It sounded like it was more of a presentation issue. He doesn't present well. They didn't say anything about not liking his ideas. "He's just not CEO material" is what I got out of the article.
Of course, if you're right, this fits in nicely with the NY Times' article from this morning, which basically said that the HP board hired Apotheker without meeting him, because the board members all couldn't stand each other and didn't want hang out together long enough to vet him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/business/voting-to-hire-a-...
These people, it's amazing.