ASK ARNOLD AT HP IN ROSEVILLE

It’s great to see Arnold attending another Chamber-directed made-for-TV campaign appearance. Instead of forcing his way into the home of a handpicked chamber of commerce representative in Fresno, the Governor has cut out the middleman and gone straight to the source (of campaign donations). Remember, major donor HP has donated over $280,000 to the Governor’s California Recovery Team and initiative coffers since 2003...

One question to “Ask Arnold” today is how many California jobs is HP going to outsource this year?

According to CNET News.com (April 22, 2005) Hewlett-Packard is working hard to catch up in the outsourcing game. They recently appointed Steve Smith to lead the HP Managed Services unit. According to the article Smith’s team is raring to go. The article highlights some recent victories:

“Last week, HP signed a multimillion-dollar outsourcing contract with the Bank of Baroda in India. HP will implement and manage the bank's service-oriented architecture, which includes core banking, phone banking, Internet banking, delivery channel integration, customer relationship management and data warehousing.

“‘It's a milestone customer win which follows the Bank of India deal,’ Smith said. ‘It's easily one of our largest wins.’ …

“‘In addition, 2005 presents new opportunities for HP on the outsourcing front as contracts signed 10 years ago with competitors will be up for renewal,’ he said.

“‘We're into second-generation outsourcing. In the next six to seven months, companies that decided to outsource eight to 10 years ago, will be looking at the next step, and many have determined that they know how to govern not just one supplier,’ Smith explained.”

I guess it really won't matter to the employees of HP if Arnold's anti-worker, anti-education agenda passes, since their jobs will probably be outsourced anyway.