[Info-vax] OT: Memristor: Is a sea-change coming?

[Hans Vlems]

On Aug 25, 3:38 pm, koeh... at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob
Koehler) wrote:
> In article <e36fa63f-f586-4af5-bc18-cf6c66318... at bl1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, Doug Phillips <dphil... at netscape.net> writes:
>
> > HP has been quiet. I wonder what's happening that we don't know about,
> > but which could possibly be driving some of HP's seemingly "strange"
> > business decisions?
>
>    If HP hadn't sold off Aligent years ago, I might think they were
>    still a company that could persue this.  But what I've seen of HP
>    business decisions seem to come from folks who wouldn't remember
>    there are transisitors in the CPU chips 30 minutes after reading
>    the number of transistors off a glossy to some sales droids.

There is a similarity in what HP is doing and what Philips has been
doing for a couple of years.
Their (Philips') first decision was to stop research because it was
too expensive. After a while
mmanagement decided that since they weren't able to keep up with the
production of new products
that it was a good idea to leave production to other parties. All
Philips was supposed to to is to have
bright ideas, leave product development and subsequent production to
others.
Example: Philips used to make excellent TV-tubes and electronic
components, their assembly process was
first rate; the only thing wrong with the product were the fragile
plastic controls since that was not under the
control of engineering but belonged to the marketing & sales crowd.
Slowly Philips made the transition from an engineering company towards
a financially driven organisation.
The company is valued in terms of shareholder value, which requirs a
(very) short term policy.
So now Philips discovered to its own surprise that sales of TV sets
has plummeted, more than the competition.
The same applies for other consumer electronics.
The same applies to HP: it is (IMHO) not possible to shift entire
product lines like the move from PC's to enterprise
software and expect to see customer loyalty (which equals sales,
right?). Philips started the process when it trademarked
the typical form of the letter P. HP now makes a similar move by
relying on its own company name/logo to leave one
product area and entering the new field of enterprise software.
For me HP used to be synonymous with good engineering. I understand
the rendering of Hoplessly Pathetic.
So shareholders may like this move and make money out of it for two
years. After that another company will be their
new shiny star and HP is up the creek...
hans