Plus quam perfect

 

More than perfect in English, for those who are not familiar to Latin.

If the definition of being perfect at HP is what Léo Apotheker meant when he described TouchPads as a perfect product at launch, we would love the job of HR manager there.

Every time an employee complained about his salary or any sort of compensation, we would tell him to shut up and consider that whatever his salary were, it would be “perfect”: Lots of potential (when?!?!?!?!), a few “minor” bugs here and there, apparently nice, ensuring that the employee will have to actually multitask to get its full value, but practically short from a usability perspective, and certainly comparable to what other companies had… at least one year before!

And, as Walter Mossberg said in the previous hyperlink above, if it doesn’t work, the company will re-boot the employee as needed.

 

Technorati Tags: apotheker,walt mossberg,touchpad,hp,employee

 

This post is dedicated to Molly Weasley, with all our best wishes for her upcoming sabbatical

Out of reach

 

Well, before we begin, we would like to clearly state that this post has nothing to do with violating intellectual property about a relatively old yet popular hit by a singer called Emilia that happens to have by chance the same title.

By the way, lovely theme this song, played in one or two movies, we recall, as ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’, for instance.

Anyway, we have a different thing in mind for this post.

It happened to come to our minds lately the myth of Tantalus, the guy that was rich and popular enough in Ancient Greece to challenge the Gods for a place at their table, sharing with them their banquets. But the guy wnet too far, and stole nectar and ambrosia to prove his buddies he had been at the table of the Gods.

And the Gods found out.

And the Gods decided to punish the guy by sending him to Hades, that could be considered as a sort of Beta-release of modern Hell the way we understand it. The Gods, not feeling enough satisfied, went even further, and they placed him in a water pond beneath the most wonderful fruit tree in a way that when he wanted to calm his thirst off, water would withdraw from him, and when he wanted to reach for the low hanging fruit from the tree to fill his stomach, the tree branches would raise enough to remain always out of reach.

If Hades exists and the concept of Eternity may stretch beyond an iPad lifecycle, the Gods be may very well still laughing watching the guy helplessly stretching his arms towards the fruit.

Ironically enough, artists have represented the myth by using, precisely an apple. Not sure about it being a MacIntosh, but still a nice, fresh, and juicy apple.

We have recently been overwhelmed by the tons of news about HP launching its TouchPad in an attempt to challenge Apple’s iPad better than other tablets so far have.

And it looks that compared to ‘others”, HP has some chance. There are quite a number of good reviews. So we believe that all the biggies at HP might be really enjoying the limelight for sometime, from Apothekerr to Jon Rubinstein to Toad Bradley to Phil McKinney to Steven McArthur to Martin Homlish to Bill Wohl, and are kind of attempting to demand their place in the sun (well, not the SUn, for they would need some permission from Larry Ellison), their place at the table of tablets or, if you prefer, at the table of Jobs (er… sorry, the table of Gods).

yep… they want a piece of the cake that is being eaten by the guys in Cupertino…even if the crumbs are being eaten in Taiwan, aren’t they?, the same way that Tantalus wanted nectar and ambrosia.

And you know what… before they even demonstrate the slightest achievement, Jobs has punished them by showing them iPads and putting them at their fingertips and when they think they can reach them, they happen to be “out of reach”…

So it appears that while the folks at HP are celebrating these days having been late to iPad, Jobs (er… the Gods, of course) have already anticipated the punishment.

 

Technorati Tags: hp,apotheker,touchpad,rubinstein,steve jobs,WebOS,ipad,ios,tablet

 

This post is dedicated to a good friend of ours that loves technology, loves being an early adopter, loves traveling, has an ipad, became a teacher, translated medical brochures years ago in the same company he is currently working at, loves singing ‘New York New York at Karaoke parties, has a daughter whose name is Bea and is married to Isabel.

‘

Flies against windows

 

Springtime is a lovely season… flowers, trees, weather…

Insects and bugs pop up in Spring too, don’t they? So it is not really strange to see flies behind windows (precisely!) glasses bumping once and again their heads not realizing there is a thick glass barrier which prevents them from getting out.

“Bump”… “bump” again… and so it goes until some monstrous human ends up smashing them precisely against the barrier they could not overcome.

And here we have our Perspiration Champion once more bumping and bumping… and not really able to get out of the windows …

Even after trying, in a desperate move, to engage with his former fellow Elop at Nokia, still he bumps and bumps once, twice… and still not realizing what is going on.

