Reading Rob’s perspective on the the latest hiring of new CEO to HP (Posted on BusinessPundit “Did HP Over-correct a Mistake?”) and the human aspect of the decision makers does seem to be interesting also for me.

I have read the original press release as posted on HP’s site and I found few statements that can enforce Ron’s argument - I have highlighted them in this excerpt:
Excerpt: “Mark came to our attention because of his strong execution skills, his proven ability to lead top performing teams and his track record in driving shareholder value. He demonstrated these skills by turning around NCR, which, while smaller than HP, is a complex organization with multiple business segments. As we got to know Mark, we were impressed by his emphasis on developing internal talent while reaching outside for new skills, his understanding of the role of culture in a company’s success and his personal integrity. Additionally, his straightforward style has won the respect of employees, customers and investors,” continued Dunn.

If we consider the points that Patricia Dunn, HP’s non-executive chairman decided to mention as the good and important qualities the new CEO has then the contrast to HP’s ex-CEO can be more clearer.

Also,

Another fragment from the same release “Our search for a new leader to return HP to sustained success has been focused and thorough,” said Dunn. - Achieving “sustained success” can also mean wishing for stability sometimes - Something that seems to be missing in their eyes.

If we are leaving for a moment the board’s rationale and reasons for taking this decision and focusing on the perspective of the new CEO on his new job I have found the next text in the feature story accompanied with the original press release on HP’s site:
Hurd said, “HP is one of the world’s great companies, with a proud history of innovation, outstanding talent and enviable positions in many of its product lines and services. It’s a great honor to join its leadership team and have the opportunity to build on its success.”
Reading Hurd’s viewpoint on what HP is and should be can strengthen your point about the contrast effect happening here - The three most important qualities mentioned by Hurd seem to require CEO qualities such as vision and “flair” as described in the original article and less execution-driven management.

Referring to a post on Infectious Greed “Infectious Greed: Web Analytics as Free-Fire Zone”.
Paul Kedrosky rationalizes Google’s acquisition of Urchin as a strategic step meant to take care of click frauds “After all, it seems clear that Google is going to make an Urchin-like service to advertisers — what better way to to deal with the growing drumbeat over click-fraud than to pre-emptively put a fraud detection app in front of advertisers.”. I can see an additional rationale leading this acquisition and it is an end-to-end ad optimization suite where Ads submitted on Google Adwords web site are tracked also on the customer’s web site (Inside urchin) in order to gain reliable end-to-end click to buy(Action) conversion tracking.

They currently suggest a conversion tracking capability but it is not something that works automatically and people need to implement it manually in their website - A method that is not bullet proof in my opinion and does not work for everyone.

http://entrepreneur.typepad.com/news/2005/03/20_growth_in_an.html
Excerpt: “The most popular sectors for angel investors were software (22%), health care services (16%) and biotech (10%).”

Quick updates on two recent acquisitions of Google

http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2005/03/30/google_acquires_traffic_info_startup_zipdash.html

Commenting on a post by Techdirt
“Is Intel Building Copy Protected Proprietary File Sharing System Into Chips?”:

Excerpt from source articles - “But easy-to-use services such as computer maker Apple’s iTunes have let the music industry discover its sympathy for music downloads and led to a surge in legal online music sales.”

The comparison between Bertelsmann & Intel vs. Apple iTunes raises the point that Bertelsmann is maybe in a need (As a media giant only) to control better the underlying hardware architecture of their solution in order to gain similar competitive attributes to the ones Apple has with iTunes + iPod.

While thinking on my blog infrastructure my “techie” instinct always warns me on what will happen when my feed will not be available for readers (Web service down) or even worse what will happen when a I will want to change my feed properties such as: address, title, description and more.

This problem is emphasized further considering the options of chosing between “in-house” feeds or using feed processing services such as FeedBurner - the “lock-in” is very high.

I know there several low level techniques to handle a feed change of address on the web server level, but still I wanted to find out whether someone knows about a public service that works on the principles of a Domain Name Server but for feeds. I believe a simple directory with XML api that will be integrated into readers would do the job just fine.

Collection of Articles I enjoyed reading on Sales Performance, Tech Speaking, Outsourcing and more

Is Silicon Valley Similar to Detroit?
http://www.nytimes.com/200s5/03/28/technology/28newcon.html?ex=1269666000&en=bc4ccbd17315f9e5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

” How to Beat “the 80/20 Rule” in Sales Performance“
http://marketing.about.com/b/a/142991.htm

“Big Software’s Blood Sport”
http://www.crmbuyer.com/rsstory/41379.html

“Do You Speak Tech?” http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66883,00.html

“Data Broker Executives Agree Security Laws May Be Needed” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/business/16hearing.html?ex=1268629200&en=2864b2e6ab9ec4b4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

“Selective Outsourcing” http://www.crmbuyer.com/rsstory/41083.html

“The long tail of software. Millions of Markets of Dozens.” http://bnoopy.typepad.com/bnoopy/2005/03/the_long_tail_o.html

“Software Streaming Revamps Desktop” http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=31209

“Hosted SFA Functionality: Apples to Apples?” http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=31183

“IT Resources Being Poured Into Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Survey” http://www.smallbizpipeline.com/59301324

“Silicon Insider: Farewell to Newspapers“
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/story?id=88655&page=1

“Thoughts from the Integration Consortium:
Enterprise Wireless Strategies: Five Key Things to Consider Before Implementation”
http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1024527

“Agile Workforce Appoints Advisory Board Wealth of Expertise Rounds out Management Team”
http://www.prweb.com/releases/200540/3/prwebxml221488.php

“Startup to launch micro server for Web clients”
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/25/HNstartupmicro_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/25/HNstartupmicro_1.html
Comment: A unique approach to solve rich client problem

“Microsoft will adopt changes to Windows sought by EU“
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/03/30/microsoft_will_adopt_changes_to_windows_sought_by_eu?rss_id=Boston+Globe+–+Business+News

“Intel CEO: Egypt’s forward-minded I.T. strategy ’showing results’”
http://www.ameinfo.com/news/Detailed/56818.html

“The CTO’s perspective”
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/28/13FEconsultantqa1_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/28/13FEconsultantqa1_1.html

“Sleepycat CEO Talks About Everything”
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10133