Computer World Canada Magazine - September 28, 2007

jeffpulver, flicker

appropriate that H ewlett-Packard Co. chose New York City and Fashion Week to showcase the latest happenings within its Personal Systems Group business space. Style overshadowed the s ubstance on display at HP”s Your Life is the Show event in the Big Apple during Labour Day week, where the memorable news should have been the unveiling of many new personal systems products, including new notebooks, workstations, desktops and handhelds. Instead, it was a gathering of celebrities at a trendy nightclub in Manhattan’s “ Meat-Pack-ing District” and the surprise appearances of tennis star Serena Williams, supermodel Petra Nemkova, and assorted extreme-sport professional athletes prominently featured in HP’s way-cool The Computer is Personal, Again ad campaign that attendees seemed most excited about.

Just as well. It was, after all, a week of high fashion in New York, where people here expected chic designs and sleek fall collections, rather than new form factors for desktop

High-tech doesn’t
meanhighfashion

systems and larger displays for handhelds. HP gets an “A” for effort in trying to add a bit of sizzle through a few recognizable celebs in hopes of injecting a bit of style around the fairly limited substance on display.

But, there was a good HP story. The company is basking in the spotlight of success for crafting new attitudes rather than technology. HP’s campaign, The Computer is Personal Again, drives the message that people can and should love their PCs.

Personal System Group (PSG) senior vice-president Sativ Chahil proudly revealed “a year of great accomplishment for both HP and the PSG.”

“We’ve added US$4.9 billion in revenue in the first three quarters of the year,” he said in a keynote speech, adding that HP PSG revenue grew by 23 per cent over the previous year and increased profit by 65 per cent.

Notebook sales grew 61 per cent while total unit sales are up 30 per cent, he said, adding that desktop revenue is up by 9 per cent while unit sales rose 15 per cent.

Today HP claims to be the world’s largest PC maker. And you have to believe that the

firm’s slick ad campaign has been a catalyst.

Love of computing machine may not be an original idea, but it’s definitely being executed near flawlessly by HP. CEO Todd Bradley and company have taken a big bite from Steven Jobs and Apple Inc.

It was, after all, Apple chief Jobs and crew who proved that if you make the design interesting and unique, and take on an attitude, customers will express true emotional caring for computer. The Apple Mac is adored and the love affair has sustained the company through thick and thin business times.

New products brought the press to New York City during Fashion

: at the edge

by dan mclean

Dan McLean is the editor-in-chief of IT WorldCanada.

dmclean@itworldcanada.com

Week, but HP’s Your Life is the Show will be remembered for the business success HP is enjoying as a result of the Computer is Personal Again campaign. It was the substance behind the style.

Microsoft’s weird delight
 I DON’T MIND A LITTLE

cynicism — it’s a natural and only mildly toxic byproduct of paying attention. So last week, when Microsoft’s Office Open XML file format was rejected as an international standard, I wasn’t bothered that Microsoft said it was “extremely delighted” by the result.

Some observers called that phrase “spin.” Me, I trust it was just ordinary Microsoft cynicism.

Now consider this from Brian Jones, a Microsoft manager who has worked on OOXML for six years. In July, Jones was asked

: frankly speaking

by frank hayes

Frank Hayes is Computerworld U.S.’s senior news columnist.

frank_hayes@ computerworld.com.

on his blog whether Microsoft would actually commit to conform to an officially standard-

ized OOXML. His response:

“It’s hard for Microsoft to commit to what comes out of Ecma [the European standards group that has already OK’d OOXML] in the coming years, because we don’t know what direction they will take the formats. We’ll of course stay active and propose changes based on where we want to go with Office 14. At the end of the day, though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction...Since it’s not guaranteed, it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement.”

Now that’s cynical. After all this work to make OOXML a

formal, independent standard — a standard created and promoted by Microsoft, remember — Microsoft won’t agree to follow it.

It’s unfortunate. Most users of Microsoft Office don’t care about this whole standards brouhaha — they just use Office because it’s Office.

But to organizations that need a well-defined, XML-based format to manage huge numbers of documents that may be archived for decades, this is important.

systemsby whichyouarenotonlygoingtobemorecorrectmore frequentlybuttheyhavetheaddedbonus(thatintuitionbydefinition c an NOThave)ofbeingableto QUANTIFYhowwrongyoucanbe.  Jonathan Graham

: letters

Re: Intuition and the IT manager, CW Aug. 17

Your article on intuition is relavant and is the language of

the future. We have been researching in this domain for



 the past 10 years. We operate from Mumbai, India. It began R E: No archive is eternal, CW Aug. 17

 

_with _an _intent _to _have _human _life _flowing _and _free. _We _work with individuals and companies to help them develop their Y our article fails to mention that there are experts within organizations who can determine how long information needs

intuitive“seeing.” By “seeing” werefertoseeingfromtheajnach akraofthe to be kept. Records managers and archivists have been doing this work
human, which allows one to see energy flow the way it exists in the creation in organizations long before there were I T staff. Records managers and
and then work with the information to produce the required result. One of archivists deal with managing information regardless of the format. You
the companies we worked with was a software company and another is in are correct it is not the job of the IT manager to do this, however, it is the
the entertainment industry. The intuitive field is infinte in its reach and is job of the I T manager to work with the records managers and archiv-
limitless.  Maya Sabina Jennifer ists so that standard processes can be established and implemented to
ensure the right information in these systems is retained for the right
period of time.  K. Hartlen

After all this work
to make OOXML a
formal, independent
standard — a standard
created and promoted by
Microsoft — it wont
agree to follow it.

This is some of the worst tripe I’ve ever heard of. It isn’t enough that IT is currently populated by people who’s ideas about technology border on the religious? Now people are trying to justify bad logic, with...well, more bad logic. Take a look at this: “We’re having to use intuition a lot more these days. Research and logic don’t always give the right information.” This is pretty bizarre. Since clearly we are using poor logic to justify other poor logic. For example this IDENTICAL quote could be used to refer to an atomic clock. Categorically atomic clocks don’t ALWAYS yield the correct time. However that, unfortunately is not really germane to the issue. The reason you use atomic clocks (and I would also say logic, and research) is because they are the only

Another requirement is open file formats. There has been a lot of data lost, because the file format has been forgotten. For this reason, only published and open file formats should be used. This is why Microsoft’s OOXML format must be rejected, as there is much about it that is undocumented or proprietary.  James Knott

You forget that some industries are required by law to basically keep all of their information for forever.  Lauren McDonald,

But OOXML wasn’t designed to be an open, vendor-neutral standard. Trying to force-fit it into that mold by February will make it either brittle or useless, neither of which will help customers who want a standard document format.