Probably it is a matter of time that the fly swat in the hands of the market’s common sense will be wielded mercilessly… Hopefully by that time, Apple, Google, and even Palm (sorrysorrysorry, HP) are strong enough by themselves to prevent WWF declaring flies a protected species…

 

 

Luke 6:39 in the Bible

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Arrogance? Responsibility, we think

 

Toppers generally generate two diametrically opposite feelings. People either love them, or hate them.

Our worries come when we think that usually there are far more haters than lovers, when it comes to toppers. Or not? Human nature, they say… and for the good and the bad, we are humans. Even toppers are.

We have read and heard lots of comments that are perfectly valid samples of this. About successful companies, about successful people, about successful products… and all the negative comments come usually from those who would like to be part of whatever success we are talking about, by the way.

One of the most clear examples is the success story of Apple’s.

Just google “Apple Arrogance”, and your screen will be filled up with several pages of links about that supposed arrogance from Apple’s.

Now… how much of that arrogance is pure desire of being part of Apple’s success?

Let’s put a recent and practical example.

We could select any of the millions of occurrences of Steve Jobs presenting anything to God-knows-what-audience. But those are not new, driven by marketing masters, and have many conditioning facts that do not make them natural.

This week, Steve Jobs presented a project to the City Hall of Cupertino about what they would like to do regarding their new HQ.

 

This time it was not really about a new product, a new marketing message. This time it was not about technology. This time it was about one of the inhabitants in the town looking for a new home because his current one had run out of space.

And this guy was not looking for the best manor. His focus was on how his new manor would actually generate progress for the community. It was a win-win project. Or not?

Talking arrogance, we could highlight some specifics from Jobs’ presentation:

1. Can anyone imagine any CEO of any company remotely comparable to Apple taking the time and the passion to present the project to any City Hall in the country? We mean, can anyone visualize Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Stephen Elop, Leó Apotheker or Michael Dell spending time that way? Would this guys not be delegating the task to someone of their staff at least?

2. Can anyone imagine any of those biggies really caring about making sure, to the last detail, that they made the best-in-class working site besides their own personal office? Would they not delegate that task to someone of their staff at least?

3. Would any of these biggies really get a spontaneous applause just for the fact of appearing in the room? (Well, to be fair, we must consider we are talking America, and Americans are really fond of applauding… they even do when a plane lands…).

4. Can anyone imagine any of these biggies really caring about the impact and the benefit for the community?

Where’s the arrogance? Whatever it is that they might call it arrogance, we would rather call it responsibility. The responsibility on behalf of the community that could naturally be expected from the biggest tax-payer in it. The same responsibility that you would expect from a man towards his family, from a teacher towards his pupils, from a doctor towards his patients.

Don’t lose ground: Steve Jobs was not presenting in front of millionaires looking for investment opportunities. Nor was he talking in front of powerful press communicators that can make or break a company’s reputation; nor was he talking in front of politicians or celebrities, nor in front of brilliant academics.

He was simply talking to third line local politician apprentices (will all due respect to the Cupertino City Hall, but we honestly do not believe any of them will appear in any book of History any time soon. He was talking to mere civil servants… mere administrators of the town resources. Mere temporary employees of the community they represent.

And… sadly enough, these politicians had the guts to request “favors” in return of their approval of Jobs’ project!!!! Favors like free WIFI infrastructure or free iPads whatsoever.

Where’s the dang arrogance here? Who are this low-ranked civil servants to attempt this bargaining? For God’s sake… had they not realized the enormous milestone Jobs’ project can mean to their town to try to save a few hundred bucks each?

Fortunately for Cupertino, it looks that Jobs is going away with his plans. Unfortunately for him, it could very well be that he is not going to be there by 2015 to cut the ribbon…

 

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Faust 3.0, cleverly disguised.

 

So finally the eternal promise will make it to mere mortals… Oh, yes, Palm will finally put his tablet in the market, and make it available to mere mortals.

Palms tables, under Palm’s OS, will be sold starting this summer, at $499.

