HP concedes high end roadmaps in disarray

And the documents also reveal that HP thinks that IBM has the advantage over the New Age P in 2005/2006, unless the new group gets its act together.

Senior New Age P executive Peter Blackmore wants to make deep, not incremental cuts, to leave the way clear to compete with IBM.

The move, first disclosed to senior staff at HPSL (high performance systems lab) in early July, shows that Scott Stallard, general manager of the BCS division, approved plenty of dollar for a 50 strong IPF (Intel Platform) reporting to Paul Perez, in Donovan Nickel's Hardware System Technology Division (HSTD).

That unit was formerly in charge of developments for Superdome, its porting to the Itanic, and for next generation systems aimed at the high end.

Perez, said one document, was in charge of the R&D teams after HP took over Convex.

While the MRO Marlboro future "Snowball" and Avalanche" plans look to be still part of the group's brief, the "Windjammer" project is still being reviewed. A final decision will be made in November.

The new unit will lead what the marketeers call a "Deep Dive" initiative to decide which high end products should be developed for 2005-2006, including product features, topologies and base technologies.

The unit is also likely to pull in other teams to investigate signal integrity, power, thermals, firmware and management.

One memorandum we saw said that HP will "integrate" the units in a bid to minimise disruption to customers and employees. It says: "We need to balance accelerating leadership work on IPF with on-time delivery of PA-RISC, EV7x and EV79-based products to market in the short term."

The unit will also recruit people from the pool still available at Compaq and HP. Part of that process means that the bosses in the new section will "reinforce respect, accountability and trust, to gain credibility with employees", a tacit acknowledgement that there's still some gloom to dispel in the New Age P.

Perez will pick section managers, a technical director, a product planner and techies but will discuss these appointments with human resources before those appointments are confirmed.

Those from the ASPG group had a week to express their interest in positions in the new group, and while most people may transfer at their current salaries, some candidates could be "down-scoped" or "up-scoped". "Down-scoping" is painful while "Up-scoping" is painless.

Another memo from Perez seen by the INQ shows him going out of his way to dispel fears existing in both the "classic HP" and the "classic Compaq".

He says: "Many teams across the new HP - both HP Classic and Compaq Classic - face uncertainty in job security, job assignments, or both. MRO is no exception, but at least this announcement should indicate the beginning of clarity. I am not aware of a hidden grand master plan driving this change. Simply stated, we as the management team are sorting everything out one at a time. We're looking at the business objectives and the economic realities, and managing the portfolio according to priorities. At a time in the company when we're focused on cost structure - we have two business to support, PA-Risc and Alpha both going to IPF - establishing this R&D section here is a serious vote of confidence to HSTD and the talent that resides in MRO".

But Perez also acknowledges that the IPF restructuring is necessary because there's an "internal gap" between the needs of HPQ's roadmaps and its capacity to do the work. Dual investment in both PA-RISC and the Itanium has made the firm re-think investment, and he acknowledges there's a lack of investment.

"This extra bandwidth will be an important boost to HSTD's capacity to deliver," he said. One of the problems, he admits, is that there's a problem against HPQ's main competitor at the high end and in 2005/2006. That's IBM.

He claims that if HPQ gets it right, it will be able to make products that give the first open systems alternative to proprietary mainframe and parallel cluster technology.

He also reminds staff that senior HP executive Peter Blackmore has said during so called "town hall" meetings that he wants to cut costs "deep" through the third financial quarter rather than make cuts, cuts, and cuts again.

Perez said that previous "incremental cuts" distracts from the jobs of making products, and developing the organisation. He adds that "this coming year will be tough". µ

See Also
HP's customers "feel betrayed" by HP, HP says