ShadowRAM: April 25, 2005

Hewlett-Packard channel chief John Thompson issued his strongest attack yet on rival IBM-Lenovo, bringing out what he called an "IBM partner goody bag" that included a Pepto-Bismol bottle aimed at curing "instant Lenovo sell-off" with relief for upset stomach, nausea and "market- share loss." He also produced a tube of BenGay for hours of relief from arthritis, mergers and sell-offs.

IBM Vice President Frank Vitagliano countered that the real reason Thompson went to a drugstore was to get a map to locate all the enterprise accounts HP supposedly turned over to the channel that no one can seem to find. What's more, he said, Thompson was consulting with the drugstore clerk about redesigning HP's channel program yet again. Ribbing aside, HP was out in force at VentureTech with 27 executives at the conference. Just how much does Thompson want to win new business? He gave out his home number to VentureTech members.

Cisco is running a "High Tech Policy" blog on its Web site (www.cisco.com/gov/blog/) and one of the contributing authors, John Earnhardt, made note of a recent meeting between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and officials in Bangalore, India, in which Wen suggested an India-China IT partnership. Wen's idea: China should combine its hardware skills with the software acumen of India's population to create a super IT alliance. "China and India are pumping engineers out of their education system at a record clip," Earnhardt wrote. "When you have those numbers, it is tough not to combine and be a formidable world force. This news should be sobering for the United States and technology centers around the country."

EMC has become the "Official Information Storage and Management Provider to the World Champion Boston Red Sox." As such, the Sox are tearing out the glass case around the .406 Club and replacing it with a two-level open-air pavilion, the lower portion of which will henceforth be known as the EMC Club. That may not win any friends for EMC among Ted Williams fans. The Red Sox named the section in honor of The Splendid Splinter after his death in 2002, harkening back to Williams' .406 batting average in 1941.

Think Intel President Paul Otellini has lost his patience with the never-ending questions about his company's competitive position vis--vis AMD? During a call last week, one Wall Street pro peppered Otellini with perhaps one too many questions about Intel's neighbor in Sunnyvale, Calif. "Why don't you call 1-800-AMD?" Otellini asked the analyst.

Forget dialing AMD. Call us instead with a hot tip.