A long-time SAP executive, Apotheker ultimately lasted less than a year in the top post there as well, and was replaced by insiders Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott in February 2010 as SAP returned to the co-CEO format it had used in the past.

"I think that Apotheker came into something of a thankless job," said Charles King, president and principal analyst with Pund-IT. "It's difficult for any CEO to come into a company that is in turmoil, which HP clearly was after the ouster of Mark Hurd."

Still, moves such as the possible PC business spinoff "may simply have been too radical a surgery for the market to stand," King added.

Other big factors leading to the change in leadership were HP's missing its financial targets in three recent quarters and paying a lot of money to get deeper into the software business through acquisitions like Automony and Vertica without giving a clear strategy for the future, according to IDC analyst Crawford Del Prete.

"There was probably an underestimation on the company's part and on Leo's part ... about how difficult this transformation would be," Del Prete said. "They haven't been able to effectively communicate their strategy and vision."