HP continues as Schwartz's uncontested whipping boy
So full of spit and vinegar is the latest blog entry about HP from Sun president and COO Jonathan Schwartz, that you have to wonder what is going on at the headquarters of the two companies. Crying foul, HP made the cardinal error of legally bluffing Sun with a cease-and-desist letter to stop Schwartz's wave of vitriolic HP-slamming blog entries. But when Sun stepped outside with its dukes up, HP was nowhere to be found. Now, Schwartz, who was originally begging for a good fight got something even better -- free reign over the war of the words between the two companies. So ripe is the script for a cartoon strip that I've written the bubble text. Now, if only we had an artist to bring it to life (does that make this an open source cartoon?).
(setting, HP board room, weekly executive pow-wow)
Fiorina (HP CEO): OK Rich, you're up. Watcha got?
Rich Marcello (Sr. VP, Business Critical Servers): Um, you know how we promised to port Tru64's clustering technology to HP-UX?
Fiorina: The project that's due to complete in O-six. Yes, what's the status?
Marcello: Well, we're probably be better off if we just drop the idea. We've checked with some customers and it seems like they'll be OK with a stepped-upped partnership with Veritas instead.
(gasps from around the room)
Fiorina: Good move. After all, as I will say in my OracleWorld keynote, our new ethos is that partnering for HP is done by strategy, choice and DNA. But once word gets out, what do you think Schwartz will say?
(switch scenes to the executive suite at Sun)
McNealy (Sun CEO, poking head into Schwartz's office): "Duplicitous"? "Boneyard"? "Lucy with the football"? What a hat trick man. I hope you have some body guards.
Schwartz: Actually, I felt like Barry Bonds (sans the roids) getting a low fastball with the bases loaded. How lucky am I? With all that great material that HP is spoon feeding us, who needs to make anything up? Bodyguards? Hmmm. You might be right. Considering how they've called off the lawyers.
(John "Johnny-L" Loiacano, Sun software chief, pokes head in as well)
McNealy (in best Ed McMahon impression): Uh oh, heeeere's Johnny!
Loicano: Where's Doc Sevrinson when you need a good ba-ba-bump? Wow John. Way to take the gloves off baby. You're making my job (your old job) easy.
(back to HP's headquarters)
Marcello: Um, it's too late. He already got wind of it. He called us "duplicitous" and said HP-UX was headed to the boneyard. Said we were like Peanuts' Lucy, not knowing what to do with the football. I can e-mail you the URL to his blog if you want?
Fiorina (teeth clenched, neck so red that Jeff Foxworthy would be proud): Everybody Out! OUUUUUUT!!!
Update: Slashdot has a raging thread, sparked by a story from the i-Technology News Desk about Schwartz's blog. An anonymous poster rakes Schwartz over the coals for saying "the community will upbraid him, for certain......Schwartz is a technology mischief-maker not a technology statesmen." Actually he's both.