September 16th, 2008
Is HP working on a proprietary Linux fork?
HP wants to stop depending on Microsoft and will build a Linux shell which bypasses Vista and offers a better customer experience.
Question. Is this just like Ubuntu, or is this going to be a proprietary, corporate Linux for the old EDS fan base?
CEO Mark Hurd (above) is not running Carly Fiorina’s HP, but he’s not running Bill & Dave’s old shop either.
He is trying to do to HP what Lou Gerstner did to IBM a decade ago, transform his company into a services powerhouse, growing through acquisitions and lay-offs.
It took IBM a decade to transform itself. Hurd wants to do it in a year or two. IBM’s secret sauce in its transformation was Linux, which it used to unify product lines, cut development costs, and increase profits.
What is HP’s secret sauce?
Linux could be it, if HP is willing to do things the way IBM did them. That is, if it’s willing to embrace open source values.
The first value it should embrace in this case is openness. HP needs to dispel the notion of my headline, the idea that it will try and build something proprietary using open source tools (which you can do under many variants of the BSD license).
So long as HP’s software plans remain cloaked in mystery, the suspicion raised in the headline will remain alive. So come out of the skunkworks and show us what you’ve got. It might be good. The community might be able to help.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/16/08