Cleverly disguised as HP’s, naturellement, as mortal sin was cleverly disguised as an apple (precisely!) when the Devil, cleverly disguised as a Snake, offered the fruit to Eve (“bite it, and you’ll be like God”)…

We can figure Léo Apotheker, cleverly disguised as Faust 3.0, handing on a tablet to a mortal sinner… (“buy it, and you’ll be like Jobs”)…

What makes us think that the apple in the logo should go to HP more than to Apple actually…

 

And… who is talking about the great loser? We mean, of course, Todd Bradley… SVP for Personal Systems Group, declining… against the rising star, Palm head, Rubinstein… Was Todd not a former CEO at Palm?

 

Technorati Tags: apotheker,rubinstein,todd bradley,jobs,steve jobs,apple store,hp,palm,tablet,smartphones,ios4,webOS,ios5

Really!?

 

In the 17th Century, Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundations of Universal Gravitation in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Tradition tells us that he realized evidence after having been hit by a falling apple (precisely) while he was sitting beneath a tree. The obvious thing, Universal Gravitation, took millennia from mankind to be understood.

Archimedes of Syracuse, sometime in the third Century before Christ, suddenly realized the principles of buoyancy while having a bath. He had been for a long time trying to figure out how to calculate how much pure gold was contained in a crown, without melting it. And suddenly, inspiration hit him, and something evident was fully understood.

Copernicus as well realized the evidence of heliocentric cosmology in the 16th Century… and so we may find dozens of examples of obvious things realized after years or centuries of study.

All these guys would have been awarded Nobel Prizes should these have existed when they were alive.

Today we have discovered a new potential candidate for Nobel Prize awards in the figure of SAP co-CEO McDermott, who offers his company for alliance with HP.

Leaving aside his obvious comments, it’s the reading between the lines that catches our attention, as we see there a certain willingness to achieve that alliance. What certainly means there is some sort of motivation, and some benefit.

Probably still hurt by the not so old trial about Intellectual Property (IP) that ended in the biggest defeat in the industry, according to the result, SAP is still trying to inflict some kind of damage to its arch-enemy Oracle while granting some kind of “protection” for the future.

 

 

 

 

Facts:

Léo Apotheker served as CEO for SAP. Today, he still is CEO at HP.

SAP execs have moved to HP since Léo Apotheker, aka Faust 2.0, was hired as CEO at HP:

- Marge Breya, new General Manager for Software and Solutions at HP.

- Martin Homlish, new Chief Marketing Officer at HP.

- Bill Wohl, new Chief Communications Officer at HP.

Oracle owns Sun Microsystems, direct rival of HP.

Oracle is in quarrels both with HP and SAP.

Oracle hurt HP by hiring former HP CEO Mark Hurd after his scandalous exit from HP.

HP recently gave up Oracle’s Siebel CRM to move on to Salesforce.com’s CRM.

HP’s tradition to hire top execs from other companies and ending up acquiring, merging or absorbing them. Was not a certain Todd Bradley former CEO at Palm, now the jewel of the crown at HP wth all the WebOS buzz? (by the way… where have the HP pre-Palm smartphones gone?).

Some months ago, when SAP was fighting at court with Oracle, SAP’s market cap was at about $50B, HP was beyond $100B, and HP had plenty of cash to be in an even stronger position to force a take over. Today market caps of both companies are at parity… which may ease a “natural merger”…

We spoke about this, which seemed obvious, even when McDermott’s speech was totally different from what we read these days…

Technorati Tags: hp,hewlett-packard,apotheker,leo apotheker,oracle ceo,sap,bill mcdermott,bill wohl,martin homlish

Technorati Tags: marge breya,mark hurd,salesforce.com,siebel,crm,todd bradley,palm,webos,smartphones

Limbo Dance

 

Limbo dance is the art or ability of dancers to go below a bar that gets lower and lower without using hands or any other support than bare feet…

how low can you go?

It normally turns into a contest, and the winner, naturally, ends up being he or she who is able to go lowest without falling nor breaking his or her back.

We are starting to think that the guy with the “accent aigú” at HP has some fondness of limbo dancing, and is seriously willing to win sooner than later. So far, he has beaten his predecessor, Mark Hurd, and has gone beyond the lowest level (38) after the former fell in love with the Pontifex Maximus at the Oracle when Jodi said “no”.

At this moment common shares are traded below 36 and falling… in fact, there are trading at their loweest level in the last two years, at least.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=HPQ+Interactive#chart8:symbol=hpq;range=2y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

 

How low can you go in this limbo contest, mein Herr?

