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New Moving that customer from a Chrysler to a dirigible to a sub
That's part of Cringely's take on the HP+Compaq proposed merger. :-) There's no synergy.

[link|http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010906.html|Why Hewlett Packard Buying Compaq is a Very Bad Idea, But Will Happen Anyway]

In announcing the merger, HP and Compaq predicted that the combined company's sales would actually decline. They predicted hard going with regulators and lots of adjustments ahead. All of which means they know this is a bad move but are going to do it anyway. They talked about synergies that don't exist, cost savings that aren't real and that they don't truly believe. So why are they doing this merger?

Compaq was at a desperate dead end, and Carly Fiorina of HP wants to keep her job. Buying Compaq effectively resets the shot clock, buying her another 18 to 24 months before the HP board gives her the boot. This whole $25 billion deal is about executive ego. No other explanation comes even close to making sense.


He also advocates that HP and Compaq dump their huge PC inventory by selling it at auction with no reserve starting at $1. It's their only hope of hurting Dell and IBM and "and make HP look for a short time like it knows what it is doing."

A good read.

Cheers,
Scott.
New It's too good!
And so right! What a stupid idea, one that can (as I referenced in another message) only almost be explainied by the top executives sleeping with each other. Sheesh.
French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
New Viva HPAQ!
Actually, my HP Pavillion has been very reliable and I would probably buy a bunch of them for $1 each. My Compaq on the other hand has been a trail of tears. My father sells both at Staples (retirement job) and he swears by the HPs and swears at the Compaqs. The return rate for Compaq is incredible. And no HP Pavillion has ever been returned to his store and he does the inventory.

Instead of selling them on eBay for $1 each, how about giving them away with a 3 year ISP contract for $9.95 or $14.95 a month (like eMachines does).

Actually, at $1 each, I could have a really awesome Linux farm! Go HPAQ!

Glen
New I have hated Compaqs from day one.
They have always been too slow to get out of their own way. They are difficult to repair because everything is proprietary. They are cranky and have subtle incompatibility problems - and they haven't been that reliable either. Let 'em die.

I remember the original sewing machine portables. I had a client with some and I had to buy regular PC power supplies, strip the board out and solder on the (proprietary) Compaq power connectors so I could get power supplies in them that didn't fail in a few weeks.

I haven't been particularly impressed with the performance of Compaq servers either, but maybe that's because they are always running NT.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New Re: I have hated Compaqs from day one.
While I would be one of the first to agree that 99% of Comcrap's are POS, I have to also say that the M700 laptop is the first Comcrap machine I ever saw do a near flawless install of Mandrake 7.2. All the major components, including the built-in 10/100 NIC, where recognized with the only hitch being that the install misidentified the video card. Fortunately, the card (ATI Rage Mobility) was on the supported list and only took 3 seconds to correct.

The install I just did today of Mandrake 8.0 *was* flawless. No hiccups, no weirdness. I will still have to manually load the driver for the Lucent Winmodem, but I had to do that under 7.2 as well.

Now, if you want to go on a rant about the DeskPros, Persarios, and several other lines they'd botched over the years, I'm right there with you. ;-)
New Hey! Long time no see. Where you been, and is everything OK?
New Some of Q's pro laptops are good
My old Armada 4131T was a very good notebook for me. It was very reliable, rarely crashed, and the hardware was good quality (e.g. excellent keyboard and track pad). It's still working, just for someone else.

However, I wouldn't touch a Presario with a ten foot pole.

Tony
New Compaq laptops are even more MS than Sony ones...
When I began researching issues with Laptops and Linux I found almost no-one had even tried to install Linux on modern Compaq laptops. But even though the Sony VAIOs are pretty MS-centric, a lot more people were willing to have a go at Linuxifying them. That boded ill for Linux support of Compaq laptops and so I barely considered them.

Wade.

"All around me are nothing but fakes
Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

New Well, I installed Caldera on that one for a while
New Speaking of the servers -
and the ProLiant I'll likely be watching periodically - any experience of finding suitable Linux drivers for using such hardware?

For ex. I noted (no manuals yet, maybe coming):
W2K Server IDs it as just 'Proliant' and Intel x86 Family 6, Model 7 550 MHz CPU, with a BIOS date of 12/8/99.
And Ultra-SCSI, apparently via Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra 160/m PCI card. Found shown a "Compact Smart Array Controller" listed in hdwre. and among running tasks: "cpqarray" and "cpqarry2".

So I'm wondering if you can even find the necessaries for this prolly pretty fair quality guts - to do Linux, at all? Especially - re the RAID array. I don't yet know how many other proprietary Compaq utils are part of this install.

I'll try to keep them going with the fait accompli; it's there and so far working. But would be nice to know if it could be wiped and reused - if problems arise after it's reconnected to world via ISDN (only current option available, where they are).

The thought of checking for the patch of the week, staying ahead -?- of the most popular script-kiddie attractor extant - I won't relish. (At least they aren't using IIS)



A.
New Linux on Compaq servers
Is a lot better supported than you'd think.

The SmartArray drivers are part of the normal kernel distro, in fact. I ran several quad CPU Proliants with Linux and SmartArray controllers.
Regards,

-scott anderson
New Thanks - comforting thought.
I presumed that the 'Compaq extensions' are well-done and indeed perform well. Am I right to infer from your comment that, the Linux versions are fully equivalent / adequate? ie, if managing W2K-Server, with some added tasks next.. proves either unfathomable (or unbearable):

A ProLiant + RAID array - can be wiped and resurrected, in a (say 'fairly routine' way?) via driver support as exists now? (Not by me, anytime soon - but by a local competent, I mean.)

{sigh} You guys earn yer $. This amateur 'knows' just enough to have generated a Gotcha List already, no doubt incomplete. Any major alterations will need a local pro.

