Hi Al,

>HP printers used to be synonymous with high quality.

I can also clearly remember the early and late 90s when the HP culture would mean something. I can vividly remember using their stuff, tracers, first generations of printers and even PC equivalents... Brilliant engineering, tight driver software and robust and durable hardware by the way as well :-)

Alas, this is not only HP in the US. A "culture of monopoles" as pervaded US tech as a way to resist Japan first and later China. But it has inflicted a terrific blow on US corporations that used to be both competitive, talented and highly creative. Monopolistic corporations win. But they do not perform.

Of course you can name HP here. But others, especially large corporations in the field of global software, are even much worse whenever their activity is some sort of monopoly. "Open source" will, in the end be devastating to them. Not really to HP since it is mostly a hardware shop of course :-)

Daniel