Hewlett-Packard surprised some people in tech last week by canning CEO Leo Apotheker and quickly replacing him with former eBay CEO and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. On Tuesday at 2:00PM Eastern over on ZDNet I’ll be debating the wisdom of the move with my ZDNet colleague Larry Dignan. I’ll be arguing that the move was a good one — at least for the short term — while Larry will argue that there’s no way Whitman will turn around HP.

This is part of ZDNet’s new series, The Great Debate, and here’s how it works. The moderator sets the topic. The two debaters make their opening statements. Then, we get together for a live one-hour discussion where I toss out questions and both of them have a few minutes to answer and respond to each other’s comments. At the end of the online chat, both of the debaters make a closing statement. Meanwhile, during the whole process, the audience gets an opportunity to vote for one side of the argument (and one debater) or the other, and can also join the discussion by leaving comments.

Some of the issues we’ll discuss include:

  • Where did Apotheker fail?
  • What does this change mean for HP’s PC and tablet businesses?
  • What changes does Whitman need to make?
  • What does Whitman bring to the table that can help HP?
  • Where are HP’s biggest opportunities?
  • What kind of company should HP be in the 21st century?
  • What’s the bigger problem for HP: Strategy or execution?

Come join the debate.