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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Agilent came from HP, really

Mar 18 2009 9:34AM | Permalink |Comments (35) |


The headline of this posting may sound absurd to anyone who has used test equipment for more than just the last few years. If you read Test & Measurement World, you probably have some test equipment with an HP logo and you use that equipment every day. But, Agilent split from HP ten years ago, and there's a crop of young engineers who've grown up with Agilent equipment but not necessarily with HP equipment. To them, HP has always been a computer company.

This revelation came to me yesterday while working with several graduate students for our May cover story. I mentioned an HP meter to one of the students by saying "It was manufactured by HP prior to the formation of Agilent."

This caught a 24-year-old grad student by surprise. "You mean Agilent used to be HP?" he said wide-eyed. I explained to him that HP actually started as a test equipment company and split off the business into Agilent in 1999. The student replied "That explains why we have a box in the lab that says HP on it. Now I get it."

He really needs to read Bill & Dave.

Reader Comments



at 3/18/2009 2:13:29 PM, Burt said:
When I started as an ATE engineer in the late 70's, one could just call a random HP applications engineer who would help you solve whatever HP test equipment problem you were having or point you to one who could. Kinda like a personal VRF. HP was always forward looking and pioneered the "let the users find the bugs and corner cases" and graduated to let the users help each other - and only get involved when necessary - Agilent is still in the vanguard of this methodology as the VRF (Agilent Vee reflector e-mail list) aptly demonstrates.



at 3/19/2009 2:15:51 PM, Chris Grachanen said:
I am not surprised. I've talked to several 'younger' HP employees that thought it was a HP custom to put a HP logo on all HP owned test equipment and had no idea HP was once in the test equipment business.




at 3/24/2009 2:00:02 PM, kc6zut said:
Don't get me started on sliderules. Or calculators for that matter.





at 3/24/2009 2:23:52 PM, tc said:
Too many things used to be HP, including The Way. HP is now (to read their financials) and ink company, like the Xerox paper company.




at 3/24/2009 2:28:23 PM, lb said:
What??? HP made sliderules?





at 3/24/2009 2:28:23 PM, lb said:
What??? HP made sliderules?





at 3/24/2009 2:39:10 PM, Jay said:
The old HP was a leading technology company; the current one is a sales company....

I prefer the old HP; things like HP35, HP11, HP13, HP3458A....that is real great technology....can't say the same about the current HP products....




at 3/24/2009 2:58:38 PM, Roland Govantes said:
Your March 18th article, ‘Agilent came from HP, really’, has touched a personal sore spot. I was personally hurt in 1999 when the “Wicked Witch of Silicon Valley” single-handedly destroyed one of the greatest engineering companies in the World, Hewlett-Packard (HP).

But getting back to the subject matter.

Your article is correct, most undergraduate and graduate engineering students don’t have a clue who Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were and their contributions to test and measurements and metrology – let’s not forget the thousands of engineers and scientist that worked and contributed for these two great pioneers during the original company first 50 years.

I don’t know if this lack of historical foundation is ignorance falling purposely on the students or academic institutions?

A company, such as [the original] HP, is created once in a lifetime. Does this mean the United States of America is doomed as a technological nation?

Thank you for reading the above.

Sincerely,

Roland Govantes





at 3/24/2009 3:21:44 PM, Larry M said:
HP? Plastic printers.




at 3/24/2009 3:49:05 PM, John O said:
I'm still using my HP41CX that I spent a month's salary on in 1979...




at 3/24/2009 4:20:09 PM, Ken said:
Yup. I grew up in Silicon Valley, then known as the Valley of Heart's Delight. After serving in the Navy I began my career in the Valley in '63. Several companies I worked for were in the Stanford Industrial Park, close the the HP site on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto. Specified and used HP test equipment almost exclusively throughout my working days. I first learned to program in HPBasic on the HP-85. Still use my HP11 calculator. They were a premier company. I always think of Agilent as the "




at 3/24/2009 4:22:50 PM, Ken said:
real" HP :-)

No idea why the last of my comment got cut off...



at 3/24/2009 7:48:32 PM, Ralph said:
HP TMO. Back them we used to be the biggest part of HP. Then things changed... HP8510's to InkJets?

Agilent is a good company, but it ain't what Bill &




at 3/24/2009 7:49:47 PM, Garand said:
I remember the day they split quite well. HP invited me in to pitch my company 4 months earlier. After we pulled the business cases together and arrived early that morning, we were told HP split and there was a 6 month mandatory "




at 3/24/2009 7:49:53 PM, Ralph said:
Same here?!