 

Technorati Tags: apotheker,hp,hewlett-packard,léo apotheker,limbo,limbo dance,nyse,mark hurd,pontifex maximus,oracle,hp board

Faust 2.1

 

Angels were created, according to Christian and Hebrew tradition, before men and women. Angels were far more perfect, and certainly less tied to human limitations.

However, in the beginning of times, one of them rose against his creator. Against God Himself.

He was the most beautiful of them all, and claiming his own merit based on that, he led nothing less than one third of the angels supporting his rebellion. He would not accept to bow down to mankind after having discovered God’s plan of salvation. He would not accept being second best to creatures not so perfect as him, to Sons and Daughters of God.

Men and women were not perfect, after all.

Now we have our own version of Faust dwelling into these troublesome and difficult waters… and moving one step ahead. After all, he is not unfamiliar to Hebrew traditions, we suppose.

He will not launch a product which is not perfect…

Leaving aside any definition of what perfect exactly means in his mind, should we understand that when WebOS is out there it will really be perfect? Will the tablets or smartphones that run there really achieve that?

Several million people all over the world may have something to say about that… and the same wrongly understood sense of pride which ultimately led Lucifer to rebellion floats in the atmosphere, as Satan’s shadow floated over Faust through Mephistopheles, according to the German legends that our dear 21st-Century Faust is probably not unaware of.

Lucifer is also know as The Fallen Angel… if he continues the trend of the stock value of the company he is leading, he will soon match the same “perfection” as the former.

 

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Faust 2.0

 

German culture and traditions are an intrinsic part of Europe’s History. As Europe may not be understood without Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Balzac, Macchiavelli, Dumas, Locke… it could not either without Goethe, one of whose latest works was the story about Faust.

This is the story of a deal… an agreement, if you will… or in modern language, a Strategic Alliance. Faust was given 24 years of unlimited happiness by Mephistopheles in exchange of his immortal soul for eternity.

Immortal souls are often represented in art like auras or halos around their owners… Immortal souls which constitute the essence of their owners, like state-of-the-art products constitute the souls of leading technology companies.

Recently one German-led company has allowed its German head to sell off a significant portion of its immortal soul, or halo, in exchange of having its new partner serving as exclusive agent to HP for certain Universal Communications (UC) solutions. Probably the same way as Mephistopheles was the agent of Faust to grant the latter the appropriate deliverables for his ultimate happiness.

We do not really know what is included in the definition of happiness for our new version of Faust, but in fact it has not proven any kind of happiness to HP shareholders so far, as much as Faust’s original happiness did not really mean any happiness at all to poor Gretchen.

And we do not know either for how long this so-called happiness will last… Despite the original legends stipulated 24 years, our personal bet is that Faust 2.0 may enjoy 24 months, or eventually 24 weeks…

 

Technorati Tags: halo,hp,apotheker,polycom,uc,universal communication,faust,goethe,mephistopheles

The oracle at Compiegne

 

The even forces, at least on paper, that were standing in late 1939 at either sides of the Maginot Line, would not imagine that less than 6 months later, the initially outnumbered German army would inflict the French the worst defeat ever.

22 years earlier, Germany surrendered to the French. The French required the Germans to sign off the Armistice in a train wagon at Compiegne. The French kept the wagon as a monument to the French Victory and as well to the German Defeat. Fro the French, the German surrender of 1918 was a revenge to the German victories in the 1870s, and so it was carved on stone near the place where the train wagon was exhibited.

When in June 1940 the German flags were unfurled in Paris, the French High Command still had to formally sign its surrender, and they were called to do so at, precisely, Compiegne, and precisely in the same train wagon that the French had kept. Fro the German Leader, as important as the victory itself, the Germans were seeking revenge to the limit of humiliation. He instructed specifically his generals to set the ceremony that way. Anecdotally, the Germans made and intentional stop in front of the stone carving before the actual surrender signing.

We have witnessed recently the Oracle-SAP case verdict. It states that the latter has to pay the former the highest ever penalty in copyright infringement cases. Oracle’s victory sounds pretty much like the worst defeat ever inflicted to SAP.

It looks, however, like the Pontifex Maximus at the oracle is looking after his own Compiegne… Not really necessary, not fundamentally changing the lawsuit case, appearing more as a token gesture than a fundamental part of the trial, is this really something beyond a simple wish of humiliation?

