[Info-vax] Out with Hurd, in with OpenVMS

[JF Mezei]

Michael Kraemer wrote:

> HP is still focused on commodity items,
> so bean counters are more important than engineers.

In the commodity items, the lack of R&D/innovation makes HP products the
same as Lenovo, Dell et all.

The Board sees what Apple is doing with those same commodity components,
 and must wonder "why can't we do the same ?" (answer: because you
killed your own R&D department).

When HP got Compaq, the one product line that was "of value" was the
iPaq. HP managed a couple of iterations of the device, and then more of
less let go of it because it wanted Microsoft/Intel to do all the R&D
and provide reference designs that HP could just implement. All the
money spent to buy the iPaq product line was wasted. Now, HP is buying
what is left of Palm and is hoping to relaunch a new line of phones with
Palm's proprietary OS.  Will they do as they did with the iPaq and just
let that investment wither away because they are not ready to spend on
R&D to keep the product on a contant upgrade path ?

While Hurd can be congratulated on improving operational performance, he
has squandered a lot of value out of HP, both in product lines (iPaq,
VMS etc) and in human resources and decimated HP Labs.

Restarting HP's innovative spirit won't be easy when you have lost your
innovators.