In message 
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[log in to unmask]>, Christian Lheureux 
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Roy wrote :
>
>> Did Carly personally cancel the HP3000? Well, it happened on her watch.
>> So - does Denys imagine it never got to board level? Unthinkable.
>
>Though I don't always agree with Denys, I would personally try my best at
>refraining from any Denys- (or anyone else-) bashing.

I wasn't bashing. I was describing. Let's see, indeed, if Denys 
disagrees.
>
>> But I don't suppose that she initiated it, specifically. I surmise that
>> someone, reading Carly's gameplan for HP, decided to curry favour by
>> proposing to 'rid her of this troublesome priest'; and, the way it was
>> presented being in line with her preconceptions, it got nodded through.
>
>Agreed. See my HP Strategy review of last night.
>
>> But in a different universe, a different CEO might well have decided
>> that the rearrangement of HP would take a different tack. As a result of
>> which, the long-standing injustice that CSY did not get the benefit of
>> the HP3000/MPE support revenues might have been corrected.
>
>I beg to strongly disagree on that one. My point was, precisely, that sooner
>or later, for many, many reasons, MPE would have had to go. Greedy software
>vendors are one very valid reason raised today by yet someone else.

I have never bought this argument, and I never will. People bought 
3rd-party products because they saved them money. Sure they would have 
liked to keep more of the savings, rather than handing them over to the 
3rd parties. Who wouldn't? But has anyone ever claimed that these 
products cost customers more than it saved them? In such a case, the 
customer would be crazy to persist with the product. And I don't recall 
any 3PV having a monopoly he could exploit, simply because there was no 
alternative....

> I suggested a few valid reasons, too. Another CEO would have rescued 
>MPE ? For what business purpose, please ? Does anyone on this list (or 
>anywhere else) seriously believes that, say, Mark Hurd, had he been CEO 
>instead of Carly, would have saved the 3000 ? I don't think so. All the 
>fundamentals are in my memo. Plus the greedy vendors. Plus others that 
>I have probably overlooked.

Indeed. You said that proprietary was dead. Tell Bill Gates that. Tell 
Larry Ellison that. When they stop laughing, they might let you help 
them lug their enormous revenues to the nearest bank....

Tell IBM, whose AS/400 replacement has soaked up a fair proportion of 
the customers dispossessed by HP.

Indeed, tell Michael Marxmeier. His (fairly-priced, I hasten to add) 
Eloquence software is still making proprietary inroads into a market you 
might well expect now to be utterly dominated by free open-source 
offerings.

>> And does anyone want to dispute that if this had happened, the HP3000
>> would not suddenly have looked like a very profitable operation that any
>> business would be crazy to terminate?

>Hey, when you have a cash cow, you may or may not milk it till the last
>droplet. After all, GM axed a still profitable Camaro a few years back, P&G
>axed the Camay (not sure of its name in North America, it's Camay in Europe)
>soap bar weeks ago, Boeing axed a still profitable 727, Coca-Cola repeatedly
>tried to ax its immensely profitable "classic" coke, and I could go on like
>that forever.

And as has been pointed out here, HP *is* still milking that cash-cow. 
The HP whey, at least, is still very much alive, even if the curds have 
been replaced by Hurds.

>Is IT specific in such a way that it can be saved the burden of abiding by
>business fundamentals ? I don't think so. But it's probably my business
>education that skews my judgement.

Almost certainly. The real world just point-blank refuses to conform to 
the textbook examples :-(

>Now, I have to say I won't vote for Mr McCain. But that's certainly not
>because of his apparent choice for an economic adviser.
>That's because, as a French citizen, I don't vote in the States.

I'm in the UK, so I shan't vote there either. But I'd be a Democrat if I 
were.

Roy


-- 
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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