Technorati Tags: oracle,sap trial,sap,tomorrownow,lawsuit,copyright,infringement,larry ellison,phyllis hamilton,jury,verdict,lawyer,hp,fine

Legacy’s cost

 

“Number 2 is just the first one of the losers”, says a very famous motorbike racer who has been World Champion many times (still not retired) who loves being the fastest one.

This would be too radical a view when we have a look to any market, where there is not just one winner. It would actually be impossible under antitrust regulations.

However, the quote from Valentino Rossi (which is the biker’s name, as many bike fan’s might have guessed) can be understood in the context of what is currently going on in the smartphone market (and eventually in the tablet’s too), where old kings are running the serious risk of being phased out from their former positions.

Of course there can be space for them, and we actually believe there will always be, in fact. But it is really hard to accept being below second rank after past history dominance.

RIMM, Nokia, though still hitting very important volumes, might well be in that situation. The issue is the trend, clearly decaying, and the chance that they still base their current results on legacy. .

Legacy of corporate business and systems that have an enormous cost of change. Legacy of users who are provided a phone by their companies that might be used for personal purpose. Legacy from past experiences and resistance to adapt to new phones from previous ones.

But legacy has a deadline and does not last forever. History proves legacy is not enough, and costs empires. Ask the British about India, ask the French about Indochina, ask the Dutch about their Indies, or ask the Russians for the “xxxstan” republics. there is still a Britain, a France, Netherlands and Russia… but where did their empires go?

Technorati Tags: microsoft,nokia,rimm,apple,samsung,android,lg,htc,hp,webos,palm,meego,blackberry,consumer electronics,symbian,google

Losers needed

 

Everybody likes a winner. In America, for example, “loser” is often used as an insult…

As well, and probably for the same reasons, everybody likes winning.

The problem with winners, however, is that to have a winner, you need losers. Winning is a relative situation. No losers mean no winners. When you win, you win against someone. Victory goes always at somebody else’s expense.

We have been wondering for a while about what is going between Oracle and HP. After the latest “victory” Oracle enjoyed, the well known trial against SAP for copyright infringement, which in fact involved indirectly HP through its current CEO Léo Apotheker, we have read about new aggressive arguments from Oracle’s Big Mouth Larry, aka the Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, targeting HP.

These last comments from the Pontifex indeed sound to us like a formal war declaration that finally comes up, after the de-facto war status so far, at least from the oracle’s side. Since the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by the latter, the once good partnership between Oracle and HP has degraded into a bitter relationship between the two companies that could mean in a closer relationship between HP and SAP, for example. SAP might really be all for it. As a matter of fact, we do believe this would be a logic step to take, and would certainly put a strong opponent in front of the Pontifex.

The Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, however, has a strong reputation after his manners, boastings and eventual bluffing. Not precisely an example of a New England British-like traditional gentleman, though effective and results-oriented. In fact, he is the real foundation of his company’s success. Personally, as well, he has fared pretty well, being considered the sixth richest man on earth. And the question remains open: Why HP in particular? What has this Pontifex Maximus against HP?

We do not have the full record of Oracle’s history, nor any insider information source. We don’t from HP either. But still, from the public information we might have had access to, we think we have an idea of what might be the reason.

Big Mouth Larry is probably no exception from the opening statements in this post. He loves winners, and he loves winning. Therefore, he sees any activity he steps into, anything he does, as a competition, as a battle, as a contest… that he ultimately has to win. To prove himself and the rest of the world he is a winner, and the world should love and admire him the same way he adores and admires himself.

Running his company is for him nothing different from any other kind of competition, and he takes it as something where he must win. He would not stand himself if he wouldn’t. Recall the way his PR is managing the fact that a cluster made of Sun Micro servers is the fastest one managing databases: They talk about this the same way they talk of the Oracle boat winning the America’s Cup.

And there is where the matter lies. To become a winner requires him to find a loser, Otherwise, there is no winner. So considering his options, there seem to be three possible opponents: Cisco, IBM, and HP. Cisco being the weakest, in reality it’s already behind Oracle.

Both IBM and HP are phenomenal references. IBM being the master company in the IT industry, a reference for decades, and HP being the largest IT company by revenue. But from the two, HP is weaker, compared to IBM, and certainly within range for Oracle’s artillery.

