Would you buy a printer from this company?

[Prime]

HP whistleblower warned management of ethics problems seven months ago.

HP general counsel and CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER take the fifth amendment in
Congressional hearings.

California Attorney General says he has enough evidence to bring criminal
charges against certain individuals within the company.

And they force you to buy a new printhead every time you run out of an ink
color, too.....

Prime

 

[bmoag]

I'll bet they're not very good Christians either . . .

 

[Roy G]

HP whistleblower warned management of ethics problems seven months ago.

HP general counsel and CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER take the fifth amendment in
Congressional hearings.

California Attorney General says he has enough evidence to bring criminal
charges against certain individuals within the company.

And they force you to buy a new printhead every time you run out of an ink
color, too.....

Prime

And exactly which multi-national company would you name as being entirely
honest and semi ethical???

Get real, once you have a bit more experience you will know that none of
them are any good.

Roy G

 

[ato_zee]

With Epson you can't replace the printhead so the whole printer
goes to landfill.
In an ideal world you would be able to replace the printhead
by dropping it onto a set of guide pins.

 

[measekite]

This is really a stupid statement. You do not have to buy a new
printhead every time you run out of an ink color. They do not even
force you to buy their printer. And when the system first came out you
did not even have to buy an inkjet.

 

[Edwin Pawlowski]

HP whistleblower warned management of ethics problems seven months ago.

HP general counsel and CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER take the fifth amendment in
Congressional hearings.

You make some good points. I'm going to wait until Enron makes printers and
buy from them instead. Or Tyco, or - - - -hell, it makes no difference.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

HP whistleblower warned management of ethics problems seven months ago.

HP general counsel and CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER take the fifth amendment in
Congressional hearings.

California Attorney General says he has enough evidence to bring criminal
charges against certain individuals within the company.

And they force you to buy a new printhead every time you run out of an ink
color, too.....

Prime

Sure. Taking the 5th shows good judgment.
Congress really has no business have hearings. If
they wanted to do something value they would
attack the problem of personal data being made
available to practically anyone that wants it
instead of concentrating on punishing a company
trying to find security holes. But of course, as
usual, Congress attacks some peripheral activity
instead of the root problem.

So, if the AG has the evidence let him prosecute.

They (?HP?) don't force you to do anything, you
just make decisions, some of which you may regret.
When you buy a glass that holds 6.5 oz instead
of 8 oz, is it the stores fault or yours for not
reading the print that says the glasses hold 6.5 oz?

 

[Prime]

And exactly which multi-national company would you name as being
entirely honest and semi ethical???

Get real, once you have a bit more experience you will know that none
of them are any good.

Roy G

Your statement suggests that we should just accept unethical and illegal
behavior. Using that logic, there is no reason to prosecute anybody from
Enron, since everybody does it anyway.

Are you a politician?

Prime

 

[Prime]

They (?HP?) don't force you to do anything, you
just make decisions, some of which you may regret.
When you buy a glass that holds 6.5 oz instead
of 8 oz, is it the stores fault or yours for not
reading the print that says the glasses hold 6.5 oz?

It's certainly your fault. Which is why I'm promoting information so that
the smarter readers of this forum make a wise choice.

Of course, I never talked about stores. I talked about HP. The management
running a reputable company into the ground should be all fired, not just
the Chairman of the Board.

Prime

 

[George E. Cawthon]

It's certainly your fault. Which is why I'm promoting information so that
the smarter readers of this forum make a wise choice.

Of course, I never talked about stores. I talked about HP. The management
running a reputable company into the ground should be all fired, not just
the Chairman of the Board.

Prime

What's my fault? You have already condemned HP,
like many people. The last I read was that the CA
attorney general was investigating whether they
had broken any law. Apparently, the prosecutors
aren't sure what is and what is not illegal. And
Congress just jumped on it for political ends.

HP management didn't run the company into the
ground, check the profit ledger. This isn't a
case of flimflam and a scam like Enron. It's
about a company trying to avoid the transfer of
private data and how far the company can go in
trying to catch the perpetrators. If you want to
get mad at someone, get mad at the guy that was
giving away company secrets. Gees, focus on the
real problem. But you just want to whack the
company.

 

[irwell]

Sure. Taking the 5th shows good judgment.
Congress really has no business have hearings. If
they wanted to do something value they would
attack the problem of personal data being made
available to practically anyone that wants it
instead of concentrating on punishing a company
trying to find security holes. But of course, as
usual, Congress attacks some peripheral activity
instead of the root problem.

So, if the AG has the evidence let him prosecute.

They (?HP?) don't force you to do anything, you
just make decisions, some of which you may regret.
When you buy a glass that holds 6.5 oz instead
of 8 oz, is it the stores fault or yours for not
reading the print that says the glasses hold 6.5 oz?

C'mon HP was such a buttoned down company,
snobbery taken to the extreme!
Hewlett and Packard would be rolling over in
their garages!

 

[Prime]

"George E. Cawthon" <[email protected]> posted the exciting
message

HP management didn't run the company into the
ground, check the profit ledger. This isn't a
case of flimflam and a scam like Enron. It's
about a company trying to avoid the transfer of
private data and how far the company can go in
trying to catch the perpetrators. If you want to
get mad at someone, get mad at the guy that was
giving away company secrets. Gees, focus on the
real problem. But you just want to whack the
company.

HP management has run the *reputation* of the company into the ground. I
have no problem with investigating leaks, and agree that they needed to
do that. But it should be done legally. The guy on the board giving away
secrets *pales* in comparison to the trouble they've now created. Instead
of pursuing somebody with unethical behavior, they became even more
unethical and illegal and that's why the focus is on the senior
management rather than one leaky director. And that's why I want to whack
the company.

