HP Dumps Famed Visionary Alan KayAccording to Good Morning Silicon Valley: HP Labs
Director Dick Lampman announced the
cancellation of four of the company's research projects -- the
Consumer Applications and Systems Laboratory, the Emerging Technologies
Laboratory, the Cambridge Research Laboratory, which worked on health and
wellness technology, and the Advanced Software Research team.In disbanding the
last group, HP is bidding adieu to legendary Silicon Valley
technologist Alan Kay. A founder of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center,
Kay -- who once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" --
was instrumental in the development of the windowing GUI and modern
object-oriented programming. He envisioned a laptop computer long
before the first ones rolled out and his Smalltalk programming
language was a predecessor to Sun Microsystems' Java. Hard to believe HP's
cutting him loose. But it is. According to the company, his research doesn't
jibe with HP's new focus. "I was surprised by [Alan] leaving," said one HP Labs
researcher who asked not to be identified. "In the last year, he was kind of the
poster child of the 'HP Invent' stuff, and now all of a sudden, he's not here
anymore."
Source: Good Morning Silicon Valley
Posted: Thu - July 21, 2005 at 11:28 PM |