In other words, HP is a “beatable” foe in the eyes of Oracle, weak enough in certain areas, like software, and big enough for any victory on them to be regarded as brilliant. Beating HP would be a triumph the industry would recognize.

IBM would still be out of reach for Oracle. At least, farther than HP. And despite the Pontifex’ ultimate wish to beat them too, the guy is probably still intelligent enough to declare he does not intend to “tease them too much”. We do not think Oracle is not going after IBM because Big Mouth Larry likes IBM; we think he realizes he would probably not succeed if he tried, and wants not to appear as a loser should anybody think he wanted to fight IBM.

So the Pontifex is looking for losers to beat so he can feel recognition for his victories, so he can feel a winner. And HP’s problem with that is just being in range. That is, in our opinion, the underlying cause in the Pontifex’ fixation with HP. The risk now for the Pontifex, however is not really being able to make it. Having the speed record of database processing does not necessarily mean winning anything.

Technorati Tags: oracle,hp,ibm,sam palmisano,larry ellison,leo apotheker,sap,sun microsystems,management,competition,exadata,database,sparc,server,cluster

The wrong apple

 

According to Christian tradition, Eve and Adam bit the apple from the Tree of Life and were expelled from The Garden of Eden for doing that.

That was long ago, however.

Today they could manage their bits with different apples, and mankind might fare better than it actually does. At least, it would be a more reliable world, according to this report.

More seriously, traditional PC makers like HP and Dell are losing ground in an aspect of PC business that really depends only on each of them: Service and Support. Not good news at all for a business who is losing mindshare in the market, running real fast towards (more) commoditization, and getting farther from better times.

 

 

Technorati Tags: apple store,pcworld,report,reliability,andam and eve,customer satisfaction,customer service,hp,dell

Cheap fuel

 

As long as cars need fuel, its price (as insurance’s, maintenance’s, taxes…) ought to be added to the total cost of owning one.

Cheap gas or lower taxes do not guarantee any given car is better than other using a different type of fuel or subject to higher taxes.

It’s the total ownership and driving experience what matters.

And, by the way, the fact that a given fuel type today might be cheaper than another does not ensure it won’t change in the future, once the car has been bought.

Not really sure smartphone users have really analyzed their potential expense on apps when they decide to buy one.

We do not therefore think this is necessarily going to provide any effective help to Windows Phone 7 in its struggle against iPhones or Androids… and we are not really sure this is going to make very happy developers, as their financials won’t have the same prospects as the ones provided by developing for Androids or iPhones.

 

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The German Choice

 

Since 1943, many German cities were heavily and systematically bombed by the USAAF and the RAF. The Allies strategy at that time was to use these bombings as a means to help their Soviet friends in the Eastern Front and to weaken Germany in preparation for invading Europe in the West, planned for 1944.

Hamburg, in Northern Germany, was one of the cities included in the bombing plan. After the war, in fact, as many other German cities, it had to be reconstructed from the ground. Anglo-Americans called the bombing of Hamburg Operation Gomorrah. Explicit enough, we’d say.It lasted 8 days and 7 nights.

One of those nights, in late July 1943, hundreds of American bombers approached the city, and started dropping its cargo. Several thousand feet below, a woman had to hurry to the bomb shelter as the nearby buildings started to be hit by the bombs, and fire caught in them. After several days and nights of no sleep, bombing targeted her neighborhood.

The woman was trying to race among hundreds of other women, men, elders and children. Her husband, an infantry officer in Russia, was not there to help, so she had to take care of her three children, aged 2, 5 and 7.

Panic was all over the place, shelters to few and small, were almost fully packed, so being the closest one impossible to enter, the woman had to go on to the next one.

More bombing, more buildings scrambling down, and the fire. Fire tornadoes everywhere (Gomorrah, remember?) with flames roaring so loud that is was impossible to hear the screaming and yelling from the people, from the women, form the elders, from the children, no matter how collapsed the streets were, hos close to each other people were.

The woman was exhausted, and so were her children. Carried along by the mass of people looking for protection, she could just hold her youngest boy in one arm, and hold her 5 year old boy with another. She had no more hands, and just seconds to decide.

But it was the toughest decision in her life. Which kid should she hold, who should run the risk to be left behind? She looked at her eldest, a 7 year old girl, and instructed instructed her to hold her mother’s skirt tight and keep running behind her, as close as she could.

