HP Shutters UDC

A long-term initiative dating back to the late 1990s, the UDC program aimed to provide enterprises with practically unlimited computing and storage capacity, which could be switched on and billed for only when needed.

With the breakup of the effort, HP plans to merge its UDC technology into its portfolio of Adaptive Enterprise Solutions. It will reappear in less-expensive areas such as HP BladeSystems, HP Virtual Server Environments, HP OpenView Change and Configuration Management Solutions, and HP Utility Services, according to company spokespeople.

About 200 HP employees staffed the UDC program. At presstime, HP hadn't decided how many UDC employees would be reassigned or how many would be terminated, HP spokesmen said.

Published reports quoting HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina saying UDC's breakup stemmed from "unacceptable execution" in the company's enterprise computing segment were misleading, and her comment predated HP's decision to end the UDC program, the spokesmen said.

One HP customer who has been involved with deploying components of UDC, said the news of UDC's breakup caught her by surprise. "They should have talked to us," said Virginia Price, application systems engineer at Wells Fargo Bank, Des Moines, Iowa. "But I guess they just couldn't afford the program."