... & Dave built. Call me naive, but it's still one of the better ways to run a company. Now more than ever.



at 3/24/2009 8:59:31 PM, The HP Way is now more outside of HP/Ag said:
Those of us who grew up in HP, left and started new companies are probably the real heirs and propagators of the HP Way.




at 3/25/2009 4:05:39 AM, Guglielmo said:
This is a very similar story to Marconi Instruments, spun out of the original great mans company. Absorbed into GEC and was still great. Always remembered for solidly engineered, reliable intsruments during the 1950-80's period. Then sold off by the Marconi (was rebranded GEC) and became American owned (IFR) and then subsumed into Aeroflex as their biggest arm. Still a good company with many original Marconi staff but the ethos is very different now..
The good old days have gone.....Shame.






at 3/25/2009 10:05:48 PM, Norbert from the Ozarks said:
The forties and Fifties saw some great inventors of electronic test and measurement equipment. Hewlett,Packard, Fluke, Keithley, Lebow ...just to name a few who I got to know personally. They and the companies that they founded delivered quality instruments and great service and support. They set an example by their own work and business ethics for the engineers working at both at their companies and at their customers.




at 3/31/2009 8:48:18 AM, Roger said:
Dave and Howard vollum worked together in the US Navy. Howard Vollum started another T&




at 3/31/2009 8:49:17 AM, Roger said:
Howard Vollum started Tektronix, now has been acquired by Danaher.



at 5/6/2009 1:47:55 PM, Agilenot said:
I wouldn't call Agilent the old HP. It is very different and has sold off most of TMO.





at 5/7/2009 2:00:21 AM, NoOne said:
HP was technology company Agilent is investor's co who make money by selling off parts of Agilent and lay-offs..

HP was HP. Agilent is not HP





at 5/7/2009 5:58:14 AM, Scott Brubacher said:
We certainly had some great times working in TMO at HP! Go Agilent Go!



at 5/7/2009 7:20:48 AM, Colin Warwick said:
Hi Martin, Colin Warwick from Agilent here. I joined recently so I can't compare Agilent to H-P. To understand Agilent's heritage I did read Michael Malone's excellent "Bill & Dave" book and was moved to post a review here:

signal-integrity-tips.com/2008/book-review-bill-dave/

Thanks!

-- Colin




at 5/7/2009 7:58:26 AM, Steve Bonnell said:
And I have a collection of HP Catalogs from 1975 up to ~2000 to prove it...
then, about that time, Agilent did not even do a Catalog!
Also have an HP Audio Generator in a wooden case, with the big HP on the front.
Hewlett-Packard for Generators and Tektronix for Oscilloscopes... no second guessing!




at 5/7/2009 8:13:44 AM, HP Brat said:
I think the misconception is that the HP Way is tied to a company. It is not. The HP way resides in the culture and the people. When the people believe in the practices of Bill and Dave, then they are living the HP Way. This was shown to me as a young boy with my Dad, an HP Manager, working long hours into the night. I went to work for HP in the Last days of the company before we became Agilent, and sadly after my father passed away. Now, that period of my work life is ending, but The Way will continue on with me, and hopefully, with others as we move onto new and exciting opportunities.




at 5/7/2009 11:03:12 AM, Carlos Ocegueda said:
I worked for HP-Agilent 29 1/2 year. The company I joined back in 1979 was dramatically change when TMO was sent out as Agilent ten years ago. The original HP spirit was to be going with the new company, but it is my opinion that the spirit is no longer around. Yes, the company had to change to meet the business conditions and survive, but I feel as the changes were done, but spirit and conditions that initially brought me into and keep me in the company have long gone. I keep in mind The HP Way as I do business in my own company. My way to pay respect to Bill and Dave.




at 5/8/2009 8:58:25 AM, Brian said:
I worked at HP from 1973-1999, and Agilent from 1999-2006, then retired at 55 because I could not stand the corporation that Agilent had become. Neither HP nor Agilent exemplify the HP Way of old. The vultures moved in when Bill and Dave died and irrevocably erased the culture. Lots of good people still work there, and they are hungry for a return to the values of Bill and Dave, but it won't happen as long as Agilent is focused on making investors happy and quarterly returns instead of making the right products for willing customers. They've eliminated so many talented old timers though, that the needed continuity is disappearing. Like someone said above, it is now up to those of us who lived the original HP Way to take it with us and start our own companies with those values. I am.







at 5/8/2009 9:41:28 AM, Dave Cunningham said:
I've been with HP/Agilent for 25 years now - it's the only workplace I've known. This latest round of layoffs is extremely painful to watch and be a part of. That doesn't mean the HP spirit I learned and was proud of is all gone, though.

I remember how much fun it was to call my parents and EE friends and say "I got the HP job". That was pretty hot back then. It was the same during the first few years - being part of HP was one hell of a feeling.

