ShadowRAM: December 15, 2003

He was a no-show at IBM's PartnerWorld, and even sidestepped its recent analyst conference, opting to send a videotaped presentation instead. Who does he think he is? Larry Ellison? But even Ellison had himself beamed in live via satellite, so I guess not.

Palmisano's apparent reticence is in stark contrast to Carly "Shows-Up-Everywhere-Even-To-The-Opening-Of-An-Envelope" Fiorina. Her high-profile, non-stop schedule is geared to promote "the New HP." There are even some multiple-Carly theories being bandied about.

Not that she's always open and welcoming to members of the media. Yours truly has been subjected to some of Carly's thousand-yard stares in the past when she didn't want to answer certain questions.

Her ubiquity has caused some very public speculation as to her next move. Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto continues to ask the HP CEO if she'll be running for office anytime soon. And Fiorina keeps ducking. "Well, you know, never say never," she told him last week during an appearance. "But right now, I've got my hands full, getting people to focus on the facts about my business."

But which facts might those be? On Tuesday, hours before meeting with Cavuto, Fiorina brushed off questions about a reported re-organization that would shift Peter Blackmore's role. "When we're ready to make organizational announcements, we'll make them," she said. I guess the time was right on Wednesday, when Blackmore was officially moved over to a new customer organization.

So will Fiorina run for office? Well, she's certainly got the truth-telling skills of a politician.

But back to Sam: One has to wonder why the top dog at the world's top computer company is not waging a more public battle to take IBM to the next level. An interesting side note is that one of his chief flaks, er, I mean public relations executives, Bill Hughes, is leaving Jan. 1. Hughes has been Palmisano's media gatekeeper for some time. I guess that makes him,or made him, as the case may be,the man behind the man behind the curtain.

Grady Booch has landed one of the most coveted gigs in the biz,that of IBM Fellow, where folks get paid to think deep thoughts. Hey, how come I can't find a job like that? Oh yeah, you need to be smart%85

Anyway, Booch, former egghead at Rational Software and now at IBM, has spent some time calculating the total number of lines of code written since 1945, and came up with an answer of something like three-quarters of a trillion lines. He then pre-empted my very thoughts, quipping, "I guess I've got too much time on my hands."