The little girl could not make it. The crowd overran her, and she lost her mother and brothers ahead. Her brothers, held my their mother, made it to the bomb shelter. Two years later, they were still alive. the 5 year old boy, decades later, became one of the directors at Dresdner Bank in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

One of us met him years ago, in fact. This is not a fake story.

What choice do you make when you know that whatever you choose you are going to lose?

That German woman had to face a tough choice that would haunt her the rest of her life.

We would not like to be in the shoes of other Germans who have to make very hard decisions these days. And whatever they choose, they will suffer quite much.

Technorati Tags: sap,leo apotheker,larry ellison,oracle,tomorrownow,verdict,jury,copyright infringement,infringement,lawsuit,trial,phyllis hamilton,billion,million

Collateral triangles

 

Every war has, besides its expectable casualties, additional damages that could not be avoided, predicted or foreseen.

In recent wars, the term “collateral damages” has been coined to justify or explain these unexpected damages.

We see a potential collateral damage to a company that has nothing to do, in principle, with the Oracle-SAP case, which is Hewlett-Packard. As much as its current CEO, Leo Apotheker, used to be CEO at SAP, and as much as he was a potential witness to the case, but managed not to show up, this could impact HP’s reputation somehow.

Now, at the same time, we are able to see a potential second collateral effect which might benefit both SAP and HP.

Should SAP shares lose enough value due to the trial’s verdict, it could be a potential good move for HP to do a little M&A with SAP… Still, a careful move to make, as it would be a very special situation for the former SAP CEO to acquire SAP precisely, when SAP just recently came out from the trial like it did.

Nothing against an ex-CEO to purchase as CEO somewhere else his former company. After all, HP PSG’s head, Todd Bradley, used to be CEO at Palm, and Palm is now part of HP, isn’t it? It’s more about the triangle made of SAP Ex-CEO now HP CEO – Trial – Shares losing value…

Interesting theory in our opinion, definitely worth blog posting.

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Save your fireworks for the moment

 

After Hewlett-Packard posted its latest quarterly results and outlined next fiscal year expectations, there has been a general perception of HP willing to provide a “Thanksgiving gift” to its employees or issuing pay raises, and similar views.

Though arguably technically correct expressions, we do not really think Hewlett-Packard could consider this a gift or a pay raise.

Firstly, what Hewlett-Packard is going to do with salaries is just setting them back to the levels of early 2009, before Mark Hurd decided to slash them under the financial circumstances of that moment. This does not really seem and increase at all. Conceptually speaking, Hewlett-Packard was requesting support from its employees at that time, and putting salaries now right were they where is just returning the favor.

Secondly, it was only a portion of employees who were impacted by salary reductions in 2009. It’s only them who are going to have their wages repositioned. This is, obviously, not a pay raise.

Thirdly, HP will grant better funding for US employees social plans 401(K). True that HP is an American company… as true is that it has a lot of employees who are not working in the US nor for the US branches of Hewlett-Packard. Is this a general benefit for HP employees? We are afraid this goes only to employees based in the US.

Of course, we recognize a positive tone under after these news. But if we were an average HP employee, we would be cautious. These measures are not something to throw fireworks. In fact, as we said earlier in November, this somehow the least Hewlett-Packard should do for its employees, especially after the difficult times of 2009 are over. At least, according to Hewlett-Packard’s own results.

We still see two benefits for Hewlett-Packard after these measures:

On one hand, as Léo Apotheker was not at all responsible for those pay cuts in 2009, he will benefit from employees appreciation. He could have simply ignored the need to act as he has, demanding more time to think about it, as he has said when being asked for more details on his plans for the future. Even in the case he had done so, nobody would have been able to blame him for the pay cuts.

On the other, there might be some gains in the appreciation employees have for the company they work for. A more positive attitude from them would certainly turn into better performance, one way or another.

Overall, tone is OK… but we would recommend some skepticism for the time being. It probably is a bit too early, to quote Léo Apotheker himself.

 

 

Technorati Tags: hp,leo apotheker,quarterly results,conference call,fiscal q1,financial results,mark hurd,employee satisfaction,pay raises,benefits,press conference

No more hiding, yet hidden

 

Several months ago, Hewlett-Packard announced its partnership with Bletchley Park for its WWII archives digitization.

