Scientific American: Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo get ready to rumble

Professor Eric Johnson's interview to Reuters is featured in this article on the Scientific American's website. Professor Johnson comments on Sony's failure to supply enough Play Station 3 game-consoles to meet market's demand:

While minor shortages can create beneficial media buzz, Sony's shortage is so severe that its rivals stand to gain, Eric Johnson, a professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, told Reuters.

Johnson predicted that holiday shoppers who are unable to bag a PS3 may just grab the Xbox 360 instead: "My thought is that Microsoft is the real winner this Christmas."

Source: Scientific American by Lisa Baertlein, November 15, 2006

USA Today: CEO faces gantlet at hearings

Professor Eric Johnson via USA TODAY about the defining moment for HP CEO Mark Hurd as he is about to take the stand before a congressional committee to defend his actions of approving "at least part of a plan to snoop on journalists, board members, even his own employees."

"His performance on Thursday will be a career-defining moment," says business professor Eric Johnson at Dartmouth College. Hurd has a good chance of surviving it, Johnson says: He has handled the crisis fairly well, so far. But if things go well Thursday, it will "at least put to bed the question of whether Mark Hurd can survive (the scandal)," Dartmouth's Johnson says.

Source: USA TODAY by Michelle Kessler, September 28, 2006

U.S. News: At HP, a scandal that's good for investors

Professor Eric Johnson via U.S. News & World Report about recent "boardroom-spying scandal" at Hewlett-Packard, including the announcement that Chairman Patricia Dunn will leave her post in January 2007, while CEO Mark Hurd will replace her.

"They're happy she did this," says Eric Johnson, who teaches operations management at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, and used to work at HP. Hurd
is probably happy with what she did." It helps that Hurd, an outsider who replaced Fiorina as CEO last year, has earned confidence on Wall Street and is viewed as a capable replacement for Dunn.

Source: U.S. News & World Report September 12, 2006

WSJ: New Sun CEO Is Unconventional, Controversial

In Wall Street Journal, Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business in New Hampshire, comments on the promotion of Jonathan Schwartz to the post of Sun CEO:

Eric Johnson argues that Sun needs to deliver a simpler, clearer message to companies that buy its technology, but he concedes that Mr. Schwartz is a good fit for Sun's engineering culture. "He has the religion and Sun theology, and will play well internally, but he has his work cut out for him to get out and talk to the large enterprise firms and get Sun back on the technology map," Mr. Johnson says.

Source: Wall Street Journal by Don Clark and Christopher Lawton, April 26,2006

LAT: Doll Unit Avoids Growth Spurt

Professor Eric Johnson via LA Times about Mattel's American Girl, which will open a store in L.A. and try to keep its grip on the upscale niche partly by limiting its expansion:

"Mattel has certainly understood that whatever American Girl is to girls in the U.S., it is not Mattel blazed on the side," said Mr. Eric Johnson, a professor of management at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an expert on the toy industry. "If you go on the Web site, you have to really dig around to even find a Mattel logo."

Source: Los Angeles Times by Abigail Goldman April 17, 2006