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Dear HP: Please don't mess this up. You're a storied pioneer in tech, but you got massive and lost your sense of direction. You're about to acquire something

Dear HP: Please don't mess this up. You're a storied pioneer in tech, but you got massive and lost your sense of direction. You're about to acquire something of a microcosm of yourself—a company that pioneered an industry but lost its way as it grew. The difference is that your new acquisition rediscovered its sense of curiosity and turned itself around, too late to save itself, but brilliantly so nonetheless. You can learn from this. Your size has protected you from Palm's fate, but you were slowly headed down the same path, despite even your well-intentioned yet insufficiently-pursued experiments with things like TouchSmart. While this is a new beginning for Palm, it's also a new beginning for you. What's your tagline again? Ah, yes: Invent. There's never been a better time to make good on it.

megablast 17y ago
HP is now run by business men, not engineers. If Carla didn't prove this to you, then you are probably never going to get it. The fact is, they don't care about Compaq, DEC, Palm, or even HP. They just want to pull in enough money over the next few years, until they retire. They could be selling Paper cups for all they care about the product, as long as they still get their bonuses.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  I don't know if that's really true. Most businesspeople are not just interested in milking salaries. Like most other people, they want to do a good job at the job they've been assigned. Unless you have personal knowledge of the execs at HP, I wouldn't go so far; such a claim is rather personal and depends on a lot of individual factors and I don't think it can really be made en masse about a whole exec team. Also, there is financial incentive to set the company on an innovative, profit-filled future; many (most?) executives hold lots and lots of stock.
  - astine 17y ago
    "many (most?) executives hold lots and lots of stock." All, probably.
AndrewS 17y ago
Actually, HP recently changed their tagline to "Create Amazing". It's a pretty good indication of where HP has gone. I quit HP early this year (around 18 months after I joined HP in an aquisition). After that experience, I can't believe HP continues to grow at all.

megablast 17y ago

HP is now run by business men, not engineers. If Carla didn't prove this to you, then you are probably never going to get it. The fact is, they don't care about Compaq, DEC, Palm, or even HP. They just want to pull in enough money over the next few years, until they retire. They could be selling Paper cups for all they care about the product, as long as they still get their bonuses.

cookiecaper 17y ago
I don't know if that's really true. Most businesspeople are not just interested in milking salaries. Like most other people, they want to do a good job at the job they've been assigned. Unless you have personal knowledge of the execs at HP, I wouldn't go so far; such a claim is rather personal and depends on a lot of individual factors and I don't think it can really be made en masse about a whole exec team. Also, there is financial incentive to set the company on an innovative, profit-filled future; many (most?) executives hold lots and lots of stock.
- astine 17y ago
  "many (most?) executives hold lots and lots of stock." All, probably.

AndrewS 17y ago

Actually, HP recently changed their tagline to "Create Amazing". It's a pretty good indication of where HP has gone. I quit HP early this year (around 18 months after I joined HP in an aquisition). After that experience, I can't believe HP continues to grow at all.