Frank Gribbin writes


Does anyone know more about this group's work ?  Watch the wrap.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B5CF30A4C%2DFDDA%2D4F49%
2DAEC5%2DC0ABB88DD257%7D&siteid=mktw
-------------------------------------------------
Well, if the whole story is read you see the following:

H-P executives let go the majority of workers at the company's Enterprise
Intel Architecture Lab in Florham Park, N.J. The facility, which specializes
in Unix operating software that can work on both on traditional RISC-based
and Intel-brand chips, will close.

Engineers at the lab had been hired away to form the lab in 1996 from AT&T
Bell Labs, Nortel, The Santa Cruz Operation, and other companies. Several
had more than 20 years of Unix software expertise.

One analyst said the move was surprising.

"Guys like this are so hard to find," said Steve Allen, analyst with
Hotovec, Pomeranz & Co. in San Francisco. "It's like trying to find
algorithmic mathematicians. It surprises me that they'd let any guys like
that go. It doesn't make any sense at all to me, to be honest."

The Florham Park group had led a three-year project to let customers move
their H-P's Unix operating system software applications to computers that
use the new Intel IA-64 chip architecture, a high-end microprocessor design
for servers that other H-P engineers co-developed.

Florham Park employees also had worked on future generations of H-P's
operating software, which is designed to work with upcoming IA-64 chips. The
next-generation chips are supposed to be put into new servers by May.

Executives at H-P long have held that the IA-64 architecture and related
software technologies are an integral part of H-P's long-term server market
success. H-P and other server makers will use IA-64 as the basis of new
chips for as many as 10 years.

In the past, executives from H-P had touted that their inside knowledge of
IA-64 would produce better HP Unix operating software, as well as other
related server advances that could make better use of the Intel chips'
power. They continually said their engineering knowledge would result in
computer systems that are a step ahead of the market.

Berman said that much of the work done in the New Jersey lab can be handled
at H-P's Fort Collins, Colo. facility. He added that some -- workers say 23
of 120 who worked there -- have been offered jobs in Fort Collins.

Mike Berkowitz
Guess? Inc.

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