Bonum Certa Men Certa

20-Year Microsoft Veteran Becomes HP Vice President in Charge of Software and Solutions Business

Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet is a well-known example of coup d'état



Summary: By means of entryism, Microsoft increases influence inside HP, thus reducing the chance of Slate and Windows Home Server joining the list of dead products from Microsoft

IN THE PREVIOUS post we showed how HP was preparing to dump Vista 7, apparently only to replace it with a newly-acquired Linux-based operating system. It's all just a rumour at the moment.



Mary Jo Foley asks the question, is "Microsoft and HP['s] Love on the rocks?"

Well, hardly.

Microsoft and HP collaborate in many ways and we have given many examples to that effect.

Vista 7, which is a hyped-up Vista with few improvements here and there, does not fulfill HP's needs for tablets. Vista 7 is just not competitive enough and HP really hated Vista, based on E-mails from its management (unsealed around the Steve Ballmer deposition).

We are saddened but not surprised that HP has announced in a press release [1, 2] that it takes Microsoft staff to lead "Software and Solutions Business" -- whatever that practically means.

This news was mostly covered by enthusiastic Microsoft boosters (for obvious reasons) and we found:



From the point of view of Free software and GNU/Linux, this is bad news. Microsoft's Veghte very recently left the abusive company, right after meeting privately with Steve Ballmer. Amazon ought to serve as a cautionary lesson here. Amazon added Microsoft patent tax to Red Hat and Kindle's implementation of Linux after hiring many executives from Microsoft, including one who joined the Kindle team just weeks before that notorious patent deal. Veghte could potentially put a Microsoft tax on WebOS just like in those predatory attempts against Android, which is also Linux based.

Veghte is not merely an innocent guy who spent a couple of years at Microsoft (like employees of companies that get acquired by Microsoft). He really grew up in this culture and in previous posts we gave examples of his role in antitrust violations:

Hewlett-Packard's hiring of former Windows executive Bill Veghte, announced today, is another example of the computer maker's potential to compete with its longtime partner, Microsoft, in the software business. The 20-year Microsoft veteran will lead HP's software and services unit in his new role as an HP executive vice president.


Vice President, eh?

Speaking of seats being swapped, one reader told us that "[i]t's time for the annual re-org to keep Nokia from getting competitive: Nokia has yet another corporate reorganization, this time they’ve put Anssi Vanjoki back in charge"

“It's time for the annual re-org to keep Nokia from getting competitive...”
      --Anonymous reader
See this page about Mary T. McDowell and recall how Nokia got 'poisoned' by Microsoft influence, later to sign Microsoft deals and play ball for software patents in Europe. A leopard like Veghte won't change his spots overnight and not within a month, either. He spent two decades working alongside people like Steve Ballmer.

Now, lo and behold; in the past 2 weeks' news we found this press release, titled "AMD Works with Microsoft and HP to Raise the Bar for 2P Price/Performance with Windows Server€® 2008 R2"

Okay...

Let's look further at the news.

How about "HP and Microsoft on Sex and the City 2"?

In the upcoming “Sex and the City” sequel, Carrie Bradshaw and her friends will carry Hewlett-Packard (HP) laptops that run Microsoft Windows.


Classy.

HP's Debian-based home servers will hopefully not be neglected. Over the past week or two Microsoft has generated many headlines about Windows "home servers" (here is just one example), which are a technical disaster that falls short of Linux [1, 2] and usually relies on bundling from HP. Will HP call this bad product off and concentrate on Debian now that its "Software and Solutions Business" VP is a hardcore Microsoft executive?

Microsoft has seen many of its products dying recently, Forefront being one of the latest. It was only days beforehand that Microsoft still recommended it, so just because Microsoft raves about a beta of Home Server doesn't mean it won't be cancelled like Windows Essential Business Server for example. But with Veghte in charge? Not likely.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
 
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day