In uk.d-i-y, PoP wrote:

You probably wouldn't want to go back. HP has changed enormously in
recent years since Carlie took over, but it was changing before that
under Lew Platt.

Change is the only constant. (That's from the MBA's Little Book of Cliche,
not to be confused with the far superior Myles na Gopaleen version. But
- uncharacteristically - I digress). HP, like the Metropolitan Police*, is
a large organisation whose character varies enourmously from one bit to
another. HPLabs, where I'm lucky to work, still has the mandate for "blue
skies" R&D, and though we've always been measured ultimately on the value
of that R&D to the corporation, the evaluation of that Value is done over
multi-year timescales, rather than "what have you done for me this
quarter". (Of course, the canny lab manager will arrange to have a few
relevance-bones to toss to the value-for-money-attack-dogs most quarters,
and will when something Big comes off (say, inkjet printing; say,
commercialised RISC architecture; say, a deep Linux capability; say,
supply-chain modelling/mgmt to make the outsourced manufacturing we've
moved to manageable and profitable) to be quite shameless in announcing
"ha ha, we've been investing in that on the quiet for the last 5+ years,
never've done that if we'd been funded on a contract model, now carry on
paying up and you might get another egg-o-gold one day". We work much
more closely with the consulting arm and potential suppliers/collaborators
than we did 10 or more years ago, but the basic mission hasn't changed.
In other bits of the company, change has been much bigger - if you worked
in manufacturing, you've become much more of an integrator of suppliers'
efforts than a horny-handed go-and-turn-a-batch-on-the-lathe-if-someone's-sick
jockey. And lots of people now work for HP who've been brought in as part
of an IT outsourcing deal (e.g. most of the IT staff at Proctor & Gamble)
who've not previously worked for HP, and don't see an immediate change in
their working conditions or relationships.

* Ah yes, my candidate for frankest-radio-interview-ever story. Some twenty
years ago now, someone from the Met's River Police was being interviewed
at discursive length on R4. "Nice thing about the Met", he says, "is it's
big enough that people can pursue their passions and talents. People with
a thing for horses find their way to the Mounted Section. Me, I love
messing about in boats - and here I am on the river. And," he carried on,
voice wonderfully flat, "those with a grudge against humanity work in
Traffic."

It's true, I Heard It Myself.

Stefek