IT Anthems: Hewlett-Packard (OpenMail Lament)

• Tags:
• Carly Fiorina,
• OpenMail,
• Folksingers,
• Exchange

Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 08 Nov 2002 09:06 GMT

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You may think of HP as a source of expensive printer ink, but there is a lot more to the company than that. There's a creative head of steam there that shows your stationery budget is being well spent.

Go to page 2, if you want a great example of a corporate anthem that will impress you with the speed, power and passion of HP Services. But let's lead off this week with something a bit different. It's a corporate anti-anthem, a protest song. And it is one with a very serious lesson for all corporate planners: never cross a folk-singer.

Once upon a time, Hewlett-Packard had an email program. From all accounts, quite a good one. But OpenMail got sidelined in favour of Microsoft Exchange, and unceremoniously dumped.

At the farewell party, developer Richi Jennings and his colleagues unleashed an accordion-backed protest song, detailing the tribulations and eventual demise of their work.

And lo and behold, almost overnight, the tragedy was overturned. Samsung stepped in, bought the product and renamed it Samsung Contact . Richi and his team lived happily ever after.

Lyrics Audio

Years ago we had a vision
To change the email scene.
Communication without limits
Unlike anything you've seen
Moved to Pinewood, started coding
For Sleepy Hollow, a new dawn
One year later,
Yes one year later,
One year later -- without fanfare! -- OpenMail was born

Time went by, we added features,
Things you've never seen before.
You want clients, well we've got 'em!
Really couldn't ask for more.
In early days, we had big sales,
We thought eternity
But what was coming,
Oh what was coming,
What was coming was the evil empire and dark forces in HP

(mournful accordion solo)

We did our best, we had success
Didn't satisfy HP
Our customers were the biggest,
Profits there for all to see
Tried to close us -- Carly hates us!
Don't fit in the new HP
Tried to sell us -- yeah, they tried to sell us!
Tried to sell us
Tried to sell us but they messed up
OpenMail has ceased to be

Go to page for something a bit more upbeat. If you have any songs from the IT industry that you want to share with us mail us at corpanthems@zdnet.co.uk

Go to section: IT Anthems: Hewlett-Packard (OpenMail Lament) Page 2: HP Services Party

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