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Bigger than Big

Entry 347, on 2006-06-11 at 19:42:13 (Rating 3, Computers)

Slashdot recently included an opinion that Hewlett Packard will be the new "Big Blue". In other words, it will take over from IBM as the most important, huge, established company of IT. How Microsoft fits in with this scenario, I'm not sure, but I find the idea rather grotesque anyway.

In my blog entry of 2005-10-14, also based on a Slashdot item, I commented on how much of a contribution IBM has made to computers and other technologies over they years. How does HP stand up to comparison in this area? As far as I know, not too well. I can't think of any major significant contributions to the cutting edge of IT from HP. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd be happy to hear of anything you might know about.

I use HP products, and there's nothing much wrong with them. But there's nothing really right with them either. They're just another product lost in the crowd. If HP disappeared tomorrow it would make no real difference. If IBM (or Apple for that matter) hadn't existed would the world be different? That's right. We would really notice that. I know that ideas, inventions, and products will all arrive eventually. If one person doesn't do it, someone else will eventually. But that doesn't diminish the importance of a person or company doing something now.

So a company which which has done so much for technology (even though it seems conservative on the surface) like IBM is going to be replaced as top dog by a company which seems dedicated to mediocrity. That's another depressing thought!

Of course, this is just an opinion, based on annual sales, and that is only one measure of a company's influence and importance. And the fortunes of different players in IT change continuously, so who really knows what will happen in the future. Maybe the age of real innovation in IT is over. That's another depressing thought. It doesn't have to be that way, but while we have companies like Microsoft and HP as the industry leaders we might as well resign ourselves to a future of mediocrity.

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