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"I like to describe the roots of all evil being unplanned, or poorly planned, changes," states Jimmy Augustine of HP Software. "Somewhere between 70% and 80% of all service disruptions are caused by faulty changes. Somebody goes in and makes a security change to a network device, and brings down the service. Downtime equates to costs and, in some cases, lost revenue."

You would think Step #1, or something close to Step #1, for any kind of asset migration or disaster recovery plan would be to know what it is you have that you may want to recover when a disaster happens. There's an art to this, it turns out, and it's called dependency mapping. Last December, a VMware engineer we talked to listed it as #2 among his ten tips for disaster recovery planning, just after running a business impact analysis.

This week, Hewlett-Packard announced the open source roadmap for webOS along with the next edition of its application framework, Enyo 2.0. As we wrote yesterday, the time for webOS to shine may lie ahead. What it comes down to is how well the open source community responds to webOS and whether or not the original equipment manufacturers will ever decide to build webOS devices.

The favorable response of the community and OEMs is not guaranteed. Many think webOS is as dead an operating system as Aramaic is a language. That may include former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein who is leaving HP after his commitment to the company elapsed. Is there still potential for webOS and Enyo or have we seen the last of the once-promising mobile operating system? That is the topic of this week's ReadWriteMobile poll.

As prominent as cloud computing has already become in today's enterprises, it's amazing to realize that the world's reference standards are only now catching up with the concept. On Tuesday, the consortium of industry stakeholders known as The Open Group updated its reference standards for Service-Oriented Architecture. You remember SOA, don't you?

Well, if you've been following along with the SOA story, you know that cloud computing platforms have catapulted the service concept onto a huge and growing platform. Now, the consortium - led by software giants IBM, Oracle, and SAP, along with HP, and business consultancy CapGemini - has produced a formal interpretation of the role services play in the cloud, by offering a new term for the concept. Say it with me (if you can): XaaS.

For at least seven years running, Intel has been working to specify a form factor for lightweight, mobile computing devices. No, not tablets. As early as 2005, the first whispers of a joint Intel/Microsoft specification were bandied about, where Intel specifies the internals, and they supply the plastic. At the time, insiders warned that while manufacturers would be eager to rally behind an all-in-one mobile PC specification, consumers would not embrace it until 1) its battery lasted at least as long as the movie it's playing; 2) it could reasonably connect to other devices outside a radius of 50 feet; 3) one could afford it without a second mortgage.

Now, the year after the Apple iPad's unprecedented rout of the tablet market, analysts are saying Intel may finally have the magic formula. Undaunted by the fact that ultrabooks, as they're now being called, only sold 1 million units worldwide last year, according to estimates from hardware analysis firm IHS, the firm is holding true to its ultrabook sales projections for 2015 - projections that assume a 342% annual growth rate.

A growing number of embedded systems - devices with built-in firmware and non-PC form factors - are running Windows, including point-of-sale terminals, kiosks, and digital signage. But up to now they've required a server capable of running Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM).

This morning, Hewlett-Packard announced that for the first time, it will offer thin client PCs - systems that run Windows Embedded Standard 7 already - that have Embedded Device Manager 2011 (EDM 2011) pre-installed. This way, out of the box, customers that run Windows Embedded 7 (based on the Windows 7 kernel) don't have to install a separate server PC (even if it's just a virtual or cloud-based one) to monitor and maintain devices such as cash registers.

It's no surprise that the new-and-re-improved Hewlett-Packard has come to the conclusion this afternoon, under newly-minted President and CEO Meg Whitman, that it will not spin off the Personal Systems Group (PSG) division responsible for producing PCs and tablets. This move was announced after the close of stock trading Thursday afternoon.

But one of the first questions analysts asked during an HP investors' press conference this afternoon was the fate of its tablet unit. Today, Whitman made it absolutely clear that any tablet PCs HP may produce in the coming year will center around Windows 8, not the webOS platform that HP acquired in the Palm buyout just over one year ago.

"Communications is at the heart of ecommerce and community. By combining the two leading ecommerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications," announced eBay's CEO in September 2005, Meg Whitman, "we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net."

By 2005, what Meg Whitman had learned about "ecosystems," such as they are, would have had to have come from her tenure as president of Stride Rite Shoes, the maker of Keds; and later as chief of Hasbro's Playskool division, where she directly oversaw the marketing of Mr. Potato Head. Inspired by the reintroduction of the toy brand into popular culture with Pixar's Toy Story, Whitman's innovations included the licensing of the brand to television, leading to the 1998 premiere of Fox Kids' "The Mr. Potato Head Show."

With today's announcement that Meg Whitman will become the next CEO of HP, it is time to a look at where she has come from and what challenges are ahead for the computer company. Certainly, in its 72-year history, the fortunes of HP have never been more at risk than they are now.

eBay history

Meg Whitman served as President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from 1998 to 2008. Those were the go-go years for the online auction house. When she started they had just 30 employees. She grew it to 15,000 employees and $8B in revenue. eBay also bought Skype, selling it for about half of what they paid. Other notable eBay purchases during the Whitman era included Half.com, Paypal, Shopping.com and StubHub.

The worst CEOs in tech, OpenStack announcements from HP, and rumors about Google Dart are all in this ReadWriteWeb channels wrap-up.

Steve Jobs may have been the best tech CEO ever, but the worst is open to debate. Last week, we also looked at L-Soft Listserv turning 25, and how many Android devices still run Froyo. After the jump, you'll find more of this week's top stories on ReadWriteWeb's channels.

Tech CEOs are getting a lot of attention lately. With the exception of exiting Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the attention is not a good thing. From Carol Bartz's abrupt firing to Andrew Mason's IPO-icing shenanigans, many tech CEOs don't seem to be earning a janitor's salary – much less the inflated compensation they're getting.

So I decided to take a look around and see, who are the worst CEOs in tech? I limited the selection to those CEOs currently (or very near currently) working. So that means that some of the worst tech CEOs in history (see, for instance, SCO's Darl McBride) aren't on the list.