Is GE's Corporate R&D Center a Beacon of Hope for Scientists and Engineers?

[Integral]

HP has fired Carly Fiorina as CEO.

 

[graphic7]

HP has fired Carly Fiorina as CEO.

Great day, indeed. For those who do not know, Carly was the one that discontinued the original line of HP calculators. She's also the one that brought them back under an Asian manufacturer called Kimpo, therefore, the quality of the recent ones are not as good as the originals. Hopefully, with Carly gone, we'll see HP calculators flourish again.

 

[graphic7]

Not to mention that she also downplayed the Alpha and PA-RISC product lines to non-existence, while decreasing the quality of printers produced. She (well, up until today) pretended the Compaq merger was a good thing. Her backing of the Itanium over HP's mature UNIX workstation line was just plain idiotic.

I'm glad to see that she's gone. At one time HP was a respectable company, but now under Carly's reign, it's nothing more than an oversized Dell. I hope we'll see change in HP.

 

[Gokul43201]

Is she also responsible for selling off the HP measument instrumentation division to Agilent ?

 

[graphic7]

Is she also responsible for selling off the HP measument instrumentation division to Agilent ?

I believe so.

She about sold off every core market HP was in: Calculators, instrumentation, workstations, servers, etc. She did this so she could compete with the comodity PC vendors, which HP was no match for.

 

[Gokul43201]

Well, this sure is good news ! <raising glass to toast a better future>

 

[Astronuc]

HP's Press Release

HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina Steps Down

 

[Integral]

Not to mention that she also downplayed the Alpha and PA-RISC product lines to non-existence, while decreasing the quality of printers produced.

HUmmm... Carly did a lot of bad things to HP. Put her influence on the quality of the printers was negligible. The line of cartridges we are now producing is excellent. The line that will soon be coming on the market even better.

The main thing Carly did was to completely destroy the fundamental tenants of the Company as established by Hewlett and Packard. HP used to be THE company to work for now it is just another large company. Hopefully someone who understands what HP stood for can now take the reigns and start to put back together the pieces.

The Aglient spin off occurred before Carly, we can't blame that on her.

 

[Gokul43201]

The Aglient spin off occurred before Carly, we can't blame that on her.

Uh oh ! Guess I jumped the gun on that one eh ?

Any chance the old RPN calculators will be back ?
The 32S-II is so hard to find...they sell on Ebay for a gazillion bucks a pop.

 

[Astronuc]

I still use my trusty HP-41CX

But the batteries are much harder to find these days.

 

[graphic7]

Uh oh ! Guess I jumped the gun on that one eh ?

Any chance the old RPN calculators will be back ?
The 32S-II is so hard to find...they sell on Ebay for a gazillion bucks a pop.

You should look into the 33S. It's not quite as good as the 32SII, but the same form factor. I'm one of those individuals that paid for the 32SII and 48GX on Ebay. Needless to say, I paid almost twice the retail value for both, but they're worth every penny. I haven't worked with the 33S, but I've heard it's decent, and more like the 42S (which was top notch). The 49G+, the replacement for the 48 series, is pretty decent, also. When I said the quality wasn't as good, it's not, but the functionality has actually gotten better (as it should have).

Some of the interesting features of the 33S are: a two-line stack display (can you say HP 42S?), a library of physical constants (what a godsend, I'm tired of storing hbar in `h'), 32k of memory (this has to be almost 1000 times more memory than the 32SII, which means you can actually write more than two programs!).

Edit: Also contrary to the popular belief - HP STILL MAKES RPN CALCULATORS

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The main thing Carly did was to completely destroy the fundamental tenants of the Company as established by Hewlett and Packard. HP used to be THE company to work for now it is just another large company. Hopefully someone who understands what HP stood for can now take the reigns and start to put back together the pieces.

I wonder how many times I have heard this from people all over the country over the last five years...dozens perhaps? It's not just HP Integral. This is the new business philosophy in the US. With the exception of relatively few examples there is no loyalty to employees or principles anymore. This is probably the biggest reason that I choose to work for myself [internal politics is no less than next on the list, maybe first, but its a toss up]. In spite of all of the hype and bolony that companies dole out, through my own experience and that of many other people, I have learned to never assume that any company will ever act in my best interest. They don't and they won't.

 

[loseyourname]

The main thing Carly did was to completely destroy the fundamental tenants of the Company as established by Hewlett and Packard. HP used to be THE company to work for now it is just another large company. Hopefully someone who understands what HP stood for can now take the reigns and start to put back together the pieces.

I don't know. I'd say Southwest Airlines has always been the big company to work for. Then again, I've never worked for either, so that conclusion is drawn mostly from Forbes reports.

 

[brewnog]

Hopefully someone who understands what HP stood for can now take the reigns...

I know, I know!
Hewlett Packard!


Now give me those reigns, I have work to do!

 

[Integral]

I don't know. I'd say Southwest Airlines has always been the big company to work for. Then again, I've never worked for either, so that conclusion is drawn mostly from Forbes reports.

Evidently you are not in tune with the Hi Tech industry. I am sure SW Airlines is a great company... How many engineers do they employ? How much R&D do they do? Sorry I am not a pilot, Jet engine mechanic or a flight attendant, and have little interest in those positions. So for my class of job, HP was at one time THE place to work. Clearly there are a lot of factors which enter into the definition of "THE".

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Integral, at the rate that good jobs are racing overseas, maybe you should break out the wrenches.

A friend of mine, an aerospace engineer working on robots at Wacker Siltronics, once asked me if I know of anyone who still does real engineering anymore. I do know of a few places, but most engineers are really doing sales, tech support, redundant applications, or monkey work. Relatively few people work in a classic engineering environment any more. One reason for this is very clear. The risk for R&D is so high that few companies wish to assume the liability. There is a saying out there: It's cheaper to steal than innovate. It's a common philosophy that you let the fools develop the product and go broke. When they're gone or on their knees, the competition moves in and picks up the pieces and profits. If we are to encourage innovation then we need to offer better protection from techno-pirates and cut-throat business practices.

 

[Astronuc]

The risk for R&D is so high that few companies wish to assume the liability.

I don't think it is so much risk as it is money from the bottom line, i.e. less money in the pockets of the top level/executive management. Sorry, to be so cynical, but I have seen top level R&D or S&T (Science and Technology) groups decimated over the last two decades.

One 'relatively' bright spot seem to be GE Corporate R&D Center, Schenectady, NY. I am not sure how it compares to 20 years ago, but

http://geglobalresearch.com/

May be a good place for scientists (physicists and chemists) and engineers. Global Research supports all of GE technology and manufacturing operations.