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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tomcat who wrote (91117)	5/7/2001 11:07:16 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

I knew Stimac pretty well back in the late 80s and early 90s. He always seemed to balance the current needs with a longer term view. He also had a focus on doing a simple thing today as opposed to a complex thing later. The first 386 was a good example. There was no math coprocessor, the chip had serious errata, but Stimac interfaced the math coprocessor from the 80286 and used special logic to keep the errata from hanging the systems, and brought the product out anyway. The SystemPro was another example - not exactly the perfect PC based server, but it established Compaq as the leader in that space and paved the way for the later success of the ProLiant line. I kind of lost touch with the inner details of Compaq's server business after Stimac left. I am not surprised that he would have seen the potential for a blades design more quickly, or that he would have executed on that potential. Perez and McAuliffe seemed like execution guys to me, at least back then. I didn't know Mike Clark - I thought he was more of a marketing guy. But wasn't Perez out of the server division for the last few years? I thought he went on leave or something back in 1998, which would have left him out of the decision loop on early blade discussions.