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HP wasn't the first. In the 90s, there was Lucent Technologies, aka Bell Labs (Unix, C, C++, vi, plan9...): http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/carly-fiorina/ http

by bfung 16y ago

HP wasn't the first. In the 90s, there was Lucent Technologies, aka Bell Labs (Unix, C, C++, vi, plan9...): http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/carly-fiorina/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/carly-fiorina/ http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/publications/finnov-discussion-papers/the-rise-and-demise-of-lucent-technologies http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/publications/finnov-discussion-pape... (disclosure: my parents worked there at the time and brought home the internal news every night)

tlb 16y ago
Worth reading, thanks. But it faults her for Lucent's strategy of pushing new products into the market by financing small companies to buy and operate them. Not only was it approved by the market, it was a sound strategy. Lucent was continually developing new networking equipment with a particular service model in mind, but AT&T was sluggish in deploying them. So they found ambitious small companies and hooked them up with equipment on time payment plans. Generally they ran the service better than the telcos would have, and it created lots of great companies.
- bfung 16y ago
  The 2nd link provide does a "by the numbers reported" reports. It's like high schoolers in chemistry class trying to get an A on lab work; who hasn't fudged the numbers before? The Fortune article digs a bit deeper: PathNet was such service provider caught in the easy money in the internet bubble era. "...PathNet, with barely 100 employees and all of $1.6 million in annual revenue..." "...The smaller company had barely $100 million in equity (and that's based on generous accounting assumptions) on top of which it had already balanced $350 million in junk bonds paying 12.25% interest. Adding $440 million in loans from Lucent..." So, give equipment and money to a company, knowing they would need to one day repay 220 times their revenue (if they could), and recording that as a "sale" ... that does not appear to be sound strategy for sustaining one's own company. It's like banks, giving out loans to people to buy houses they might not be able to afford...
mahmud 16y ago
I hate to be that guy, but vi was written by Bill Joy at Berkeley.
- bfung 16y ago
  my mistake.

by bfung 16y ago

tlb 16y ago

Worth reading, thanks. But it faults her for Lucent's strategy of pushing new products into the market by financing small companies to buy and operate them. Not only was it approved by the market, it was a sound strategy. Lucent was continually developing new networking equipment with a particular service model in mind, but AT&T was sluggish in deploying them. So they found ambitious small companies and hooked them up with equipment on time payment plans. Generally they ran the service better than the telcos would have, and it created lots of great companies.

bfung 16y ago
The 2nd link provide does a "by the numbers reported" reports. It's like high schoolers in chemistry class trying to get an A on lab work; who hasn't fudged the numbers before? The Fortune article digs a bit deeper: PathNet was such service provider caught in the easy money in the internet bubble era. "...PathNet, with barely 100 employees and all of $1.6 million in annual revenue..." "...The smaller company had barely $100 million in equity (and that's based on generous accounting assumptions) on top of which it had already balanced $350 million in junk bonds paying 12.25% interest. Adding $440 million in loans from Lucent..." So, give equipment and money to a company, knowing they would need to one day repay 220 times their revenue (if they could), and recording that as a "sale" ... that does not appear to be sound strategy for sustaining one's own company. It's like banks, giving out loans to people to buy houses they might not be able to afford...

mahmud 16y ago

I hate to be that guy, but vi was written by Bill Joy at Berkeley.

bfung 16y ago
my mistake.