[Info-vax] Beyond Open Source

[JF Mezei]

On 15-05-10 09:41, Robert A. Brooks wrote:

> I agree that the timing of the June 2001 announcement looks suspicious given the
> Sept(?) 2001 announcement of the HP/Compaq merger.


In the book "Elephants can dance" from Lou Gerstner, it is revealed that
Curly started to shop Compaq as soon as he went from interim to CEO, and
tried to get IBM to buy Compaq.

During various interviews/articles, the serious meetings to start to
study merger prospects between HP and Compaq began in march 2001.
Announcement in Sept 7 2001.


The murder of Alpha on Jun 25 is no surprise. Compaq was probably in
final stages of negitiations with HP and that was likely a predcondition.

However, this does not preclude Curly having reduced budgets before
that. Remember that killing VMS was on the table circa 2000 just before
the short Renaissance where the ban on advertising VMS was temporarily
lifted and VMS saw near double digit growth.