Let me start with a disclaimer that these are my own ideas,
and my conclusions are taken from HP external information,
I am not speaking as an 'HP insider' nor for HP here:

Gavin Scott wrote:
>
>
> So anyone who thinks that HP is a computer company these days hasn't looked
> at the economics of the printer supplies business :-)

maybe I did not understand this completely, but isn't the
plan to have Superdome customers pay-per-CPU-power-demand
rather similar to the economics of ink cartridges ?

Glenn Koster wrote:
>
> 2.  The delays in the IA-64 architecture.  How long have we been hearing
> about this now?  How long yet before it becomes a marketable reality?  How
> much of a bite will HP take for contributing to the design but not obtaining
> any royalties or competitive advantages because of it?

I am not sure if you are 'barking at the right tree' (German idiom)
for the delay part of this.
I think you have a point regarding the 'royalty' aspect. IMHO,
the 'old HP' that Wirt refers to, has been sort of a 'dolphin in a
see of sharks' when you come to reflect on its business partnerships
with other big corporations in the past. I believe the 'new HP'
is going to 'play ball' a bit different.

>
> 3.  The diversity of HP's product offerings with no substantive plan in
> place to market them in a cohesive manner.  HP-UX, Linux, Windows 2000,
> Windows NT, MPE/iX...  All offerings on different and diverse hardware with
> nothing but a Band-Aid to hold many of them together in some situations.

This sounds just like one of our 'solar' competitors :-)

My view is that HP's product diversity is great, but I agree
that our vast product portfolio creates quite a marketing
challenge. We may not be (yet) as fast moving as Wall Street
or some shareholders would like us to be, but rapid changes
could carry a danger of 'burning the bridges', which can conflict
with 'customer loyalty', a value that is as strong in the 'new HP'
as it was in the 'old'.

Just my private 2 Eurocents,

Götz.