For those readers who might not be familiar to the name, Bletchley Park is the site where the main activities by the Intelligence Services took place in order to decipher and break German codes.

According to Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during the war, Bletchley Park was the British Secret Weapon that allowed them to win the war. In fact they succeeded in breaking the German Code used by the famous Enigma machines, and ever since, German communications were transparent to the Allies despite having had the most technologically advanced cipher system. By the way, Germans never learnt before they surrendered their code had been broken, so sure they were about it.

Leó Apotheker is proving certainly some special skills which we find uncommon in a standard CEO. Not only he has smartly avoided any distraction related to the SAP-Oracle trial that is in its final stages, but as well shows some genuine sense of humour.

Furthermore, we think we have detected some additional skill. If we read carefully the press note in the previous link, we notice that just after the humoristic comment about actually being in Palo Alto during the conference call with analysts where HP posted latest financial results, he made a reference to Oracle’s attempt to distract him calling the latter “a competitor”.

Many journalists and online media have taken Oracle’s acquisition of Sun a sort of war declaration to HP, as Oracle had never been before in the hardware business. HP has claimed always Oracle as a partner, even after Mark Hurd’s “defection” in late summer 2010 to Oracle.

But we believe the term “competitor” was not really used just by chance. As the humoristic remark by Apotheker was catching the audience’s attention, he discreetly was sending a warning: Calling Oracle “a competitor” without mentioning directly its name was a way, in our opinion, to accept the war declaration from Oracle. Something like “Hi there, Larry! If you are looking for war, you got it.”

As a matter of fact, there are some facts that might support this thesis:

1. Out from the strategy hints Herr Apotheker offered, it seems clear his intention of boost R&D and software within HP. If this is not targeting Oracle, we guess nothing would. As Oracle got Sun, HP steps into software. If Oracle shows its teeth, HP does the same thing.

2. If HP confirms its dumping of Siebel (part of Oracle) and switches to Salesforce for CRM, this would be a clear war act.

We do not really know how close Herr Apotheker is to HP’s projects with Bletchley Park, but certainly he, on top of other skills, seems to be showing some expertise in coded messages.

Technorati Tags: apotheker,hp,sap,oracle,trial,tomorrownow,larry ellison,lawsuit,code,bletchley park,winston churchill,enigma,competition,management,conference call,quarterly results

Unnecessary oracles

 

Long time ago, in the times of Ancient Greece, people consulted oracles to foresee the consequences of their acts, to know somehow the future in advance, and based many of their decisions upon the priest’s or priestess’ response to their queries.

It was the case of Croesos, King of Lydia, who asked the oracle at Delphi what would the outcome be should he attack the Persian Empire. The priestess at the oracle cryptically replied that if Croesos attacked the Persians, one mighty empire would be destroyed. Croesos, thinking she meant the Persians, certainly attacked. No wonder he thought that way: In anticipation to his question, he sent lavish presents to the oracle. The problem for Croesos was that the priestess was thinking of Lydia…

At that time, oracles were consulted even when answers were obvious. People believed the priests were in contact with the gods, and, no matter how obvious an answer could be, still they consulted the oracles, and donated huge treasures to get favorable responses.

Today, we would say oracles are not needed when consequences are obvious. Even if the priests still think they are so close to the gods that they are gods themselves.

And we believe Herr Apotheker, the missing pharmacist, probably thinks the same way…

 

 

Technorati Tags: larry ellison,hp,oracle ceo,siebel,crm,salesforce.com,leo apotheker,crm deal,dreamforce,enterprise

Houdini

 

Harry Houdini was an Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, besides other aspects of his professional life.

He is best remembered precisely for his escapologist tricks . That was his magic: To escape from any sort of super-complicated wrapping with ropes, handcuffs or even chains, and amazing his audience with his demonstrations.

Today Hewlett-Packard has reported sort of magic results, exceeding analysts expectations.

Given the recent “escapologist” experiences demonstrated by Herr Apotheker, as Oracle has unsuccessfully claimed his attendance as a witness to the current trial it is waging against SAP, it looks like we have a new Houdini at Hewlett-Packard, as he delivers magic results when he disappears!

Technorati Tags: hp,helett-packard,apotheker,q4 results,financial analysts,press conference,conference call,wall street,earnings,share,sap,oracle ceo,trial,oracle,lawsuit,phyllis hamilton,larry ellison,value