Hi all,

Just wondering: to what extent could this proposed ad reinforce the
widely-held opinion that HP is pulling the plug on MPE? Unless it's
worded very carefully, it could have just that effect. Most of the
proposals so far would be a gift to IBM. If I were selling AS/400s
against MPE, I'd carry a copy of the ad with me and say, "See the kind of
vendor support you can expect from HP?"

Any "Hey, Carly" [cringe] -type ad ought to reference evidence (not
opinion) that the HPe3000 is a financially-successful product in order to
blunt that kind of use.

-- Bruce

PS. Why is it that Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs... get to be
called by their full names, but Carly Fiorina just gets "Carly"? On the
other hand, even HP's own press office calls her "Carly", so maybe
there's some advantage to it. I recall that Paul Chu, discoverer of
high-temperature superconductivity, used to have a trick when the
chemicals he needed were in short supply: he'd have his female graduate
students call the male sales reps, and male grad students call the female
sales reps. I wonder if that's why she's "Carly" even to HP's PR people.

- B


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