ShadowRAM: Former HP queen hot under the collar; No big borg for Linus

COMMENTARY: Rumours, Truth and Innuendo in the IT channel.

Former HP queen hot under the collar

Just how heated were the discussions that led the Hewlett-Packard board to
oust Carly?

Word is Ms Fiorina was more than a little miffed at board members for shooting off their mouths to the press, implying that her flash-to-substance ratio was out of kilter.

Remember, this woman sees herself as a future senator from California. The last thing she needs is old-boy Silicon Valley know-it-alls portraying her as unable to manage, execute or rally the troops.

The big question is, who is going to pen the tell-all chronicling her rise and fall? Think about the Oprah opportunities and the movie-of-the-week potential.

Can’t wait for that climactic moment on the little screen when HP board member Patricia Dunn, a fellow female power broker, tells Carly to pack her US$21 million in severance and get gone. (That’s a helluva lot of toner cartridges.)

The award for the Best Carly Headline goes to The Boston Herald in the US for ‘Sorry, Carly’. Runner-up is The New York Post for ‘Fiorina Flops’. The Most Dignified Headline goes to The Times of London for ‘HP Ousts First Lady of America’. Not sure what Dubya’s missus made of that.

And the Judge’s Award goes to Silicon Valley’s own San Jose Mercury News for ‘Culture Clash’.
A fave comment came from a Boston radio reporter: he said he knows several current HPers who could already have second jobs because the company is so darn fat that no-one knows what anyone else is doing.

Sun prez gets soft

Is Sun president Jonathan Schwartz getting too warm and fuzzy?

He sent out a company-wide email a few weeks back praising Sun’s recent move to release the first of what will be much of Solaris’ code under an OSI-approved licence called the Community Development and Distribution Licence.

The missive contained pat-yourself-on-the-back sentiment such as, ‘Did we mention it’s all about sharing? That’s why we’re sharing the code, and the thousands of patents covered by Solaris, totally one-upping IBM in a show of global community’. One word: Ack.

You’ve got to hand it to Con Zymaris and the boys at Aussie open source integrator Cybersource. Con has finetuned the art of Microsoft bashing and the his latest missive titled ‘Weasel Words from the Bill Gates’ Ministry of Truth’ slams Gates for a recent executive email to customers and partners claiming that implementing open source software was more expensive because such software was more likely to be incompatible with other non-open source software.

Now, true to his usual style and to The Shadow’s delight, Zymaris said Gates’ statements approach the style of propaganda expected from ‘George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth’ rather than the head of a respectable software business.

‘Gates’ claims stretch credulity and believability to the limits,’ Con says. (By the way, we’re not actually sure whether ‘believability’ is a word Con, but we’ll let that one go.)

He continues. ‘Thankfully most IT managers are smart enough to know that these claims, purely spin and double speak as they are, have as much bearing on reality as the manufactured consent dictated by the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984: Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Proprietary locked in Windows is more interoperable than open, standards-oriented Linux.’
Now here’s a man who cares about his cause! Want a job Con?

No big borg for Linus

Linus Torvalds, dragged to the recent Enterprise Linux Summit in the US, turned scarlet when Open Source Development Labs CEO Stuart Cohen mentioned Time magazine’s designation of Linus as one of the planet’s most influential people.

Asked if open source could become a coordinated, massive borg to oust Microsoft, Torvalds said the micromanagement endemic to most corporations is counterproductive.

Symbiosis happens naturally, he said, revealing his preference for decentralisation. Communication between projects is a huge overhead. That takes away energy from each independent project.’

Other summit buzz centred on patent issues and whether Microsoft will sue an open source vendor over alleged patent violations.

Lawyers postulated that the software giant would not dare pursue litigation against the white hats for fear of alienating justice departments and stirring up the sort of PR nightmare that plagues SCO Group.

Lotus founder Mitch Kapor is unconvinced, saying Microsoft likely will go for it if open source marginalises its business. The use of ‘patent weapons of mass destruction’ could be Microsoft’s last stand.

If open source becomes the economically superior way to make software, ‘of course [Microsoft is] going to unleash the WMDs’, he said.