HP used to be a company with style and integrity

It is unsurprising to see that now that HP realises that Spying on people just isn't a good idea, all the directors are denying any knowledge of how it was done. They expect us to believe that load of bullship!

"Sir, we have a leak" "My GOD! Do anything to get rid of it"
* 1 week later * "Sir, I have an update on the leak" "What leak??? oh sorry I've lost interest. Go away"

I am constantly amazed at how corporate managers are somehow not responsible for anything and of course they deserve a bonus and a payrise for being so good at firing people and annihilating the business.

How to stop leaks 101:

1) Shut up and listen to your employees - they know better than you do. No really; they do.
2) See rule 1
3) Make decisions to ensure that the company has a future. Some of this might involve "risk".
4) See rule 1
5) Ignore the shareholders. Most are institutions who will sell their grandma's souls for a buck and they'll dump your arse on a whim and there is no pleasing them - See rules 1 and 3 for solutions.
6) see rule 1
7) If you company makes employees unhappy then they will leave, talk to the press or whatever to make you unhappy too.
8) see rule 1
HP used to be a company with style and integrity. It was a company that set the bar for how corporations should run. In my many dealings with HP in the distant past I was delighted with their customer commitment.
Now they only seem to be interested in how much money board members can be paid while ripping their customers a new one. Just like IBM - without the research and development.

HP - Invade (your privacy)

cheers
Vap

Subject: HP Lawyer falls on her sword

Funny story about this hole HP incident. I finally started to figure it out. At first, I didn't understand the whole thing. People taping conversations and all this nonsense... "what's the big deal?"

Then I figured it out (based on some advice from some legal friends who also worked with state attorneys general). The problem is that the great lawfirms who are hired by these big fortune 500 companies are full of super smart, well educated lawyers from super prestigious law schools. The only problem with these super smart lawyers (and most are really brilliant people) is they tend to focus on knowing FEDERAL law. No one during this whole fiasco seemed to bother to check California statutes.

Basically, the HP board went to the law firm and asked: "can we record people's conversations and check phone records". There was no federal law prohibiting this. Now, it seems that any legal layman might say "wait a second, that doesn't sound right...". But the problem is that some of HP's board members didn't care about what was right, but cared about the law. The lawyers checked the federal statutes (and there are a ton of them, so this was no trivial task). And through this sea of law code, there was nothing saying there was a problem with doing what HP's board members wanted to do.

Ah, but no one seemed to check California's law code (which would apply since HP is based in cali). And the California code specifically prohibited this. And there is the problem. So now, here we are. HP egrigiously violated a state statute and the lawyers are like "oops". Its their fault for not doing their homework, of course; but I just find the whole incident funny. In the end, the lawyers should have just said "well, you know, there is no law against this, but it definitely sounds bad". No one did that. If they had (or at least strongly implied it), then they could have avoided this whole mess. But no one did. HP paid millions of dollars for bunk legal advice. Now both companies are in trouble.

The whole thing seems funny because in the end, if HP's board members just had a some kind of moral compass (and some basic understanding of the constitution even though it does not directly apply to private companies), they would have known that MORE than likely, what they were doing was very wrong. You could have given them that advice. I could have given them that advice. Instead they paid millions of dollars to read the law code, and because someone wasn't dilligent, everyone gets screwed. Wow.

Sean

Subject: AMD Downgrade

Cher, I tried to explain this expected drop to your boy Charlie. He feels the Dell thing was going to be AMD's big pie in the sky. $361 corporate bead and butter machines. Wall Street thought so, too.

AMD is giving away the house to sell chips to DELL. Good for Dell, bad for AMD's profits. AMD made a deal with the devil, sans the bling factor.

DELL is now,undoubtably, a non combatant in the AMD v INTEL case. Good for DELL, good for INTEL. AMD is still cutting profit margins to sell to DELL. Bad for AMD.

New Core2's blowing away AMD's best at $300 less. Further, YOU know AMD, and I know AMD, do 'Ma and Pop Kettle' from Indiana know AMD? They know DELL and INTEL and the 'other guy'. However, Intel, with them 'newfangled processors', along with a media blitz, well, Chistmas is coming, Hellooo.

AMD WILL MISS THE CHRIST TURKEY THIS YEAR.

AMD is in a price War the CANNOT afford.

The old INTC inventory is gone. I saw a sale at TIGERDIRECT, are you ready, $60 D840's; one day sale!!

Look at INTC's 3 year average. They are coming out of the hole, big. They have no debt, in, fact they are cash rich. AMD is up to their asses in debt. No cash. They, after the ATI deal, will be 'owned' by J.P.MORGAN. READ: 5 BILLION. AMD will get creamed if their stock goes below 20. Further, Nvidia will be pounding ATI to the pavement.

The last nail in the coffin will be if NVDA and INTC start making nice-nice.

AMD is still stuck in 90n production, INTC is looking at 45n at the end of 2007! Charlie had pictures of nice quad AMD wafers; nice coasters. They are not in machines. INTC has Quads up and running, ready to be released at the end of the year, probably early, just to impress.

INTC just cut the fat and dead wood out, middle management, big time. They are lean, mean and pissed off. Yamamoto once said he awakened a terrible giant and filled him with a terrible resolve. Does a 119B in Market cap classify a company a GIANT? Imagine CHIPZILLA pissed at you, pissed at himself?

Ya see where this all going? The AMD party is over! Wall street see's it; to answer your question. So do BIG investors, ie., money managers.

What does all mean? JUMP on INTC NOW!!! It's still a bargain at 20.77, it's worth 25 easy. After 4Q reports it will be to late. Ya can't go wrong if ya sell it after January. (you might not want to) Don't let your INQ fanboy's stop you from making nice juicy MOOLA. Just don't tell 'em if ya go for it!

Don't tell Charlie I sent ya.

Joe Santamaria (SPARKS)

Subject: Fires

Big M:

You don't think "Intel inside" might be causing these battery failures do you? Some CPUs draw so much power, more power than the battery could put out.

Sony can't reproduce the cause and effect.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c5ce704e-4f26-11db-b600-0000779e2340.html

"While it conceded that the battery failures reflect a manufacturing flaw in the battery cells it supplies to laptop makers, Sony also continued to maintain on Thursday that the problem was at least partly caused by the laptops themselves. The risk of fire “can be affected by variations in the system configurations found in different notebook computers,” it said.

Earlier this month, one person familiar with Sony's own internal investigation of the problem said that, despite extensive testing, the company's engineers had not been able to produce any battery failures themselves, suggesting that the cause may lie partly in the systems designs used rather than solely in the battery."

RAZZZ

Subject: Apple to trademark "podcast"

GOOD!

Maybe this will stop all the jackasses on the internet from using that f*cking word and call it shoutcasting or streaming audio like it should PROPERLY be called.

Podcasting is an ignorant word which suggests you need a god awful iPod to tune into. It is surprising that Apple wouldn't want to let people popularize their garbage with the word podcasting, but hey, Apple is a stupid f*cking company. They probably think people will actually pay them for the privilege of continuing to use this misnomer.

I was hoping eventually people would quit using it of their own accord, but the accelereated death of the word "podcasting" brings me indescribable joy.

Eric Wilson

Subject: zune price

Apple makes huge profits at $249 but Microsoft makes huge losses selling the same product at $249.99. There must be a socialist running the Zune division. Be careful about the music pricing: Microsoft actually said that "many" songs will be 99 cents. That the company is matching Apples pricing is spin.

grabowski

Subject: Whis is MS referred to as "Vole"?

Just wondering if there was some underlying joke I'm missing.

MS = Vole ?

ubiquityman