Short Takes: HP takes another shot at services market

By SD Times News Team

June 1, 2008 —

HP buys EDS, aka, "HP Global Services"

Big Blue's biggest weapon has long been its services arm. As the saying goes, when you buy enterprise "solutions" from IBM, the bulk of the sale is the van full of services folks with packed suitcases, ready to move into your office for good. It’s a simple, yet Faustian, bargain: You give them all your money, and they take care of everything. Forever.

IBM Global Services differentiates IBM from, say, Microsoft, which sells its software through the channel, leaving the lucrative services business for partners. In a few cases, as with its Avenade joint venture with Accenture, Microsoft does capture some services revenue, but otherwise, Microsoft doesn't play in that world.

Hewlett-Packard is another Big Blue competitor that just doesn't measure up when it comes to services and service revenue. Eight years ago, HP almost bought PricewaterhouseCoopers, but pulled back from the deal. Instead, IBM snapped up PwC a couple of years later, for a lot less dough.

Now, apparently, HP is ready to try again by purchasing Electronic Data Systems for almost US$14 billion. The day before the sale was announced, EDS’ shares soared 28% on the news, while HP’s fell by 5%. The next day, HP lost another 5% and change, which is hardly a vote of confidence.

To me, this doesn't seem like a good deal. But then again, I'm skeptical about HP's ability to take full advantage of its large acquisitions. HP never achieved the value it could have from the Compaq fiasco, and the jury is still out as to whether HP and Mercury Interactive are better off as a single company. Certainly, Mercury's competitors remain delighted about the acquisition—and the amount of business they picked up because of it.

Alan Zeichick

Please don’t send unprintable PDFs

Pointless annoyances are unwelcome. Take notes, Adobe Systems. While the nice folks at Adobe’s PR operation are responsive, and well, nice… they have the bad habit of sending me press releases in PDF format with rights management enabled.

Here’s the problem: The environmentalist in me weeps, but I like to print out a release and highlight pertinent passages as I read through it. (On the other hand, I don’t drive, and try to avoid adding to the carbon footprint inherent in the American lifestyle.) The rights management in Adobe’s latest announcement would not let me print it.

My solution: Copying and pasting the text into a Word document. Then I printed it, in a small victory for the forces of fair use, but one that left me asking what the point of the rights management was in the first place.

David Worthington

A sip of Apple Kool-Aid

With Apple’s developer conference approaching, I have to consider my own biases. My skepticism about the company was formed by such experiences as the time I was photographing an Apple employee demonstrating the iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007 I asked his name for the caption and he told me, “You’ll have to talk to someone in media relations.” Irritated by the Kool-Aid drinking, “You-had-me-at-$3,000-laptop” Macolytes cheering every word of Steve Jobs’ keynote address (and far too much cheering from the press section), I decided I would permanently opt out of the Mac economy.

This lasted over a year, until, while minding my own business at this year’s JavaOne, I won an iPod Nano. To avoid embarrassing my hosts, I graciously accepted the gift of my first-ever Apple product and accepted that my life would change. Since then, iTunes has vacuumed up every song on my PC and squeezed them into the Nano, a device so tiny that it could be subdermally implanted to play music directly into my brain. Okay, okay! It’s beautiful, elegant and simple! Damn you, Steve Jobs! Does your Kool-Aid come in any other flavors?

Robert Mullins

I heart Apple’s dev conference

One might say that I have a date coming up with a college sweetheart. None of that long-lost stuff, either: We’re still a going thing, even as other friends have died or moved to the suburbs.

The funny thing is that I’m not the jealous type, even if my old flame is more popular than ever. It’s kind of cool to know that millions have joined me in what seemed for years a solitary love. Even my mom’s caught the fever, after wondering for almost a quarter-century what on earth I was blathering about.

That giddiness is the best way to describe my mood, ever since I heard that Apple’s annual developer conference in San Francisco has sold out for the first time ever. (Crowds or not, it’s an easy conference for the press to cover, since Apple doesn’t let us do much more than attend the keynote.) Of course, every year has its pre-show rumors, but the iPhone 2.0 frenzy has even this jaded, cynical geezer waiting with more than the usual interest.

Since it looks like I’m going to get more than promises on this date, that shouldn’t be a surprise. If you see me in line at the Starbucks next door, don’t be surprised if I’m grinning.

P.J. Connolly

Related Search Term(s): Adobe, Apple, HP

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