Why were they selling this product in the first place?

Really, why?

For this reason, and this reason alone, Fiorina deserved to have been fired!

A Microsoft Partner, manufacturer of a Media Center PCs and Media Center Extender, manufacturer of IPAQ PocketPC devices.

Are you saying the they could not leverage that product into a fantastic PMC line and brand? Or course, they could.

If they needed to co-brand something, they should have co-branded an online music store.

They have enough face time with the users of their products to develop that amount of trust. And selling their own IPAQ device with an online store would have been a better use of company resources that this fiasco.

However at thet time Carleton was in so far over her head that she did not know what to do. Except maybe decide that she probably needed an exit strategy.

Thankfully, the board decided to grow some brass, and administered the coup de grâce before she could bring the company further down.