On 21 Mar 2002, at 13:33, Wirt Atmar wrote:

> While I haven't yet gotten to the point of suggesting that it is
> time to sell your HP stock, based on the behavior of Fiorina, the
> board, and their recent decisions regarding commodity products and
> services, I'm certainly teetering on it. I consider HP to be a
> company in deeper crisis than most people are giving credit. The
> merger, if it actually occurs, significantly increases the risks of
> HP

I completed the Interex Advocacy survey the week before last and
among my pointed comments I wrote that I fully expected our
HP3000s to be in service for the next five years, which was two
years longer than we expected HP to remain as an independent
entity.

When established companies begin betting their continued
existence on individual deals then it is only a matter of time before
one of the rolls will turn up snake-eyes.  The whole process that we
have witnessed these past few months is so fundamentally wrong-
headed on so many levels that I think that it has simply
overwhelmed my ability to either conceptualize or express the
magnitude of the error.

It has been stated here recently that some have no problem with
excessive remuneration for excessive results.  Well I do.  Excess
is inherently wrong in any social environment.  The needs of the
group must take precedence over the benefit to any individual
member.  Otherwise the very fabric of co-operation necessary for a
society to function is damaged, often fatally.  Businesses are
fundamentally social organizations and they cannot succeed when
some individuals within the organization profit at the expense of the
majority of the others.

Pursuit of excess leads to poor judgement when assessing risk.
The size of the prize obscures the price to be exacted for failure.
This is not business, this is gambling, and it is made worse
because it is being done with other people's money.  The HP
board, and others that behave in the same fashion, take little real
personal risk when they bet their company in this fashion, but the
chips they use are their employees livelihoods.  This is not a good
thing.

Let us face the facts, even if Ms. Fiona was terminated today she
would hardly be left in the position of having to make ends meet or
to find next month's payment for her car or house.  Can the same
be said of every person whom HP plans to dismiss within the next
year in consequence of these actions?  In fact it is doubtful that
Ms. Fiona, or any other board member, needs to seek any further
employment whatsoever in order to maintain a lifestyle that the
majority of their current employees would envy.  The fact that this
might not satisfy Ms. Fiona herself is quite beside the point.

Reward of merit is all well and good, but consideration must be
paid to the significant degree that chance, for better or worse,
influences the final outcome of every endeavour.  It is as poor
judgement to reward a foolish, but spectacularly successful,
gamble as it is to punish a well thought-out and executed, but
ultimately futile, enterprise.  To prosper social organizations need
to encourage risk taking, but not to the extent that continued
existence of the society itself is imperilled.  On this matter the
board of HP have failed in their duty to their own employees and
ultimately to their shareholders, the apparent ratification of their
decision by same notwithstanding.

Sincerely,
James B. Byrne

---     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 *