Agilent and Hewlett Packard - So long, and thanks for all the fish

Martin Rowe at Test & Measurement World wrote a nifty blog post about how younger people don't know that Agilent used to be HP.  It generated quite a few comments.

Until I read that post, I didn't realize that it has been ten years since that happened.  Officially, the split was completed on November 18, 1999, after the IPO.  But for everyone working there, including myself, it happened on March 2nd of that year.  I had heard a rumour that something like that was in the works, and some of the oldtimers there said that a split had been rumoured for several years.

I worked at the Santa Rosa, CA, facility on Fountaingrove Drive.  It was a beautiful facility, and counting the manufacturing facility in nearby Rohnert Park, HP employed several thousand people there in Sonoma County.  As I recall, the mood of nearly everyone I talked to was somber, and yet glad that they were going to be with the "real" HP - the test and measurement side.  There was a LOT of pride there.

So, here's a (belated) happy 10th Anniversary to Agilent Technologies.  I hope they have at least a dozen more of the same.