HP to Acquire Palm for $1.2 Billion

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100428xa.html

It’s not all the time I have much sympathy with, or respect for, Big Company views but I do think client server computing is a good idea. Letting users loose with desk tops they don’t understand doesn’t help them or the IT budget.

HP has just published a couple of articles on its own take on client services with references to Windows 7 which you may find interesting - I didn’t find them interesting enough to get to the end of either but I know what I need to (if not a lot) already.

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100414xa.html
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-0869ENW.pdf

As an avid reader and an addictive collector running out of shelf space (again) I was attracted to

http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/Questions.aspx?Section=Swappingbooks

Anyone tried it?

I’m on Wendy Churchill’s email list, the mails are quite jolly and maybe, on occasion, profound. They aren’t for the cynical, unless you enjoy being cynical in which case you’d be happy!

I got one today and here’s a quote that struck me:

Many years ago when I visited my Grandfather in hospital a few days before he died, the nurse came in and asked him whether he would like a coffee or a tea.

“And that is why I am going to have it now.” he replied.

It made me think anyway! Everything can be significant in the right (or wrong) situation.

You can check her out at http://www.bagofrevels.co.uk/

I’ve never had a lot of workplace stress before. Normally stuff needs designing / coding / fixing and maybe there is a deadline and a difficult customer but coding is what I do, even if I don’t know how something works I’ve usually been able to figure it out from scratch / reverse engineer it from traces / google it. I have confidence in my ability to do that and more than that I have the trust of the small teams I’ve worked in - it’s not that failure isn’t an option but that everyone has appreciated if it fails it is because failure was the only the option - it wasn’t just because one of us didn’t try.

However, working for my new, big company I find myself in the Kafka-esque situation of being hassled by someone I’ve never met, several pay grades above me to finish a TLA’ed procedure that I’ve no idea what it is. The best help any one in my limited netwwork (ie my boss who allocated me to the task) could give was “It replaces the XYZ (another TLA procedure I know nothing about), you can look at the old one of those but I don’t know if it is the same.”

Great then, I’ll just wait to turn into a dung beetle - I guess I’m going to be in the dung soon enough.

HP has bought 3Com (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100412xa.html) which gives HP an impressive end to end product range or service delivery or whatever the jargon is.

HP are saying they are committed to becoming market leader in networking, as they already do plenty with servers, clients, desktops, laptops and what’s that other thing? Oh yes, printers they pretty much have it covered. What isn’t mentioned there (it would spoil the flow for the printers gag) is software / services which they also have covered via their previous EDS acquisition.

They are already the worlds largest IT company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue - c’mon, wikipedia is never wrong!) so I guess it’s a case of tomorrow the world, mha-ha-ha-ha etc.

Sorry, this post has no IT content at all, but it is Easter!

A question people have asked is why did the Jews call for the release of the murderer Barabas over Jesus. I have often heard Israel in Jesus’s time compared to occupied France with Romans as Nazis and tax collectors as collaborators. Barabas would then be a member of the resistance.

However, after watching a certain TV program last Easter I’d like to suggest an alternative for us Brits. Imagine England under the Normans, the invaders stamping out our culture & language and helping themselves to lands (and property and women). Who in an English crowd at that time (or even now) wouldn’t have shouted for Robin Hood - an outlaw fighting for his people and even killing the ruling nobility. A freedom fighter? A hero? A murderer? Who would choose some pacifist, northern weirdo even if he did perform some alleged miracles?

We like to think we’d choose better but…

A murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay
http://www.music-lyrics-gospel.com/gospel_music_lyrics/my_song_is_love_unknown_11109.asp