They've gone through a lot of changes in the past 18 months. A lot of the culture has to change within HP. In these types of markets, consensus decision-making and competing within a matrix organizational structure gets in the way of acting decisively.

They're better able to articulate their strategy than in the past, and the new management talent has contributed to that capability. But there are still some real competitive issues, especially in the computer systems division, where they're facing declining market share. Sun has always been competitive, but we're also seeing a revitalized IBM in the server space. But as long as HP can get its strategy right, then we should see a recovery as things progress.

What has gone on here in the past, I can never change. I would caution a rush to judgment on the process of winning the entire community. We believe it will happen over time.

[The eruption of the flag controversy is a glaring symptom of a distressing change in American politics over the past decade: the way that pit-bull negative ads have led to simplistic, visceral posturing by candidates at the expense of more substantive approaches to real problems.] It's a good issue to define your opponent, ... If your opponent is for flag burning, he's got to go through a very sophisticated explanation.

Cultural survival is not about preservation, sequestering indigenous peoples in enclaves like some sort of zoological specimens. Change itself does note destroy a culture. All societies are constantly evolving. Indeed a culture survives when it has enough confidence in its past and enough say in its future to maintain its spirit and essence through all the changes it will inevitably undergo.

GM's got enormous momentum of the wrong kind. It has, in decades past, been hugely successful. The culture has said, 'Whatever we've done in the past will repeat itself', but that's not working in the current environment.