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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."
Well, there's no way the Hurd can escape further criticism for the scandal of being twenty years overdue when there's still no usable code.
Oh, that Hurd.
Mark Hurd has been the best thing that's happened to HP in a long time. His decision to bring a trusted advisor from NCR to be in charge of Ethics is hardly baffling - this same individual was able to stop leaks and other unethical behavior at NCR while keeping the activities fully legal and 'above the board'. The scandal at HP arose from Mark directing subordinates to take care of the leak problem, but the subordinates not being trustworthy enough to take care of the problem legally and ethically.
The Computerworld story seems unfair in characterizing this decision as cluelessness - who wouldn't bring in their most trustworthy colleagues to solve their toughest problem?
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Actually it's not their PCs that I think are lousy. It's their technical support. I work at the helpdesk of an appliance store and all of our registers are either dell or HP PC running windows xp. I had two hardrives that went bad that I needed to call in and RMA. One was from Dell and one was from HP. Keep in mind wewe bought the highest level of support from both HP and Dell.
Dell- Phone call took 5 minutes. I told the guy the error code on the test that I ran on the hard drive using their diagnostics disk, he got my address and contact information and then the call was done. The part was shipped to me the next day. Guy I spoke to was from Georgia and although he had an accent neither of us had problems understanding each other
HP- Three... god... damn... hours on the phone with these people. There systems are slow as shit, I can't understand what they are asking me to do, they can't understand me. Ask to get transferred? You either end up in the wrong department or disconnected. EVERY TIME! I called in 5 times just asking to speak to a manager and everytime they either hung up on me or transferred me to their television department. Finally I was able to bully one of the techs into just sending me a hard drive.
Guess which PC company we are going with for our next set of stores?
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
A few quick issues:
1) The probe started before Mark Hurd became CEO.
2) The Board of Directors, specifically the Chairman, was directing the investigation.
3) Internal council, external council and the Chief Ethics Officer (doh, he obviously wasn't qualified for his job) worked closely on the investigation.
4) Hurd was probably a bit more worried about profit and revenue, not some board room soap opera.
5) No one has said that NCR's investigations were in any way illegal or unethical.
6) The illegal activities were performed by a number of other firms.
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?
You may think the leaders of the great companies are exceptional and unique people. You are very wrong. They are just like you, for good and bad. The insight into HP has revealed this quite well. They are probably a little arrogant and eloquent, but you will quickly get that in a matter of a year.
So why do they have millions of $$ and all the perks and you little? A large part is chance.
Assuming you are reasonably competent with a good attitude, you will surely be a project manager. With success, you will oversee all projects in your division, and then probably become division manager. Now, if your division is successfull, you will be promoted fast to corporate leadership, and again, now you need success of the whole corporation to get further, and with that you will quickly run the company.
You can at any time, and you should, jump ship, and continue the career for a new company, just like playing frogs.
The catch in all this is simple: Luck and Selection. If your first project is a failure, your career stops. It does not matter what the reason was. This is true all the way, so:
1. Only work for a company that sells what you do. Only than can you reach the top. An IT guy in a hospital will never run the hospital. Physicians will.
2. Only pick sure successes.
3. Jump ship if neccessary, and do it early. Dont ride a failure to the bottom.
The HP managers just lucked out on the above due to good times or other random global events, and managed not to screw up early on.
Just go for it.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Actually, they make plenty of good decisions. Th bad ones recieve an inordinate amount of attention.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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."