No, it's not the same in Agilent today...but I don't agree that the HP Way and spirit are all gone, or only visible in people who left for startups. The spirit lives on in the people that care and fight on to make the company better and fix the problems that exist. The HP Way existed in the past only through the people that believed in it and exemplified it, and I know there are many of those people still around Agilent. The question is whether those people will be able to fight through tough times to keep that spirit.

Bill and Dave crafted the HP way as a guide behavior and decisions. It wasn't a guarantee of good times, and it didn't promise me a lifetime job. They were also quite clear that the HP Way had profit as a cornerstone - if we didn't make money, it's tough to maintain other standards. What I took away from it most strongly, though, is the belief that if I tried to live up to its standards, and I pushed others I worked with to do the same, that I could feel honor in doing so and know that I'm doing the best I can to make the company better.

That's the vision I choose to use looking forward. I admire Carlos' statement above: "My way to pay respect to Bill and Dave". Those two men are still real in my heart, and time will tell if that and other Agilent employees' spirit will be enough to recapture what's been lost.





at 5/8/2009 9:47:16 AM, HP-Agilent-LabRat: 20 years so far said:
At least I don't get asked "can you fix my printer" any more, but on a more serious note, the electronic part is being asset stripped, and used as a "cash cow" to fund the growth of the life sciences part.




at 5/9/2009 5:35:00 AM, Rob said:
While the HP Way may still exist in individual attitudes it is long gone from the corporate ethos as exemplified by Agilent management over the last decade. Maybe that's what is needed to survive in the corporate world today but the company is a poorer environment as a result. I like the idea that businesses, like my own, created by ex-HP/Agilent employees are the true inheritors of the HP Way.




at 5/9/2009 7:31:54 AM, Agilenot said:
It is all well and good to say the HP way is alive in those individuals who lived it. The old HP was a family that made people proud of where they worked. However, Agilent is no family and most people keep wondering when EMG is going to be sold off.







at 5/10/2009 8:45:20 PM, HP Way said:
Company Life Cycle: First the founders run the company, followed by their diciples. Then the Marketers take over, followed by the MBAs. Finally, in the final days come the lawyers. Sadly, Agilent is in the next to last stage.




at 6/16/2009 6:30:34 PM, rpb said:
HP... Used to be called Hewlett-Packard! And quite rightly so, Bill & Dave built a great company. Synonymous with T&M. Alas, I remember the day they introduced the first InkJet and the day they announced that the computer business for the first time hat made more revenue than TMO. Hewlett-Packard was the best place to work. With all due respect, HP and Agilent don't compare. Working at Hewlett-Packard was hard work, but it was mainly fun and enormously rewarding. And we did have some of the best kit around. There was a saying our customers used: "We want the HP". Some parts I don't miss though. Like repairing the manual switch assemblies on an 8565 SpecAn or 'upgrading' all our system workstations by swapping 256k RAM boards for 512kB RAM ones - cards the size of modern netbook... :) On a more serious note and in reflection of other posts: I would have never dreamed of leaving HP. I resigned from Agilent after 3 1/2 years. There was just no point in it anymore. We did the hard yards for HP because it was respected and reciprocated. We did it for Agilent so as not to lose our job. I remember a key turning point for me was being chastised for voicing concerns about the quality we were delivering to the customer. I was equally chastised for questioning the feasibility of making a 32hour (one-way) trip from Melbourne (Australia) to Chicago for a two-day meeting. Politics, shareholders and money. Shame.



at 6/16/2009 6:30:53 PM, rpb said:
HP... Used to be called Hewlett-Packard! And quite rightly so, Bill & Dave built a great company. Synonymous with T&M. Alas, I remember the day they introduced the first InkJet and the day they announced that the computer business for the first time hat made more revenue than TMO. Hewlett-Packard was the best place to work. With all due respect, HP and Agilent don't compare. Working at Hewlett-Packard was hard work, but it was mainly fun and enormously rewarding. And we did have some of the best kit around. There was a saying our customers used: "We want the HP". Some parts I don't miss though. Like repairing the manual switch assemblies on an 8565 SpecAn or 'upgrading' all our system workstations by swapping 256k RAM boards for 512kB RAM ones - cards the size of modern netbook... :) On a more serious note and in reflection of other posts: I would have never dreamed of leaving HP. I resigned from Agilent after 3 1/2 years. There was just no point in it anymore. We did the hard yards for HP because it was respected and reciprocated. We did it for Agilent so as not to lose our job. I remember a key turning point for me was being chastised for voicing concerns about the quality we were delivering to the customer. I was equally chastised for questioning the feasibility of making a 32hour (one-way) trip from Melbourne (Australia) to Chicago for a two-day meeting. Politics, shareholders and money. Shame.

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