Actually that's just a headline full of dependable buzzwords designed to increase hits into the blog.
But Microsoft (MSFT) "Windows veteran" Bill Veghte, who just went to work for Anne Livermore at HP according to BusinessWeek to beef up HP enterprise software sales and marketing efforts, is an "open source veteran" too. According to his Microsoft bio still cached up on Google (GOOG) he ran the Linux compete program. Come on, Groklaw, dig into that.
More importantly,
"he led the team that revamped the branding and advertising efforts for Windows and helped bring Windows 7 to market."
In other words, he helped Microsoft recover from the Vista disaster and apparently pretty effectively. So how come he was rewarded with a "left to pursue personal interests" kiss off. Lost some internal infighting thing according to the rags four months ago. Officially, according to Steve Ballmer in a January 2010 email:
"Bill has indicated a desire to run a business in a more end-to-end fashion and continue to explore new areas in the broad technology, communications and services sectors."
And HP software represents an "end to end" opportunity? His going to HP software from Windows either means the economy is still as bad as I thought (Veghte couldn't find a better gig) or HP CEO Mark Hurd has more expansionist plans for HP Software. The former is bad news for all investors (there is a double dip coming or maybe already underway) and the latter is bad news for HP investors (do IT users really want to buy enterprise software from a company that has announced its exiting the market more times than it has announced it is entering the market?).
Anyway, if Veghte can do anything with the HP enterprise software line-up mishmash, I'll recommend waiver of the five-year wait for nomination into the Information Technology Sales and Marketing Hall of Fame. In fact he would be eligible for induction before retirement if he can pull it off, the way Mother Terese got made a saint while she was still alive.
-- Dennis Byron
(no financial interest in companies mentioned)
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