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Reference the "newspaper" USA Today of Wednesday December 19, 2001. Pages 10B-11B.

Let it be known that "our" message (don't stop making scientific pocket calculators) has been heard. Let it also be known that the response is loud and clear (too bad/so sad, we've got better things to make).

Here's some of the text of the ad for those without access to this publication. Perhaps somebody else, somebody with a better attitude than I have, can give it a better translation.
----
Page 10B
<full-page photo of hp audio oscillator>
hp audio oscillator 200A, our first product. At $54.40 each, several were sold.

Page 11B
What if we had stopped here?
We might have stopped at the audio oscillator. It was a nice business. We might have stopped at the scientific pocket calculator. After all, hp invented the category. Even now, some suggest we might stop at printers.

But hp's ambitions have always been much greater.

The coming together of hp and Compaq is a renewal of hp's traditional aims, adapted to new technological times.

<blah, blah, blah>
------

Pardon my attitude, but I'm not feeling too happy with corporate hp just now. Oh, while you're reading the USA Today, check out page 1B, left-hand column at the fold: "Will H-P execs step down if merger fails?"

I don't know how much 2 full pages in USA Today costs, but it's got to be plenty. I don't know whether making/developing pocket scientific calculators is a good business decision. I don't know a lot of other stuff, too, but it seems obvious to me that hp is in a big PR scramble for its future and the future of its top executives.

Anyway, I don't want to be too negative, but came across this advert by chance and thought it was interesting.

Good luck and happy calculating.

Dan M.

Wish I'd picked up the WSJ instead of USA Today in the hotel lobby.

Here's the info online:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/feature_stories/mergerad01.htm

If you try to follow the PDF link (as at 12:30 GMT 20th Dec) it doesn't work. So much for HP getting the technology right! :^) (OK so all web pages have the ocasional glitch but you have to see the ironic / funny side of this)

Hi Tom,

The linkworks now. 16.10 GMT.

Arnold

Since you asked "Perhaps somebody else, somebody with a
better attitude than I have, can give it a better translation."

I would say that it's a generic forward looking we're going to do great stuff someday ad like many companies do. I don't read into it that they've heard our message or replied. Oscillators, calculators, and printers are just a few things that HP is known for. They're telling us those aren't all they want to be known for.

"We're not going to stop at X" doesn't mean they're going to stop making X. (It doesn't mean they're going to continue either.)