BUSINESS: Merge Hewlett-Packard and Compaq – Two years after

knowledge whartonKnowledge@Wharton published an analysis – The H-P Compaq Merger Two Years Out: Still Waiting for the Upside – about the results of the merge between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq for a while. Interesting to see that there are still two different entry points for the new company (hp.com, compaq.com)…

hp compaq

Different quite opposite views are expressed in this, which shows that it is still difficult to know after 2 years is this huge merge was/is worth or not.

George Day

“Wall Street may say, “Break the damn thing up’. Analysts [often] have good insights, but they made the same proposal in 1992 when Gerstner came on board. It’s a nice parallel. Gerstner was confronted, when he first arrived, with the idea of, ‘Let’s break up IBM into six or seven different businesses.’ Well, it would have been the worst possible decision for IBM. If Carly’s going to make this thing work, she’s going to have to do something like Gerstner did: pull things together and create solutions at the level of market segments. Each part of the organization that reaches the customer should have the autonomy to pull together whatever the customer wants, supported by product groups. That’s not a bad strategy. H-P is really a product-centric company. If they can move to become a customer-focused company, with the products feeding into those customer groups, then they may have a chance. But the problem with that strategy is we have a player [IBM] that’s already done that. HP is trying to be cost competitive with Dell and be the same kind of integrated-solutions provider that IBM has become. If that doesn’t work — if it’s clear IBM has too big a lead — then HP, which has this hugely profitable printer business, has to think about breaking up.”

Saikat Chaudhuri

“H-P has to be more focused on its marketing, not just saying, ‘We provide everything,’ but ‘We can cater to all your needs and this is how were going to do it.’ The beautiful part of IBM’s e-Business strategy is everything else can revolve around it. The challenge for H-P is to extend its brand. High quality and innovation need to apply to servers, services and storage systems as well as PCs.”

BUSINESS: some interesting driving values

[via dragos]

Have a look at this entrepreneurial story. Interesting values (they called them “precepts”):

  1. We must be financially successful to be a business
  2. Respect
  3. We want our clients to love our service
  4. The success of the business along all dimensions is everyone’s responsibility
  5. Our work environment must be comfortable and stimulating
  6. Strive to be the best
  7. We want to grow into new areas that we have not yet explored
  8. Work should be a substantive, positive part of our life experience and personal growth
  9. We want to be our clients’ best computer technology investment
  10. We will periodically meet as a group to evaluate, question, and re-affirm our precepts and our mission

I must say that I agree a *lot* with these “precepts”. The only strange thing is that the guys sold the company one year after having defined these values… A pity in a way?

BLOG: back home :-)

Wow, I’m back home after three *very* intensive days in our so-called “Management Forum”. As explained on Wednesday, this is our yearly group-wide Executive Managers meeting (Board of Directors and local Executive Board members, special Group functions). Near all the strategic workshops and presentations (some very interesting guest-speakers), these 3 days are a great opportunity for me to discuss with all my internal clients. All in all, I had exactly 15 (!) meetings. And a lot of great contacts with some quite impressive leaders (as usual, not all of our managers are leaders ;-).

Surely my best and more productive Management Forum (it was the third one).

The main strategic topic was … world ageing. Incredible, it was really fascinating. I can tell you, we all underestimate the impact of demography (ageing!) on our society … and the business opportunities generated by this development. I will present you a little bit more in the coming days.

In this field, it was interesting to observe how the age distribution looks like for the managers involved in the Management forum:

– 10% under 40

– 50% between 40 and 50

– 40% over 50

I was the only one under 35 (I’m 32) and the youngest, sometimes I feel a little bit alone ;-)

BLOG: out of office till Friday evening

Hi folks, I will not be very active till Friday evening as I will participate for the coming three days to our so-called Helvetia Patria Management Forum, which takes place once a year in October, at the holding headquarter in St.Gallen – Switzerland. This yearly meeting gather together all the Executive Board members of the subsidiaries, the Group Executive Board members and some special Group functions (as myself).

It is the third year that I could participate. Great experience, strategic discussions/exchanges and human contacts with all my internal clients! So, a good perspective of three amazing and very intensive days ;-)

TOOLS: the ultimate tool for geek

[via vowe]

KapsulesIf you are a geek (who’s not a geek here?), you need to try this tool called Kapsules ;-) It is a scripting engine that lets you run small desktop widgets. It works on Windows 2000, XP and 2003, It needs the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 and Microsoft Scripting 5.6 in order to run. The current version is the 0.9.4.5. A lot of widgets are available here (date and time, weather, post-it, news, system info, launchers, Email, music and audio, etc.). Kapsules is now a freeware (not Open Source), not completely mature, but stable enough!

Kapsules is desktop widget engine for Microsoft Windows.

What’s a widget you say? A widget is like a miniature application which rests on your desktop. Widgets can do all sorts of things. A widget could show you the current weather conditions, display news from your favorite website, or even check your email for you.

Kapsules makes use of the Microsoft Active Scripting Engine, which is a part of Windows. Using this built-in scripting engine, Kapsules can allow widgets to be written in a multitude of scripting languages, provided that a user has a language’s add-on engine installed. That being said, widgets can make use of a certain languages strengths, weaknesses, and special features. Kapsules does not limit a developer to what language they can use!

It is worth noting that Kapsules was very much inspired by Konfabulator, a similar – yet very different application for the Apple Macintosh OSX platform. Kapsules ceases its similarities with Konfabulator beyond its general purpose and ideology.

I have installed it and I am using now two widgets: KapWeather and MrStickies:

Kapsules

Kapsules

TOOLS: Firefox v1.0

FirefoxThe Mozilla Foundation has called on its supporters to chip in on a full-page advertisement in The New York Times for the launch of its Firefox 1.0 browser in November, exactly on November 9, 2004.

You have 6 days left to donate! I know from my blog statistics that quite a lot of you are using Firefox, so, have a look at this great idea on Spread Firefox.

Here is how it works:

  • The full-page ad will include the names of everyone who supports the campaign along with a message about the benefits/features of Firefox.
  • The ad will only include verifiable, personal names: no URLs, emails, etc.
  • An individual contribution of $30 will get your name included in the ad ($10 student rate).
  • The campaign will act as a fundraiser to support all Firefox 1.0 launch activities, not just the ad itself (find out more about your contribution).
  • Special recognition — Community Champion — will be given to people who sign up 10 names at a time.
  • There are also two packages available for businesses to participate.
  • You will be notified via email when the ad runs.
  • More questions? Check the FAQ.

I am personaly using Firefox almost exclusively since some months and I donated my $30 to this great project and tool (have a look at my review). What about you?

Firefox