George Colony, the president of Forrester Research, recenty interviewed new HP CEO Mark Hurd (pictured) and later told the New York Times that Hurd doesn't have a strategy to deal with HP, explaining that Hurd hasn't been there long enough to formulate one.

And, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal, Hurd, who used McKinsey & Company at NCR, has outlawed consultants at HP on the theory that "employees know most everything that a consultant might tell you." The paper says Hurd has gotten upwards of 5,000 employee e-mails, with 320 new ones arriving every day.

Meanwhile, the 31-year-old HP user group Interex has thrown in the towel. It has disbanded and taken its HP World expo with it. Its web site says folding was "financially necessary" and "unavoidable." The new HP-created HP Technology Forum, a rival to HP World, is supposed to extend paid HP World attendees complimentary registration and offer discounted exhibition space to "non-HP competitors exhibiting at or sponsoring HP World 2005." Interex claimed 100,000 members.

This story was based on reports originally published at www.clientservernews.com