From the inquirer:
Byzantine twists plague HP-EMC storage war
The trouble with storage
By Eva Glass: Thursday 03 October 2002, 11:07
WHILE SUNSET NOTICES continue to rise over the unfortunate souls at the New Age P, sources tell us that all is not well on the storage front inside the HPQ Behemoth, alas.
A few days ago, storage dinosaur EMC and HP decided to countersue each other over patents.
Both firms hate and loathe each other ever since HP, at a launch we attended near Grand Central Station a few years back, decided to cut off EMC's legs at the knees and pre-emptively end the deal, telling the press and analysts before its erstwhile partner knew anything about it. Those unfortunates in EMC UK who had access to HP facilities suddenly found their swipe cards didn't work.
Today, EMC said that HP had filed suit against two wrong patents, a fact admitted by the New Age firm which said that it just transposed a couple of numbers, blaming the assistant of a lawyer, who has presumably got her or his own "sunset notice" by now.
Now read on.
After Howard Elias became the Grand Mufti of the Compaq storage unit, Ellen Lary was displaced, while after the merger happened, Elias got the Imprimatur of Qarly, while Mark Lewis upped sticks and fled to EMC.
Unfortunately for Howard E, we learn from HP in Asia, four or five chief storage engineers decided to take a package they were offered and fled to the hills, leaving HPQ with little innate talent.
These engineers were the leading lights behind intellectual property and top storage ideas, and now HPQ needs to fill the gap that their departure has left.
Trouble is, Mark Lewis, now at EMC, understands storage like there's no tomorrow while HPQ is still trying to get to grips with it all.
EMC is a slow beast, that's for sure, but it now has a chance to, as they say, beat up on HPQ's plans.
Meaning, it seems, that the blizzard of writs from m'learned friends representing HPQ and EMC, is a smoke screen, if you'll excuse us muddling the metaphor. µ |
