On 04/17/2015 11:48 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
T writes:
On 04/16/2015 10:44 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
T writes:
On 04/16/2015 04:57 AM, trader_4 wrote:
Her buying up Compaq made no sense to me.

HP and Compaq use to compete on who could make the
worst computers. After Fiorina, it was a mute point.

A moot point, surely?


I went to publik skool

It was also an incorrect point. HP made a lot of
very good computers, and so did Compaq, DEC and
Tandem - all of which were absorbed by HP.

PA-RISC, Itanium, Non-Stop etc.

Carly on the other hand, was widely disliked internally.


Hi Scott,

Oh yes you are correct, they did make some nice stuff.
I should have been more careful about the "past tense".

I do remember the first Compaq 386 I got. Loved the
thing. I thought is was very well done. HP were
well done back then too.

HP and Compaq did not start making crappy computers till
much later. Pretty much around the time Carly took over.

Right now, I tell my customers to expect the hard drives
to go out on HP computers at about 13 months. That would
be 1 month after the warranty expires. And they don't come
with media. And, and, the *******s wont sent you the media.
What they send you is an image of the original install (with
all their junkware included), which will only install on
the original hard drive sent with the unit. Yes, they
check the serial number of the drive.

My solution is to just sell them both a new hard drive and
a copy of Windows whatever OEM. I always give the disk to
the customer. And, I get paid for installing it and customizing
it they way they want.

It is disheartening to see to giants in the industry disintegrate
like they did.

At least HP Instruments was spun off. Their stuff is so
good even Japanese engineers demands tariffs be lifted
to they could use them. So there is an HP bright spot.

I remember when HP Instruments 25 years ago had a policy
that when there was an economic downturn, everyone took
a pay cut rather than laying folks off. The idea
was that they absolutely did not want to lose any
of their intellectual property and not have to retrain
anyone when the economy picked back up. Their instruments
were unbelievably well done. (And no Carly!)

-T