I have been a loyal HP customer for many years.  There were several factors
responsible for that:

(1)  The corporate culture instituted by Bill & Dave.

(2)  Hewlett-Packard's fine line of instruments and measurement equipment.

(3)  The best calculators, pocket or otherwise, that money could buy.

(4)  The HP3000, of course!

(5)  Exceptional service and support for ALL their products.

So what's happened?  Well, HP management has worked hard for the last few years
to destroy (1).  They threw away (2) by spinning it off into a separate company.
Number (3) is well on its way to being destroyed.  (OK, they're still selling
calculators, but they've been backing away from RPN for quite a while, they've
just shut down the calculator division, and the quality and aesthetic appeal of
the current models are a sad contrast to the '70's and '80's models.)  We know
what just happened to (4), and you have only to read the comp.sys.hp.*
newsgroups to learn the sorry state of (5) for their printers and other personal
computer products.

In the past I've made HP purchases for myself (and recommended other purchases)
based largely on my loyalty to HP and my trust in the company and its products.
But from now on, I'll avoid doing any business with them, and will do everything
I can to steer others away from them.  My company is planning rather large
expenditures for Unix servers in the next few years.  Most people here have been
in favor of either Sun or IBM, but I've been saying good things about the HP9000
and HP-UX.  Starting today, I'm recommending that we stay away from HP as an
unreliable company that can't be trusted, and throwing my support behind Sun
(and Linux where practical, as long as it's not on HP hardware!).

There's always the chance that HP management may stumble across a clue and go
back to running the company the way the founders intended.  In that case, I
could reconsider my position.  But I really don't expect that to happen.  With
the Carly & her cohorts in charge it wouldn't surprise me if the company doesn't
survive much longer, and under the current circumstances I don't see that as a
bad thing.  So as far as I'm concerned, there is no HP anymore.  There's just a
bunch of suits hiding behind the HP name while they run Bill & Dave's dream into
the ground.  In fact, I hope the Hewlett and Packard families share my disgust
and decide to dump all their HP stock as a sign of their displeasure.  It would
be fun watching Carly trying to explain THAT to Wall Street.

Wayne

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