[Info-vax] Did HP get rid of VMS to make itself a more attractive takeover target for Xerox?

[Scott Dorsey]

JohnF  <johnf at pls-c-sig-4-email.com> wrote:
>Back in the real old days, some ~50 yrs ago in the early 1970's,
>I was a grad student working at the Lamont-Doherty Geological
>Observatory of Columbia University, in the Atmospheric Sciences
>division, observing and studying gravity waves in the ionosphere.
>Just about all our equipment was HP, and it was pretty much all
>100% terrific, e.g., way up in NY we routinely measured atmospheric
>gravity waves from Apollo moon launches in FL. No computers, no
>printers, just HP electronic lab equipment. And, speaking of "Apollo",
>some 20 yrs later the HP/Apollo workstations didn't totally suck either.
>But today there's pretty much nothing HP-labelled that I'd even
>remotely consider purchasing.

HP made the best test equipment there ever was, except for oscilloscopes.
Then they got into the computer business.  Then they got into the printer
business.  Then Carly Fiorina decided that short term profits were more
important than making good products, and got rid of the test equipment
division, which became Agilent.

Much of the traditional HP philosophy left with Agilent.

Agilent is now Keysight, and they still make the best test equipment there
is, except for oscilloscopes.  And they still make it like HP used to.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."