@EDS as second class citzens (AC 17/07/09 12:37)
clueless dk-hd said "firstly, EDS are second class citizens, name a project they have not screwed up in the last 20 years?"
Suggestion, get yourself over to http://www.eds.com/news/wins/. Yep, now see how many large companies _choose_ to do business with EDS. Second, note that two of those listed are _renewals_ - that's right, EDS "screwed" up the contract sooo badly that the customer decided to continue letting them do it. Yeah right! Hands up, I'd be the first to admit that there's been some "pooch screws" in the past - UK IR, NMCI jump to my mind. But that's kind of expected with government contracts, some of them get royally humped, irrespective if it's EDS, IBM, Cap Gemini, Accenture, Fujitsu or whoever. But for every big time cockup there's been a shedload of stuff done quietly on-time/on-budget or better.
Second part - clueless dk-hd also said "Secondly HP seemed to be doing pretty dammed well when they brought you". Actually no they weren't - HP Services were (reputedly) losing contracts - mainly to IBM Global Services. Do you really think that that notorious tight-wad (not got moths in his wallet - he's got fossils of moths) Mark Hurd would spend all that money buying EDS if he didn't _have_ to. Heck, I know from experience where HP Services lost deals and EDS got them - EDS were just plain better at "services" than HP*.
* I don't blame HP Services for this - the problem is, and still is, their management. IBMGS or EDS come into a customer and say "we prefer you use product X or Y, but if you prefer Z then that's cool, we can do that too". HP's atttitude seems to be "you use our product lines or we throw a major hissy fit". And like _that's_ really a way to keep a customer happy... NOT!
I wonder what the heck's going on with HP - Hurd and co seem to be continually trying to shrink the business, whilst saying the opposite - actions speak louder than words Mark! Last rumour I heard was that R&D is going to be slashed to the bone - which for an 'engineering company' is tantamount to suicide. As an long time EDSer I've been impressed with my HP colleagues - but they (like us) just aren't given the chance to go out there and make a difference.
And as for the latest idea - it's good in theory - but it's copied from elsewhere, and besides there's the suspicion that if you take the extended unpaid leave that when you come back you find that your job's been closed. After all, you can't be that busy if you can afford to take extended periods of leave - paid or otherwise. And Hurd and co have crapped on the workforce so many times that they/we automatically look for the worst in any announcement.