Mark wrote:
> Just took a look at the e-services scenarios on HP's website. I
> find the whole concept frightening and bizarre.

I hate to say it, but I really get the same vibe from all of HP's current
e-nonsense that Mark does.  I get a seemingly constant stream of invitations
to come to big presentations at HP where HP is apparently going to tell me
that I don't have a clue how to run my business but they do.

It's kind of like a child who has just discovered some obvious fact about
the world and wants to tell everyone about it.  We went through the same
thing a couple years ago when HP suddenly discovered the year 2000 and
started running around telling people about this big problem they had just
discovered that everyone should start working on right away (this was about
1998 IIRC).

I suspect that people on this list have invented more real-world, robust,
economical, and *working* e-commerce systems than HP ever will, so it's a
little bit annoying to listen to all of HP's talk.

So far this just looks like another case of someone high up decreeing that
"We will become the worlds leading <blankety blank> company" after reading
about <blankety blank> in Computerworld.  The usual response to this is for
marketing to run out and set up alliances with bazillions of hungry 3rd
party suppliers of components that could potentially be use in <blankety
blank> systems, then pile up the glossy brochures from each of these
components and tie a bow around the stack and call it a "solution" as though
all of these bits and pieces are somehow going to magically meld together
into something that works.  The people who would actually have to sell the
solution and (heaven forbid) actually make it work are left to try to make
something out of it all, which is one of the more tried-and-true recipes for
disaster.  God help the customer who falls for it, since a year later the
company will have moved on to some new <blankety blank> idea entirely,
leaving their customers in the lurch, or at least in the hands of the
individual component suppliers.

The case of <blankety blank>=="e-services" for HP is especially frightening
given HP's track record in trying to e-transform their *own* processes.
Someone *inside* HP recently bemoaned to me that it is impossible for HP to
sell anything to anybody, including themselves, since they have no idea what
they have available and nobody can help you put a configuration together or
tell you what something will cost or whether it will work.  HP's quoting and
order processing system, the HP ESC, and numerous other examples present a
definitely "second class" look to HP's own e-commerce attempts when compared
with what many other companies are doing.

To me, HP's "global e-services revolution" looks like nothing but slideware
designed to impress stock market analysts.

Of course this is probably all good for CSY and the 3000, since the 3000 is
one of the few platforms that they have which can actually deliver on some
of these ideas today.

G.