Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

09 Nov 2010 10:06

tags

Biz, Tech: Oracle, new HP CEO Leo Apotheker dealing with some stuff

  • Oracle’s Larry Ellison really dislikes HP, apparently. First, he swiped their former chief executive, who was not only good at his job, but was removed for fairly questionable reasons. (HP didn’t like that, by the way.) Now, Ellison’s company has their sights set on their new CEO, Leo Apotheker, the weirdly hired former SAP CEO. See, a subsidiary of SAP, TomorrowNow, reportedly engaged in software theft from Oracle. Oracle thinks SAP owes them billions of dollars; SAP claims it’s closer to tens of millions. Either way, Oracle has hired a private investigator to find Apotheker after HP would not accept Oracle’s subpoena for Apotheker to testify in court about the case (and Apotheker skipped an earlier trial). In other news, Silicon Valley business is pretty cutthroat. (Above: Artist’s depiction of what we think the private investigator looks like.) source

08 Sep 2010 10:56

tags

Tech: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to HP: What’s up with this lawsuit?

  • The HP Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace.
  • Oracle CEO Larry Ellison • Responding to the lawsuit the company filed against Mark Hurd, the dude he’s trying to hire as his new president. Ellison notes that before now, the relationship between the two companies has been positive. In other news, the lawsuit and new job could affect Hurd’s $35 million severance plan. source

07 Sep 2010 21:08

tags

Tech: HP to Mark Hurd: You can’t join Oracle! You have our trade secrets!

  • In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information to others.
  • A statement from HP’s corporate blog • Explaining why they filed a civil complaint against former CEO Mark Hurd, who is headed in the general direction of Oracle. To put it simply, HP is afraid that Hurd will leverage the information he knows about the company at his new job – a reasonable concern. A now-former Apple exec, Mark Papermaster, went through something similar when he left IBM. source

06 Sep 2010 20:52

tags

Tech: Mark Hurd rises from the tech-exec ashes like a phoenix

  • downfall Mark Hurd had a relationship with an underling and that led to his firing from HP. The circumstances raised eyebrows.
  • rise Hurd showed up at Oracle this week as their new co-president, just in time to screw Google over with that Java lawsuit. source
  • » He’s got a powerful backer, too: Last month, Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, referred to Hurd’s ouster as “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” So, to prove it, he hired Hurd.

22 Aug 2010 10:48

tags

Tech: Prediction: Mirasol displays could be in your tablet-reading future

  • Is this the future of tablet design? The screen above, a hybrid of eInk and LCD called Mirasol, is getting some big buzz, and a certain client has Qualcomm paying $2 billion to ramp up production of the technology. Is it Apple? Is it Amazon? Is it HP? Is it somebody else? We don’t know, but we have to admit being able to read a tablet in direct sunlight would rule. source

08 Aug 2010 22:32

tags

Biz: The accuser in the Mark Hurd case, Jodie Fisher, has an IMDB page

  • I was surprised and saddened that Mark Hurd lost his job over this. That was never my intention.
  • Former HP contractor Jodie Fisher • Discussing the now-settled situation between her and ousted former HP CEO Mark Hurd. Despite earlier suggestions that they did the do, Fisher, who has starred in such films as “Easy Rider: The Ride Back” and “Blood Dolls,” hired Gloria Allred as her attorney, which instantly makes any claims of regret suspect. If it was seriously your intention, you wouldn’t have hired Ms. Allred. Just sayin’. source

06 Aug 2010 17:39

tags

Biz: HP CEO Mark Hurd’s fall from grace: Why we blame WebOS

  • harbinger Two months ago, HP CEO Mark Hurd said something idiotic – he suggested that Palm’s WebOS would be useless on phones and they’d use it for printers instead.
  • failure Today, Hurd resigned – the result of a sexual harassment probe regarding a contractor he had an improper relationship with. Coincidence? We think not. source
 

05 Aug 2010 20:31

tags

Tech: Activity or followers: Which matters more on Twitter, anyway?

  • More active users are more influential, according to HP Labs. The company’s Social Computing Lab did research into whether or not users with a high number of followers are really the site’s most influential. And the answer? No. “To become influential, users must not only catch the attention of their followers; they must also overcome their followers’ predisposition to remain passive,” the report notes. So in other words, annoy the crap out of your followers! source

28 Apr 2010 20:52

tags

Biz, Tech: Win/win situation: How Palm and HP’s merger benefits them both

  • Palm The smartphone company’s big problem has been a lack of money to take on the big boys in the field. HP, if nothing else, has money.
  • HP The company gets access to a pretty impressive smartphone platform in WebOS, and they have the money to make it a hit. source

11 Nov 2009 20:55

tags

Biz, Tech: 3Com and HP sitting in a tree, M-E-R-G-I-N-G

  • $2.7 billion for 3Com’s marbles to mix with HP’s source