Thanks for the hint,

A.
New I feel your pain - I really do . .
I interviewed at a private school yesterday. Their IS guy (who's policies have been likened to the Gestapo) is leaving, and apparently with him all documentation (all in wetware storage). They want me to handle the documentation, provide a transition path, train an administrator and provide on-call support for major problems.

They have one Proliant and one Prosignia, both running Windows NT 4.1.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New err.. cc: AB?__________________cackle..
Sounds perzackly like what I may have inherited, 'document'wise :[ except, they had no BOFH - simply, their node was unplugged from Mother, and left floating. (I may.. get all the stuff that came with the pieces; one of the original install techs sounds copacetic. But promises are cheap.)

And.. (haven't found out how frequent reboots other than, "some") their W2K Server install has seemed to bear out the claim that it's more stable than NT.x But its job had thus been reduced to simply:

A) keeping a "J: drive" (no doubt.. the RAID) accessible to 4 laptops running 98SE, as a common R/W space and, a printer.

B) not eating itself in any permanent way.

(Hell - what was that Multi-DOS program, MPM? - coulda shared files with an old 386.. Switched tasks with Quarterdeck's neat hack.. Seems to be mostly correspondence anyway.) {sigh} Wasted Pro-WhateverTF.

This ran for about 6 mos 'unattended'. The HP DAT - seems to be backing up *something* yet to be explored. Natch I'm not taking the slightest chance of crashing the sucker, as I accumulate info via those colorful and infinite-layered menus. Most with terminology just vaguely altered enough, dumbed-down in that Mickey-Rat way, that - -

BTW - re the ex-Gestapo guy and in general: is there any implied legal obligation in these er "Information-besotted Technologies" that: upon leaving, an admin (must! ??) pass on at least basic operational details *he* has generated? Anything court-actionable, that is ???

('Cause I know what I'd want, in writing *now*, given that there Are BOFHs - obviously older kids now.. who used to have all their toys crushed on alternate weeks by a Dad/Mom from Hell)

Thanks fer moral support.
(Gawd.. if I had to do this for food - prolly starve. Or be jailed for PHB-cide, if that's a crime?)




Ashton
let no good deed go unpunished
New PHB-icide
There are two Latin phrases that describe crimes: mala-in-se and mala-in-lex. (Apologies if my Latin spelling is off, I'm faking it from Spanish.)

PHB-icide is mala-in-lex.
White guys in suits know best
- Pat McCurdy
New Cackle.. works OK in my lex-icon______________:-\ufffd
New Eh, "NT 4.1" -Is that Gryge-speak for Windows 2000, or what?
New Naah, It's 4.0 w/Service Pack 6a applied
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New how they ever had the stones to sell 30k intel servers
that I could build for 6k and everyone looking at me like I am the moron, I dont know. Maybe people woke up.
thanx,
bill
Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves.
Chuck Palahniuk
New There are (were?) 2 Compaqs.
There was the one that sold "business" systems - those were expensive, and tested, and worked well. (For being propritary, requring mostly compaq expansions, etc. etc. etc.).

Their servers, for instance, were *good*. Desktops from that side of things were quite usable, and didn't have the "cheap" shortcuts that Dell's and Gateways had. (For instance, I had a Dell 200 MMX desktop - with 256k L2 cache. You *couldn't buy* a motherboard on the DIY market without 512k when 200 MMX were out.)

Then there's the stuff you see in Best Buy, Circuit City, Staples, I'd presume....

That's out there, cheap and fast. Packard Bell gave them the impetus - cut out QA. Shift that to the customer, overall you save money. (Consumer IBM's had the same problem, I don't know if they fixed it).

So if you're used to seeing the junk for the mass market, you get the wrong impression for their much more expensive stuff.

Addison
New Should someone notice the preps for a fire sale -?-
HP or Cpq: Please post something.. I mean, if they read Cringely, and decide to sell rather than crush..

Wouldn't mind paying even $25 for a nice GHz Something, with all the bits glued in place.. Why with 3 - I could have a different distro of Linux on each one, in case I forgot where I left /home. (Us newbies have to stay away from the gotchas of dual-booting n'such)




It'll be my final revenge on Pfeiffer (was it? earlier at Cpq.)
     Moving that customer from a Chrysler to a dirigible to a sub - (Another Scott) - (20)
         It's too good! - (wharris2)
         Viva HPAQ! - (gdaustin) - (17)
             I have hated Compaqs from day one. - (Andrew Grygus) - (15)
                 Re: I have hated Compaqs from day one. - (n3jja) - (1)
                     Hey! Long time no see. Where you been, and is everything OK? -NT - (CRConrad)
                 Some of Q's pro laptops are good - (tonytib) - (2)
                     Compaq laptops are even more MS than Sony ones... - (static) - (1)
                         Well, I installed Caldera on that one for a while -NT - (tonytib)
                 Speaking of the servers - - (Ashton) - (8)
                     Linux on Compaq servers - (admin) - (1)
                         Thanks - comforting thought. - (Ashton)
                     I feel your pain - I really do . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (5)
                         err.. cc: AB?__________________cackle.. - (Ashton) - (2)
                             PHB-icide - (mhuber) - (1)
                                 Cackle.. works OK in my lex-icon______________:-\ufffd -NT - (Ashton)
                         Eh, "NT 4.1" -Is that Gryge-speak for Windows 2000, or what? -NT - (CRConrad) - (1)
                             Naah, It's 4.0 w/Service Pack 6a applied -NT - (Andrew Grygus)
                 how they ever had the stones to sell 30k intel servers - (boxley)
             There are (were?) 2 Compaqs. - (addison)
         Should someone notice the preps for a fire sale -?- - (Ashton)

Taxes.
402 ms