The decision to , who held the job less than a year, was "one the board took very, very seriously," and made only after much contemplation, Lane said during a conference call Thursday after the announcement.

When they hired Apotheker after the departure of former CEO Mark Hurd, HP was performing well, but with a caveat, Lane said. "For years, the company had cut costs at the sacrifice of innovation. Leo was tasked with developing the vision for HP. We credit him for making important contributions on that dimension."

"At the same time, the board began to observe weaknesses in parts of the business" of late, and it became clear that new leadership for HP was required, Lane added.

"There were three or four areas we had concerns about" with regard to Apotheker's performance, Lane said. "One, this is a big, big company that requires an executive team to be on the same page. We didn't see an executive team that was working on the same page or working together."

"Probably the biggest reason was operational execution: the ability to get down deep in the businesses and understand the dynamics," he added.