

HP Labs: Algorithm predicts sales, manages supply chain - colortone
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_25/b4136044140573_page_2.htm

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russell
I recently spent a year at HP labs. It was a very interesting place, operating
more like an academic department than a software development organization. The
staff members worked more or less on what interested them. They would vie for
sponsorship of their projects, often doing things in two or three different
official groups. Every year the projects would be peer reviewed and
sponsorship would be based, more or less, on the results. Of course, if lab
management or higher ups liked your project, it didnt matter what your peers
thought. The pace was very relaxed compared to a startup, except around the
individual's deadline for the submission of a paper.

I suppose the Labs suited the corporate need for innovation. It supplied new
ideas that could be factored back into the corporation. But the really
disruptive ideas seem to come out of nowhere in the startup scene. Sure,
AltaVista came out of Digital Labs, but Digital, the corporation didnt seem to
know what to do with it. Then Google came out of nowhere and took over the
world.

I had been at HP labs a couple of months when I met Jaap for more than a brief
introduction. Afterward I asked the lead researcher for the project I was on
who Jaap was. He replied, "Oh, he's your boss." It seems I had 4 bosses: the
Architect in charge of implementation, the Business Manager who represented
the VP outside of Labs, the Researcher who's project it was, and Jaap who paid
me.

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colortone
That's really interesting, thanks for writing. Any other thoughts? Are you
doing a startup now?

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russell
I've been working for a client on a huge (400K lines) sales/inventory/workflow
enterprise management system which was orphaned when the original developer
walked away. The origin intent when I started was to spin it off as a separate
software company, but the recession has hit the client an they are putting
every thing on hold. It's really a shame because it is really at the mezzanine
level of financing (released, version 3, real customers), but they dont seem
to want to try to raise the money. So I've started looking for another gig.

