Mark of Troy

 

About twelve centuries before Christ, somewhere in the southern half of Greece, a man named Pelops happened to win a chariot race that entitled him to the throne of the city of Elis.

This geographic area is called Peloponnese after this lucky winner, so many of his descendants ruled in the cities down there… Cities like Athens, Sparta, Messene, Mykenae or Thebes.

One of Pelops’ son, Atreus, ruled Mykenae. Another one, Thyestes, entertained himself seducing Mrs. Atreus. Revenge, as human an attribute it can be, fell on Thyestes. Atreus had some of Thyestes children cooked up, and served them at dinner to their dad.

Thyestes fled… not before cursing Atreus and all his house.

Later on, two of Atreus’ sons grew up. Agamemnon ruled Mykenae, and Menelaus was looking for his own space in the sun. Young bachelors at the time, they went shopping, looking for the best wives money and power could buy. In their travels they stepped into Sparta, where queen Leda had two daughters. Perfect match, you night think: Agamemnon took Clytemnestra back to Mykenae, while Menelaus stayed in Sparta to become king by marrying Helen, the most beautiful woman ever, according to the record of the time: “The face that launched a thousand ships”, would historians of the time say at Aulis years later.

After some time, people from far away came around to Sparta. Prince Paris from the city of Troy led the Trojan group… and was introduced to the King and Queen, Menelaus and Helen. The following morning, Helen was gone… and so was Paris. Menelaus was left alone with their daughter, Hermione.

More than a mere matter of who slept with whom, that was a big crisis indeed. At the end of the day, the left-alone King of Sparta was only King for having married Helen, and with Helen gone, the whole wealth and power equilibrium in Atreus’ family empire was at the stake.

Menelaus turned back to his brother Agamemnon, who made the call, and the whole Peloponnese backed it. From every corner in Greece, the armies gathered at Aulis ready to sail. The wind kept blowing the wrong direction, and the priests decided Agamemnon had to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, to get good wind. Agamemnon made the deal, what, logically did not do any good to Clytemnestra’s feelings for Agamemnon.

The wind changed, the flotilla sailed, and the Greeks sieged Troy in demand for Helen’s return to Sparta. The Trojans bluntly refused to give her at all, and the Greeks decided to wait as long as it took…

Nine long years passed; nine long years during which historians’ reports are inexistent, during which the very few things we know get mixed with legend, rumors, invented stuff…And in the tenth year, the story of the Trojan Horse came up.

Troy fell, and the surviving Greeks went home. Agamemnon was murdered by Clytemnestra and lover (one of the brothers of the cooked children).

One of Clytemnestra’s sons, Orestes, killed her mother and lover back in revenge. Realizing what he did, he went insane and fled, pursued by the mythological Furies. Menelaus got Helen back… just to die and leave his Kingdom to Orestes, after the latter had regained sanity.

…

If we were to judge human nature by the acts of people here and there, we could eventually conclude that more than three thousand years later, mankind has not really changed much, besides having more powerful means to access information.

We could find a group of little fiefs that made up together a company like HP, called this way after the initial founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard established the realm… In a given moment, one of their heirs, Walter Hewlett, felt somewhat screwed by the CEO of the time, Carly Fiorina, who outraged Walter as seriously as Thyestes betrayed Atreus. The HP Board reacted, and forced Fiorina out, as a fleeing Thyestes…

The are no public records of Fiorina cursing anybody, and we actually do not really know if she has the power to effectively curse anybody. Still, we do not believe she was the happiest woman on earth when she had to close the door behind her. May be no cursing then, but probably hard swearing was there for a while…

And so went HP for a while…an some of the board members realized they needed a new king… Off they went, looking for the best kings that brand and stock options could buy. And they ended up close to the little realm of NCR, where its board had the most perfect (we will not say “beautiful”) candidate that anybody could have imagined, by the name of Mark… “The head that launched a thousand blogs”, would journalists –the historians of our time, say in the Internet a few years later.

After some time, people from far away came around by HP, led by Larry Ellison (no relation to the city of Elis mentioned before, we trust, but what a coincidence indeed)… They came with bombastic business plans, thanks to which they were introduced to the King, and probably played a lot of tennis and did a lot of business together… and, the following morning, suddenly Mark was gone, so was Larry… HP was left, together with Mark’s “daughters”, Palm, EDS, 3Par…

That was a big crisis indeed; with Mark gone, the equilibrium of wealth and power for the shareholders and the executive managers’ clan was at serious risk.

The Board made the call, and all the HP leaders answered unanimously. From every site of HP, potential would-be leaders appeared, and under the brand banner, they gathered in Palo Alto ready to march against the oracle’s spell. Business winds kept blowing the wrong direction, and the gurus at the Board decided that the Gods in the Cloud Computing Olympus were mad at HP and there had to be a sacrificial victim to clean HP’s sins. The HP Board offered the candidature of Todd in a sacrificial rite, what irritated severely a significant faction within HP…

The winds changed, and the HP armies set off against the oracle…

And here we must leave the unconcluded story, as it looks we are right in the moment when the “Greek” HP starts the siege. Unlikely that the oracle will give HP’s King back easily… on the contrary, it is much more probable the King will actively stand against his former troops… But we will see. At this point, however, most of what we know so far starts dimming in the fog of rumors, myth, legend and invented stuff…

To be continued…

 

Footnote: This post is specially dedicated to one of my best friends, whom in private and with all my appreciation I call “Hermione” for private reasons. She’s been quite a motivation and inspiration for all these posts that I dared to offer for some time now. Thanks, Hermione, this is my way to say it. It would take the courage of a Gryffindor to say it differently, but you know I am much more of a Ravenclaw, don’t you?