On Thu, 11 Apr 2002 17:17:37 -0400, John R. Wolff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>What it means to me is that HP would like your business and stands ready to
>provide all the consulting services you can afford.

I would like to supplement this observation with some words of wisdom from
an old friend of mine who is one of the smartest businessmen I have ever
known.  He is a self-made multi-millionaire (more than once) and is a great
admirer of the old HP.  His favorite saying (and it is worth some
contemplation) and one that I will never forget is:

"Where there is misery, there is money to be made!"

Well, HP has certainly figured out how to create misery.  Now they are
trying to make money from it  --  Alternative servers, consulting services,
support contracts, upgrades, etc..

HP adopted this philosophy once before when they invented the HP3000.  They
recognized that there was pure misery in "migration" and developed a system
that eliminated this plague on computer users everywhere.  Now they sell
systems, like HP-UX for example, that requires users to do migrations in
the same box just by upgrading to the next version of the OS.  HP has now
come full circle and is facing backwards.

Some truths are self evident.

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