertainment industry's position on CD burning and copyright protection. --Charles Cooper |  |  Opening up about HP February 14, 2002 Can Fiorina sell it? March 13, 2002 An end to digital piracy April 4, 2002 The brains behind Kazaa April 23, 2002
May 28, 2002 Ted Waitt takes on Hollywood May 28, 2002 Behind the Slashdot phenomenon June 24, 2002 AOL's miracle man? August 7, 2002 At the center of the patent storm September 24, 2002 Scott McNealy: Crooks will still be crooks September 25, 2002 Ballmer: Tangled in .Net October 11, 2002
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