Backfire
Hiring the marketing-savvy Fiorina to run Hewlett-Packard made some waves within the venerable technology giant. BACKFIRE recounts those tumultuous days and provides background on the woman who was picked to take HP into the next century. Burrows, a journalist for Business Week, offers insights culled from interviews with several insiders to present a thorough accounting of the days leading up to Fiorina`s hiring and the company`s merger with Compaq.

more details ...

1. \Back fire\
   (a) A fire started ahead of a forest or prairie fire to burn
       only against the wind, so that when the two fires meet
       both must go out for lack of fuel.
   (b) A premature explosion in the cylinder of a gas or oil
       engine during the exhaust or the compression stroke,
       tending to drive the piston in a direction reverse to
       that in which it should travel; also, an explosion in the
       exhaust passages of such ah engine.
   

2. \Back"-fire`\, v. i.
   1. (Engin.) To have or experience a back fire or back fires;
      -- said of an internal-combustion engine.
   2. Of a Bunsen or similar air-fed burner, to light so that
      the flame proceeds from the internal gas jet instead of
      from the external jet of mixed gas and air. --
      {Back"-fir`ing}, n.