Good Week

HP is flying. A company that quite recently suffered one of technology’s most ignominious scandals would normally be lying low but the “pretexting” saga only came between a superbly executed turnaround by chief executive Mark Hurd. The capture of Marc Andreessen’s datacentre automation firm Opsware continues the Silicon Valley legend’s software acquisition rip. If Hurd can make HP’s misfiring software business work, then the company should be renamed HPH in his honour. Another deal to buy Neoware gives the firm the most comprehensive client computing strategy of anybody. HP now has top share in both PCs and thin clients. What you going to do, Dell?

Bad Week

Electricity used to be something that we all loved and admired but frankly we’re not impressed with the old current and voltage stuff any longer. San Francisco was the latest city to be hit with an outage, cutting off juice to a datacentre serving all your favourite web sites last Tuesday. Last year, London’s West End was the victim. Computers were zonked, routers were knocked out, air-conditioning failed and beer was served warm, if at all. In the old days things were so different. You flicked a switch and there it was. Now, electricity has lost its spark. We hate its crazy attitude to turning up on time and we think it’s a pretty unreliable fellow all round.

Word of the Week

Seven. It’s lucky, some say, because there are that many holes in a horseshoe. Microsoft will certainly be hoping it brings magnificent good fortune to its next client operating system upgrade: Windows 7.