One of the HP-EDS executive team managed to speak for an hour today without once alluding to anything except costs, cutting costs, making more profit for the corporation, growth, saving, increasing revenue, increasing margin for the corporation, getting the forecast right...ad naseum.
Hello? Is HP a technology company anymore? The entire hour was so generic and contentless that it could have been an MBA textbook speech designed to present to the wage slaves on day 90 of the 100 day corporate integration plan.
Where is the vision? Where is the discussion of the convergence of RFID chips, mobile phones, GPS systems, and location based advertising using internet marketing and on virtual servers purchased from Amazon web services. Not to mention the competivtive pressure HP is experiencing from Googles cloud algorithms or the Sun merger with IBM, that could profoundly EDS's general leaning towards Sun as a hardware supplier for thousands of client data centers, and create enormous competitive pressure for HPs blade offering. These are the topics that I want my executives to be conversant in, and use to prove their credibility to be running a global technology company.
Maybe the EDS acqusition was the tipping point for HP. Maybe HP under first Carly and now Mark, has become so big that all it's executives are capable of taking about anymore is the bottom line. And basically the bottom line means their bonus check.
Congratuations, Mr Hurd. You've sold out to Wall st. I have to admit it, $42 million is a pretty good price for your soul.
Just please, please don't sell out me. I love working with technology. I love feeling like the work I do is cutting edge. I love feeling that when I read 'Wired' magazine, I actuallly understand the articles. But, if recent HP-EDS executive performance is anything to go by, it's already too late.
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