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Same Old, Same Old at HP?
theodp writes "Computerworld Editor-in-Chief Don Tenant expresses astonishment at HP's cluelessness in the wake of its boardroom leak investigation fiasco, noting that HP CEO Mark Hurd's choice for a new Chief Ethics Officer was Hurd's go-to guy at NCR when the boss wanted internal leaks investigated." From the article: "It seems incomprehensible that no one at HP could foresee that appointing a former Hurd colleague to the ethics oversight position might be perceived as a shameless attempt by Hurd to keep from being further sullied by the scandal. But there's another dimension to all this that's even more baffling. Nearly two weeks before HP announced Hoak's appointment, BusinessWeek ran a story that recounted how Hurd had to deal with a number of internal investigations at NCR, including probes of leaks of sensitive information on Yahoo message boards."
I have an HP laptop and it works perfectly. I bought it, downloaded the drivers and installed them (my laptop was a cheap one with Freedos), and that's it. Their iPAQ PDAs are probably the best. Much higher quality than Palm, Dell and Acer. And HP probably has one of the best support you can find. Someone gave me an ancient 486 HP server and just for fun I tried to download drivers. To my amazement, its BIOS was last updated in 2001! Most motherboard manufacturers stop supporting their products one year after they are released.
1)Customer looks for tech support number in product manual and literature. No luck.
2)Customer looks for tech support number on web site. No luck. (all you can find is a completely worthless FAQ that is missing even the most basic of questions and answers, alongside a Knowledge...er Know-Nothing-Base)
3)Customer finds the support number by looking in the company's domain registration record.
4)Customer calls number. After being re-routed and bounced and made to call other numbers, customer finally reaches tech support.
5) Customer waits 37 minutes to talk to someone.
6) Customer gets a filtering person, who creates a service record after giving the customer the third degree (When the process is repeated, the filtering person always has to re-create the service record because the previous one forgot to save it)
7) Tech support person asks what the problem is. Customer describes. Support person asks customer to be put on hold. The company disconnects customer after 10 minutes of waiting.
8) Repeat #5,#6,#7 several times. Usually in the same order, but not always (because you so often get staff people who hang up on you instead of transfer you).
9) Real tech support person on the phone! He asks: "Xvswwwovv wavvwat qzxwzvxx?".
Where were you when the voynix came?
That's probably taking it a bit too far. It isn't clear what exactly Hurd's involvement was; during the testimony of his that I watched, he came off pretty well, it didn't seem like he thought everything that happened was ok, he said all the right things, he was actually willing to testify, etc. Saying the right things is easy, but at least he did it.
This decision isn't neccesarily bad either, it is just unfortunate given the recent scandal; the problem is that it doesn't do anything to convey that the problems are being fixed, not that it is a problem in and of itself.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The writing was on the wall when they started to file nasty frivolous lawsuits against other companies that made cartridges for HP printers. HP: Do only evil.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Mark Hurd knew or should have known as much or more about the details of this spy scandal than Patty Dunn. He got detailed reports on the progress of the investigation and somehow was allowed to skate on "I'm sorry, I should have read them but I didn't."
Thing is, Mark's beloved by investors for righting (however temporarily) the sinking ship of HP. He's also better at eating shit than Ms. Dunn, as anyone who watched the congressional hearings can attest. Looks like he's home-free at this point.
I hope karma pays him back, because I don't believe he knew nothing about the Nixonian extent of the spying undertaken in HP's name.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
From NCR delayed contaminant tests: For at least 10 years, NCR Corp. put off testing to learn the full extent of environmental contamination at its former manufacturing complex, in part because company officials feared the results would create adverse publicity and prompt an expensive cleanup, internal NCR memos show...In a three-page letter to the Dayton Daily News dated Jan. 22, Hoak stated that the memos were "confidential, proprietary and attorney-client privileged" and raised legal issues with the newspaper's possession of them, including concerns regarding "trade secrets." Hoak wrote that NCR is "closely examining issues and remedies," and urged the newspaper to "refrain from publishing their contents."
This is utter bullshit - why has it been marked +5 insightful? I can only feel pity for those people that agree with this. The story is about a guy who kept with the same firm for 25 or so years and got to the top. That's 25 years to get a reputation, and there's an old saying that you make your own luck. Mark Hurd isn't a tech, so he didn't work for a company that sells what he did. And changing job once every 25 years doesn't sound like he has a "jump ship" philosophy.
I love the conclusion "and with that you will quickly run the company". Yeah, gee, overnight success in only 22 years, or however long it took the guy to reach the top of NCR.
An alternative perspective:
1. I think healthcare is important. I'd be proud to be doing a good job in that industry. And basically it's just really nasty advice to tell techs that they should only work for tech firms. There's many successful techs that started in finance, retail, pharmaceuticals, etc.
- only work for a company that *respects* what you do.
2. When I finished my post-grad, I joined a start up, which wasn't necessarily going to be a success. My family advised against it. And indeed, it faltered after the collapse of the tech bubble, although fortunately because we were cheap we got bought out. But I knew even if it failed I'd simply be back on the market with a good experience under my belt. As it happens, I ended up in a more senior position than taking a safe job offer.
- don't be afraid to fail or make a mistake.
3. Jump ship "if necessary", AND "do it early"? So which is it? If necessary is fine, but too much of the "do it early" and you'd have to wonder about someone's commitment. And hang on, didn't you also say "only pick sure successes"? What's going on here? Do you jump as soon as it turns out that it's not in fact a sure thing? Doesn't sound like faith or courage play a big part in your philosophy.
- believe in what you do.
(although on point 3 - do have a back up plan. Have your CV up to date. And to be fair - if necessary, jump ship.)