[rescue] This Just In: HP to buy Compaq

[Björn Ramqvist]

Will Jennings wrote:
> 
> HP makes good servers... DAMN good servers, I sell 'em, and despite being
> certified to repair most every model, the total number of times I've ever
> had to repair any HP NetServer is, well, zero... Hell, the company server is
> a NetServer 5/100 (Pentium 100) and even it hasn't broken once... Their home
> PCs are crap though, but then they are just OEM'd... Vectra's seem to be OK,
> but as a white box VAR, why the hell do I wanna sell branded desktops?
> heh...And HP even makes it easy to install OSes other than Windows on their
> machines, I sold a customer a NetServer running SCO and HP provided the same
> automated install stuff that they have for Windows, made it really really
> easy...

I have to put my $0.02 in for the discussion.

We're practicly filled with x86 Compaq servers over here. Seven racks
containing 70+ boxes with everything from the "old" Proliant 1600 w/
P-II 400 MHz up to the latest DL380 Gen2 with 1.13 GHz, along with both
RA8000 and MA8000 Arrays plus a couple (15+) of Alphas. The PC-boxes has
been somewhat "sucky" in their design, but I see the complains has been
heard over the other side of the pond, since they released their
"Generaion 2" DL380. The far most simplest and most functional design
ever, period. Lovely box. (Too bad it's not an Alpha inside)
Four other boxes are HP-branded, HP9000 K460's running Oracle and Baan,
"clustered" with MC/ServiceGuard.
God, I hate HP-(s)UX. Makes life so much more complicated, almost like
SCO. Sucky hardware design too. (can anyone smell... HP-PB?)

Ofcourse, it all depends on what you've grown up with, but somehow HP-UX
doesn't make sense to me.
Tru64 has it's up and downs, but atleast it's capable of REAL
CLUSTERING. After years of battle with HP "cluster", we were this -->[x]
close to buy two Compaq ES40's with 4GB each, Tru64 and Trucluster,
serving us raw speed and Oracle. Now it seems to be out of the question,
since everyone is pointing at one direction, the end of another
wonderful DEC-technology - Tru64. TruCluster may be the closest thing to
a real cluster (read: VMS Cluster) anyone has ever come to, but that
doesn't seem to mind the suits.
God I hate this industry.

And no, no more HP for us.

/Bjorn
(not intended to bash on you personally, but I felt the need for
ventilating my opinion)