Good By Hewlett Packard!

On September 16th, HP announced (again) a plan to split into two companies, lay off several thousand people and outsource even more support and development jobs. The HP saga is a dramatic example of why I avoid proprietary software. . . .

SUPPORT AND DEVELOPMENT MATTER.

Unfortunately, the New York State Department of Health recently invested in a new data mart based on the proprietary Vertica database. Proprietary software, like Vertica, locks you into a single vendor for support. In this case, HP. Open source tools such as PostgreSQL are often supported by multiple competing companies. Each able to offer support. All contribute improvements to the platform. Postgres support can be obtained from companies like Red Hat, Dell and even, ironically, HP.

This is not an anti-Vertica post. As a product, I like Vertica. Compared to the older Oracle data mart, Vertica is several orders of magnitude faster. As a product, I have nothing but praise for it. But, the ever-changing shape of enterprise IT is more complicated than a performance metric or two.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/09/hp-to-cut-up-to-30000-jobs-as-it-splits-into-two/​

Vertica is not mentioned in this piece, but the division that sells and supports Vertica will become a small part of HP-Enterprise. The bad news - this hypothetical HP-Enterprise is losing money. It isn’t a sustainable business, which is why HP proper (printers and computers) wants to divest itself of it. If you doubt me, flex your Google-fu and prove me wrong. In all likelihood, Vertica support / maintenance / etc. will be outsourced as a result of this decision.

• Will Vertica survive as a viable product? I don’t know.
• Will service be as good? Maybe, maybe not.
• Will Vertica continue to see ongoing development? Who knows?

What I do know is that HP has been trying to compete with IBM, Red Hat and Oracle for over 10 years and they have never made a profit doing so. That isn’t a debate. That is a fact clearly laid out in their SEC filings.

My opinion - IT decisions should be as much about ongoing development, support and service as it is about the product. In IT, products come and go. Service is what you should pay for because you can’t easily replace a terrible vendor.