Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) is down on multiple news reports that its board is being shaken up. We would take the other side of this bet and call it good news. CEO Meg Whitman stepped into a very difficult situation and we would argue that many of the company’s current woes are holdover events from decisions made long before Whitman got there.

The big news to us is that Ray Lane is stepping down as non-executive chairman of the board. Our take is that this should be great news for H-P shareholders. Mr. Lane was appointed executive chairman in September 2011 after having served as HP’s non-executive chairman since November 2010 and he is one of the top men credited with deciding that Murk Hurd needed to go. Ray Lane was also believed to be instrumental in the approval of the disastrous Autonomy acquisition and was originally very much behind hiring Leo Apotheker as CEO before that. Ray Layne was also believed to be behind the Apotheker efforts of breaking out the PC business, without somehow knowing that it was just going to be too costly to break up the company for there to be value.

Ralph Whitworth will apparently assume the chairman role until a permanent replacement has been found. The HP Board of Directors website shows that Mr. Whitworth has been a principal of Relational Investors, a registered investment advisor, since 1996. He also is a former director of Genzyme Corp., Sovereign Bancorp, Sprint Nextel and seven other public companies.

Lane is apparently going to remain on the board, but two other resignations will be coming from John Hammergren and G. Kennedy Thompson. These two were apparently closer to losing their board seats at the last vote.

HP shares rose 1.8% to $22.30 today, but the shares are down marginally in the after-hours session. As of 4:25 we have yet to see a press release nor an SEC filing, which is just one more bit of proof that things will be sloppy until Ray Lane is gone.

UPDATE: at 4:33 p.m. EST HP finally issued a release confirming these departures.

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