>
> Date:    Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:58:04 -0700
> From:    "Bahrs, Art" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Disappointed again.
>
>     My Question/Pondering for this August group (which makes my post
> on topic) ... is Where is HP going to go now?

Out of business is my bet.  How long the vacillation at the top will
take to fly HP into the ground is any ones guess, but I believe that
a crash and burn ending is inevitable.  The name might live on, as a
line of printer supplies, but the company will be gone.

> And who will get the PC business units?  Dell? (now that would
> make a powerhouse PC source or end Dell) ...
>

And who really cares any more?  High end Intel based equipment might
just as well be no-name as any recognizable brand these days. And
what else besides an Intel or work-alike system makes any sense any
more?  Who would willingly place their firms at risk by trusting to
non-standard components in their IT investments?

I suppose if the warranty, or more likely bragging rights at the
golf course, matters then a brand name might have some attraction to
the unimaginative and ill informed.  But, from a functional
standpoint I cannot see any real advantage to buying from a big name
over having systems assembled to order at the neighbourhood tech
shop.

At least there you can choose what motherboard and CPUs are
installed into which case; together with exactly how many power
supplies from which manufacturer and so forth.  And you can judge
for yourself the competency, or otherwise, of the assembler. Instead
of getting the spot price components du jour put together by people
willing to work for the least amount of money.  Let us consider that
Google uses nothing but commodity components in its IT environment.
And just who has bigger computing needs than Google?

Ditto for proprietary software.  If it is not FOSS then acquiring
software is begging to be abused by the vendor.  There is little, if
anything, in the way of software that is not available from an Open
Source alternative. And, one can get just about any FOSS application
highly customized, usually for ridiculously low cost. The only
proviso being that everyone using that software gets to benefit as
well.

Automation hardware and software are commodities. Branding such
things is closer to marketing soap than anything else.

--
***          E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel          ***
James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *