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David Packard Writes HP Epitaph
ewhac continues: "Today, he shared his thoughts on the merger in the form of a poster placed in the Stanford Theatre lobby:
Hewlett Packard
1938 -- 2002
R.I.P.
The Stanford Theatre still exists today only because of the employees of the Hewlett Packard Company. Without their achievements over the years, there would have been no foundation to purchase and restore this theatre.
Palo Alto might have had one more book store, or perhaps another restaurant. Architects had plans ready for a new "Casablanca Cafe" at this location when the Packard Foundation rescued the theater in 1987.
The Hewlett Packard Company was founded in 1938 in a garage on Addison Street only a few blocks from where you are now standing. Back then, the Stanford Theatre was showing brand new movies. In 1938 you could have seen Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby and Holiday . You could have seen Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood . You could have seen Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, and Tyrone Power in Alexander's Ragtime Band . You could have seen Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You . You still can see these same movies at the Stanford Theatre. Our audiences know that they are truly timeless.
The HP Way also touched many people's lives. Most of us expected that it would last forever -- that it would prove as timeless as a Frank Capra movie. But those entrusted with the duty to safeguard it have exercised their legal right to make another choice. Dura lex, sed lex. The law is harsh, but it is the law.
HP employees are now on a new ship, being taken on a new voyage. The company has even changed its stock symbol to HPQ to stress that the "old" HP is gone. For the sake of the surviving employees, of course I hope for a good outcome. But it is hard to imagine that their leaders can invent something better than what they left behind.
David W. Packard
The Stanford Theatre Foundation.
"The San Jose Mercury News also has a short article about Packard's message.
"Editorial Content: HP's road to the merger has been the subject of much lunchtime controversy out here. As one of the "founders" of Silicon Valley, Hewlett Packard has for decades been a highly respected institution who earned their reputation through solid engineering and research, and by creating a legendary workplace envied the world over.
"Especially in the Valley, people within and without HP came to feel as David Packard did; that The HP Way would survive management fads and fickle stockholders, and serve as a lasting example of How To Do It Right. But HP's current management has won the right to move onward; to where, no one is sure.
"Though the company is still there, the HP mythos and The HP Way seem to be gone. All anyone can do now is watch and see what happens next."
IAC, I'm not surprised he is sad to see HP go. Fuck, we are all sad. But there is some good to be found.
Remember our mutual enemy: Microsoft. And the enemy of our enemy is also our friend, in this case. In other words, Microsoft is a huge company. Only by creating a company huge enough to battle it (Linux is too small right now, but maybe they will get bought by HPaq!) may we triumph. It is the American Way.
HP and Compaq have already gotten themselves behind the Linux movement. Linus himself even suggested once that perhaps Linux should change its name to ComPHux, IIRC. This is great news for every true geek out there, and a Good Thing (tm).
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Right. Just like Martin Luther - changing the course of history and having an immeasurable impact on the worl we live in today.
Oops. It's not like that at all. It's this rich kid who's bummed because his dad sold out but wanted to retain control. Look at what he says,
"The HP Way also touched many people's lives. Most of us expected that it would last forever -- that it would prove as timeless as a Frank Capra movie. But those entrusted with the duty to safeguard it have exercised their legal right to make another choice. Dura lex, sed lex. The law is harsh, but it is the law. "
The HP Way would last forever? What kind of delusional ego trip were these people on.
Just what kind of religion was this HP Way? Apparently one that worships in old movie theaters.
This whole thing reaks of much of what is wrong with this country.
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
When you think about how it must feel to watch your family legacy so completely turned on its head, I am shocked that, given that he would make a public statement at all, that this one was quite restrained. Typically if someone is going to cross that line and get invovled, there tends to be a lot of emotional momentum. I suspect this is why, during the Compaq/DEC merger, there wasn't much talk at all outside business issues. It is a shame to see that the concept of family business has taken another hit, but Packard is obviously a mature adult, something that we're not exposed to often enough. [troll] Think about other vocal members of the tech community? Does anyone really consider Stallman a muture adult?[/troll]
This too shall pass.
Silicon Valley Daily has a short summary of HP including what their first product was and a picture of the garage where it all got started.
It may be a bunch of rubbish to you, but it's not to the people who built HP over the years. HP pretty much got the Silicon Valley ball rolling. They did it the right way - Hewlett and Packard didn't even know what they were going to build when they started the business. It took them several years before they focused on office and computer technologies, but they were built on the notion that inventive, hardworking, principled people can do great things.
The success of HP and Intel and Apple led to a concentration of creative energies that built more of the technologies you and I take for granted than I could list.
Sure, there are a ton of needs that are of much greater importance than building a company. But this isn't just about multimillionaires, this is about thousands and thousands of people over the years who worked at a place they could believe in. They didn't feel like they were fleecing the public. They were proud of what they were producing. They were happy that the company they were working for took care of them.
I'd say that's pretty important. But I guess I'm not being cynical enough.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
To me as well Agilent is the *real* HP. Remember, it all started back in '38 when Bill and Dave designed their first little gadget which was definitely neither a computer nor a printer. It was an RF Oscillator - test and measurement equipment.
The other thing that strikes me is the parallel to DEC: DEC used to be a great company as long as Ken Olsen was around. After he left the place things went down pretty fast. Same with HP.
perl -e 'printf("%x!\n",49153)'
HP is/was good at what they do/did. The Deskjet fiasco, well, Microsoft released -- and continues to release -- unreliable operating systems. But, at least HP has some redeeming qualities, such as producing some pretty decent desktops and some high-quality laser printers.
Southwest Airlines will be next, when Herb Kelleher is no longer there. Note that only a founder has enough influence and will to keep a corporation from devolving into a typical faceless mess. When control gets turned over to the MBAs that rose through the ranks, everything heads downhill.
I liked vaxes. And vms. If DEC had avoided the merger then the Alpha might have gone somewhere.
Best Slashdot Co
During 15 years as an IT manager I dealt with a lot of companies. In my mind, I assigned each a BSQ, or Bullshit Quotient. HP employees were the only ones who always had the guts to tell me "We can't do that" if they did not have a solution for me. I found that refreshing.
Have fun in your Brave New World.
Possibly not; it was an indulgence on my part. While it may not have added anything to the material, I don't think it detracted from it, either.
There are a lot of twenty-somethings and younger who read Slashdot, who may have never even heard of Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, Edward Everett Horton, or even Cary Grant (whose closest still-living analog might be Sean Connery), all of them great entertainers.
It also gives Packard's message some historical context. In January of the same year, Benny Goodman had his triumphant jazz concert at Carnegie Hall. On 30 October, Orson Welles plunged the nation into panic with his famous War of The Worlds broadcast . And just a few days later, Kristallnacht took place, widely regarded as the beginning of the Jewish Holocaust.
So, no, I don't think adding the links was necessarily a bad thing. Of course, as the story's submitter, I'm biased... :-)
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
The real HP became Agilent a couple years ago. I heard that when preparing for the split HP determined that the PC portion of the business would not survive a name change (which means all they had to offer in competition was name recognition).
HP is alive and well and out of reach of Carly, it's just known as Agilent now.
(And no I don't work for HP, I work for a competitor.)
Sig is on vacation