Missed Opportunity

HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina has been everywhere convincing institutional investors, shareholders, the press and partners that the merger is a good thing. Whether people agree or disagree, they at least are privy to her reasoning.

Conversely, I can't easily recall one executive comment or one competitive channel program from the likes of IBM, Sun Microsystems or even Dell Computer that took advantage of the confusion and articulated why it was important to look at their respective products and programs. We got many calls from HP. We did not get them from its competitors.

Perhaps HP's rivals thought it would be easier to watch the high-tech soap opera from the sidelines. Maybe in such a tough economy, they became too internally focused and did not want to invest in marketing the strengths of their respective companies and products.

Regardless of the reason, I think it was a mistake. The window of opportunity for competitors of HP and Compaq is starting to close.

As reported on CRN Online last week, for six months HP's integration team has been working to have toolkits and playbooks for its solution providers the day the merger is officially approved.

When I heard last month that the integration team included 600 employees, I was rather surprised. I didn't expect the number to be that large. But since that time, that number has doubled to 1,200. These people are feverishly working on communication plans. Their goal is to disseminate the information all at once in what they call a "Big Bang" approach.

This merger is not without its challenges, some of which include integrating different cultures, streamlining the two companies, getting all employees,not just the integration team,on board with the new mission and getting them externally focused despite the fact that this union will result in significant layoffs.

But the team has a plan it hopes to communicate and execute quickly. If they can accomplish this, HP's competitors may have lost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Have Sun and IBM been too quiet? I can be reached at [email protected].