ShadowRAM: March 4, 2002
By ShadowRAM
CRN
- 12:34 PM EST Fri., Mar. 01, 2002
CHUANG SHOWS OFF HIS ITALIAN MOTORCYCLE AT EWORLD
RUMORS ABOUND ABOUT IMPENDING IBM JOB CUTS
SALESFORCE.COM SPONSORS SWANK FETE FOR TIBET
Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina rolled out a star-studded video at HP's analyst meeting last week to promote the company's proposed megamerger with Compaq Computer. Among the "customers" endorsing the deal were Dreamworks SKG partner Jeffrey Katzenberg, AOL Time Warner Chairman Stephen Case and CitiGroup Chairman Sanford Weill. Hoping to get a laugh, Fiorina, the only top HP executive who was not available to the press during a luncheon, said HP's plan is to officially roll out the new company on April 2, rather than April Fool's day. When none of the buttoned-down crowd responded, Fiorina said: "That's a joke." Tough crowd, Carly. Tough crowd.
It's a story you'd figure Michael Dell would love: A young, Texas college student named Dell dreams up an idea for an independent business venture and writes a detailed business plan to make it work. Only this time, the college student is Jacob Dell. His idea is for a theme park, and he wants to call it "Dell Land."
Evidently, Dell Computer Chairman and CEO Michael Dell isn't thrilled with the idea: His corporate lawyers caught up with Jacob Dell after the kid presided over a Texas Lutheran University student government meeting. "At the conclusion of our regular meeting, I was served papers by representatives of their legal team," 22-year-old Jacob Dell says. "I definitely was surprised."
Dell is making a federal case out of it. U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery in the Western District of Texas is handling Dell vs. Dell. Jacob Dell says he doesn't yet have counsel.
BEA Systems CEO Alfred Chuang made quite an entrance into his keynote at BEA World in San Diego last week by riding in on his Italian-made 2002 MV August motorcycle. Later, he told us that the people in charge at the San Diego Convention Center were nervous about his stunt, since another CEO recently made his keynote entrance at the convention center on horseback, and the horse reared up and threw the executive. Fortunately, Chuang's stunt went off without incident.
Some vendors make no bones about wanting to annihilate the competition, but others profess a more peaceful approach to market domination. In this spirit, upstart ASP Salesforce.com has been a supporter of various charities since its inception, including The Tibet House, chaired by Uma Thurman's dad, Robert. The company feted a number of lucky journalists and customers in New York late last month, treating them to The Tibet House Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall featuring musical legends David Bowie, Philip Glass, Patti Smith and Ray Davies, among others.
Sources close to IBM say significant staff cuts are imminent across the board, including positions in the server, microelectronics and other groups. The always-in-flux IBM Global Services axed about 400 jobs in late January, although those cuts are merely part of the usual ebb and flow at the gigantic 150,000-person unit, a spokesman said. An internal memo listing the job titles and ages of the folks under siege at IBM Global Services was helpfully posted on a Web site, the name of which cannot be printed here. All employees were told to find jobs, if they could, in other IBM groups, but failing that, Feb. 28 is their last day at Big Blue. An IBM spokeswoman said she would "not comment on rumors." |
