HP's Problem? It Ain't the SAP Install...
From: Fabio Cardoso (fabiopenvms_at_yahoo.com.br)
Date: 08/20/04
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Date: 20 Aug 2004 05:14:49 -0700
Click
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/20040816
or read...
HP's Problem? It Ain't the SAP Install...
So we all saw that HP had a bad week. My bet? It's only going to get
worse - and it has nothing to do with their SAP implementation.
Personally, all cards on the table, I'm a fan of their CEO - I think
she demonstrates courage, is willing to buck conventional wisdom, and
has a titanium spine. (Last week's public firings notwithstanding.)
But that said, I think HP faces an enormous challenge. And it's not
related to the cancellation of PA-RISC, or weakness in their Itanium
transition. Or even Dell's printer onslaught.
To me, HP's problems spawn from the death of... their operating
system, HP/UX. Like IBM, they've elected to ask their customers and
ISV's to move to Red Hat Linux or Microsoft Windows on x86 systems.
And if you're an ISV, how does that differentiate HP? - they're a box
vendor. If you're a customer, where does that leave you with your
HP/UX investments? Facing untimely change - with a vendor no longer in
charge of their OS.
On the hardware side, Sun, IBM, Dell and HP will all vigorously
compete for the x86 hardware space. I'm confident our industry
standard Opteron systems will lead everyone in price/performance -
especially in multi-processing environments. But as Fowler points out,
that's just the box side of the equation. On top of that, our systems
story will have one big advantage, an advantage spawning from the fact
that a server without an operating system is a space heater.
As you well know, our operating system, Solaris, continues to set land
speed records on SPARC, while branching into new territory on x86 -
and it's the least expensive in the industry. I continue to hear
customers disappointed in the realization that ISV's don't qualify to
"linux" (or specifically, Fedora) - so they have to pay big bucks for
RHEL if they want commercial support. And while HP stumbles into that
reality, our commitment to Solaris (did I mention we're open sourcing
it - check out http://www.blastwave.org) highlights the demise of
HP/UX. HP/UX won't even run on HP's own industry standard servers. As
an ISV told me last week, "I come to sun, you tell me to write to
Java, then write to Solaris. Clear as a bell." If you're an HP
customer or ISV, have some fun, ask your HP rep the same question -
"what should I write to?"
While HP tells its customers to "change" (we're still not sure 'to'
what, I'm more comfortable with the 'from' part), we're going to
continue redoubling our investment (with partners, too) in super
scalable SPARC systems, the fastest industry standard servers in the
market - and the only commercial operating system deployed at scale in
both environments. Because no matter what the ads say, what customers
don't want is unnecessary... change.
We hear consistently that what they do want is a vendor committed to
its operating system roadmap.
(2004-08-16 15:03:18.0) Permalink
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