HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and it had nothing to do with product or people. Even sales remained strong, though the PC business is changing. HP’s mighty stumble was a crisis of confidence due to a chain of shenanigans at the very top. This culminated with the short reign of Léo Apotheker, leaving HP to reassure the market of its strategy.
The Enterprise IT Acquisition Game
September 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Today is the (a?) day of reckoning in the 3Par saga, with Dell widely expected to make a counter-offer higher than HP’s bid. But this mega deal, like the Data Domain war before it, sends a strong signal to the enterprise IT world: It’s open season on data storage companies! But the rising superpowers are also likely looking at networking as an area of expansion. The game is afoot!
Meet the Enterprise IT Superpowers
August 25, 2010 By 1 Comment
After years spent focusing on personal technology, businesses are increasingly turning back to the enterprise. The corporate IT market is much more dynamic and competitive, with a few very large “superpower” companies discovering their power to drive purchasing decisions. If a supplier can create an integrated “stack” of hardware and software, they can push product purchases that might otherwise be overlooked or postponed. This is the main reason that enterprise IT acquisitions work so well: Where a small company must fight to sell their product, a large one can hitch it to a much more strategic sale and have it pulled along.
Mark Hurd’s HP Tragedy: Hoisted With His Owne Petard
August 9, 2010 By 3 Comments
Shakespeare said it best in Hamlet: “For ’tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his owne petard.” Thus it is with Mark Hurd, hoisted by his own petard; ousted by his own rules. Shocked by his abrupt resignation, many speculated that some juicy scandal was hidden underneath. But the news since Friday has left observers scratching their heads: could the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world really have been brought down for lying about his dinner companions?
Podcast 7: Stack Wars Roundtable 2
May 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Brocade – What’s Their Direction?
April 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The Stack Wars Have Begun!
April 19, 2010 By 9 Comments
Just as public cloud computing is beginning to catch on, the enterprise data center world has been shaken up by the biggest IT product vendors. Rather than sit back and watch their wares commoditized, companies like Cisco, EMC, HP, and now HDS are stepping up to the plate with integrated “stacks” that include server, storage, networking, and management software. The next-layer players, VMware and Microsoft in particular, are joining hands, too, eager to support these stacks. To paraphrase the wise Jedi master, Yoda, “cloudy, the future is.” So, the stack wars have begun!
What might it mean if Cisco Dumps HP As Certified Partner ?
February 22, 2010 By 2 Comments