Let Uncle PBW tell you a story*:
Once upon a time, there were two princes in a far away kingdom called “Palo Alto.” One prince was named Hewlett and the other prince was named Packard. Prince Packard and Prince Hewlett worked long and hard in Prince Packard’s garage to bring a magical box to life. After much work, lo an behold, it lived!
The two princes decided to form a company of like-minded Knights of Technology to make more magical boxes, and these knights created many different kinds of magical boxes. Of all the companies making magical boxes in the land, those made by the two princes and their knights were some of the best. They worked longer and better and when one did break, the knights made sure that they helped the boxes get running again as fast as possible. Other knights of technology respected the company and bought their boxes. Some knights made their own companies and built them in the same land just to be near the princes and their knights.
After many years, though, both princes passed away. At first, the company that they left behind was good, because the knights kept the princes’ vision in mind.
Eventually, however, evil princes and princesses pushed aside the knights, and installed their own minions. These new minions talked about “maximizing value propositions,” and “disintermediating” and “incentivising.” These were magical spells that they used to convince other people that they knew a great deal about a great many things, but they really did not.
Because the new evil princes and princesses and their minions did not understand how the magical boxes were made, they made a great many mistakes. One evil princess was spying on the other princes and princesses. One evil prince was having “private time” with a lady that worked for the company. Another evil prince spent a great deal of time and money trying to copy a certain kind of magical box that another company had great success with, but failed after only 7 weeks.
While the evil princess and princesses were spying on each other and having inappropriate playtimes, they didn’t pay much attention to what the minions were doing. So the minions decided that the quality and support the former knights were so proud of was really not necessary.
So when a noble but humble knight from a place called Connecticut tried to call the Knights of Technology for help, he found they were all gone. He tried talking to some of the people the minions had hired, but they couldn’t help him. He tried talking to different people and explaining his problem several times, but they still couldn’t help him. Then he asked there was any higher-level minion in the entire fief that could help him and was told all the senior minions were meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.
This made the Connecticut knight very mad, and he uttered horrible oaths and curses. When he calmed down and tried calling for help a third time, a lucky thing happened. This time, the minion that he spoke to knew more than all the other minions. This minion told him that, even though his magic box worked perfectly well and was really not very old at all, the company called it “obsolete.” So they would not help the humble knight from Connecticut.
At that point, the humble knight thought he might cry, for he knew that the evil princes and princesses and their minions had truly killed the company that Prince Hewlett and Prince Packard and their Knights had made. All that was left of the two princess’ company was their names.
The End.
*Yes, there’s less swearing than normal for a Pit thread, but trust me, I would like to roast every HP employee I dealt with today over a nice, hot fire. Slowly. Besides, aren’t you happy this isn’t yet another thread that starts “I pit…”?