Is that hard to understand?

Prime

 

[George E. Cawthon]

"George E. Cawthon" <[email protected]> posted the exciting
message


HP management has run the *reputation* of the company into the ground. I
have no problem with investigating leaks, and agree that they needed to
do that. But it should be done legally. The guy on the board giving away
secrets *pales* in comparison to the trouble they've now created. Instead
of pursuing somebody with unethical behavior, they became even more
unethical and illegal and that's why the focus is on the senior
management rather than one leaky director. And that's why I want to whack
the company.

Is that hard to understand?

Prime

Yep! It sounds like HP has some special
obligation to you. They don;t, except for the
shares of HP that you hold.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

C'mon HP was such a buttoned down company,
snobbery taken to the extreme!
Hewlett and Packard would be rolling over in
their garages!

So, if I understand it, your main complaint is
they are snobs? How about their products?

 

[jgoryatjagcondotcom]

HP whistleblower warned management of ethics problems seven months ago.

HP general counsel and CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER take the fifth amendment in
Congressional hearings.

California Attorney General says he has enough evidence to bring criminal
charges against certain individuals within the company.

And they force you to buy a new printhead every time you run out of an ink
color, too.....

Prime

In a simple fair world every busines that does wrong will be held
accountable. Unfortunately the world we live in is neither simple nor
fair.

The best thing you can do as a potential consumer is to investigate
the PRODUCT, not the company. If the product meets your needs and you
can live with its shortcomings (ALL PRODUCTS HAVE THESE). Then you buy
the product.

If we worried about how the company behaves then we would never buy
any product ever again. Most corporations are only as ethical as the
HAVE to be inorder to make a profit without going to jail. Looking at
oil companies for instance, annoucing record profits and earning while
we are all paying 3 bucks a gallon for fuel after the hurricanes.

No I say look at the product, do the research then if it meets your
needs then buy it. If you are waiting for a fair and equitable
corporation to make something for you to buy then you will be waiting
a long time.

Besides NO ONE forces you to do anything but YOU.

 

[measekite]

Nobody really cares what HP as a company did or did not do. People who
acted inappropriately will be dealt with. HP makes some fine products
but some of them lag behind other companies.

What really needs to be cleaned up is the lack of public disclosure in
the generic ink industry. If the generics did not clog the printheads
and ruin printers then it would be more understandable for people who
want to use this undisclosed relabeled stuff if they accept results that
are not as good as OEM and fade much more rapidly.

 

[Prime]

Yep! It sounds like HP has some special
obligation to you. They don;t, except for the
shares of HP that you hold.

I hold no HP shares. Apparently my ethics make me a bit more passionate
than yours.

Prime

 

[Prime]

(e-mail address removed) posted the exciting message

In a simple fair world every busines that does wrong will be held
accountable. Unfortunately the world we live in is neither simple nor
fair.

The best thing you can do as a potential consumer is to investigate
the PRODUCT, not the company. If the product meets your needs and you
can live with its shortcomings (ALL PRODUCTS HAVE THESE). Then you buy
the product.

If we worried about how the company behaves then we would never buy
any product ever again. Most corporations are only as ethical as the
HAVE to be inorder to make a profit without going to jail. Looking at
oil companies for instance, annoucing record profits and earning while
we are all paying 3 bucks a gallon for fuel after the hurricanes.

You seem to not want to differntiate companies acting legally from those
that do not.

I don't see why I should buy products from companies that act illegally,
regardless of the quality of their products.

I've not yet seen any significant evidence that the oil companies are
acting illegally. The illegal actions of HP in this case are much
clearer.

Of course you can approach this any way you want to, as can I. I
personally think it is a great thing when the market punishes companies
that act illegally and unethically. This is the free market at work.

Besides NO ONE forces you to do anything but YOU.

I'm not sure why you mentioned this, who could argue?

Prime

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

Your statement suggests that we should just accept unethical and illegal
behavior. Using that logic, there is no reason to prosecute anybody from
Enron, since everybody does it anyway.

Are you a politician?

Prime

Hell, I still want a big refund of all that I was screwed out of for
electricity while these guys were gaming us. I want the Republicans who
gave us deregulation to pay, too (Governor Pete Wilson, anyone?).

I'm glad that I don't live in San Diego, where the people got hit much
earlier and paid probably 50% more than I did here.

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

I hate to see a formerly excellent company being trashed by its own
shortsighted executives. But I'm used to this by now. The Pennsylvania
Railroad was virtually the United States Navy on land. That was then.

When I did a project at Hewlett-Packard 10 or so years ago, I saw
remnants of excellence around me. There were reference manuals from a
now-defunct publications department that showed excellent standards
development and maintenance. There was a usability lab at each end of
the large room where I worked; neither of them was being used. There
were well-known disk drive failures in the computers made by you-know-who.

Yet, I appreciate the good design decisions in my two HP inkjet printers
-- while these printers are not the best for everyone in this newsgroup,
they are perfect for my needs. No: I'd probably not buy a new printer
from them. But I'd sure buy a used one. And I'd fill its cartridges
myself, too.

If HP's ink was competitive with the refillers (me included), I'd be
happy to buy their ink. Free and open competition is necessary for
capitalism to work. I like it when it does. Regulation is required to
keep the marketplace flowing and honest. We don't have much of that
right now -- it's against the cult religion of our puppeteers.

Richard