Here’s something a bit lighthearted for the end of the week.

My question: Who had the smartest tweets these past two days about HP’s shift to the enterprise? Who was the snarkiest?

It’s during a week like this that I want the gold nuggets. I mean real, juicy insights that can help me cut through the swirling madness when the breaking news hits like it did with HP. Insights are not just gleamed from the analysis. The snark has its value, too.

Here are ten tweets of both smart and snark value. Have something better? Let me know.

Smart
Steve O’Grady (@sogrady), analyst, RedMonk:

HP/webOS is more proof that it’s very difficult for a vendor to do enterprise and consumer simultaneously. Organizational DNA matters.

Services Angle: Smart and balanced view. It’s reflective of what is in the Twitter stream. There is a hope that HP gets more focused.

Snark
Michael Dell (@michaeldell), founder Dell:

If HP spins off their PC business….maybe they will call it Compaq?

Services Angle: This one is interesting. What does Dell mean by that? Dell is transforming itself into a services business. Can HP do the same?

Smart
Michael Gartenberg (@Gartenberg), analyst, Gartner Research:

WebOS not necessarily dead. could be sold or licensed especially if HP out of HW biz

Services Angle: This is the big question. The webOS could serve as a foundation for the company’s transformation to becoming a services provider.

Snark
MG Siegler (@parislemon), TechCrunch:

HP spinning off PC business. Killing webOS. Killing TouchPad. What exactly does HP do now? Just sell printer ink?

Services Angle: There is no doubt that HP is mostly known for its printer division. That’s no surprise. But it also reflects that HP has a lot of work to do to bolster its image.

Smart
Jeff Waugh (@jdub), open source developer, works at Bulletproof Networks in Australia:

Disappointed by mishandling of HP’s #webOS devices announcement. Apotheker too excited about enterprise to get the messaging right?

Services Angle: Good question. Apotheker has never really evangelized WebOS. He is obviously far more interested in the enterprise.

Snark
Ed Bott (@edbott), author, veteran tech journalist and Windows expert:

I am not making this up: The background music as we await the HP earnings call is an instrumental version of “Free Falling

Services Angle: From what I’ve read, the analyst call will live on as one of the more memorable ones of recent times. And the music always tells the real story, doesn’t it?

Smart
Owen Williams (@c3iq), open-source technologist, activist and Red Hat Certified Engineer lead:

Will HP’s software business migrate towards the #opensource eco system? 86% of cloud is on #opensource stacks.

Services Angle: HP recently joined OpenStack but there has been little else said about the investment it is planning to make. Does the HP news herald a deeper commitment to the open cloud?

Snark
RealAskANinja (@RealAskANinja):

HP in the Ninja world stands for Human Pain, I guess that’s what it means in your world too. #expensiveink #crappycomputersHP

Services Angle: The HP brand has fallen considerably over the past several years. That means two things. The enterprise is probably the better opportunity and it’s never a good idea to piss off a ninja.

Smart
Joseph Blake (@mixdup):

If HP keeps the webOS designers around for their move into enterprise software & services, they may do ok

Services Angle: The WebOS has received good reviews and it has a small, core group of passionate developers. The question: After this, will the designers just want to move on?

Snark
Carl Howe (@cdhowe), director, Anywhere Consumer Research, Yankee Group:

Dear HP: People didn’t get the joke about Autonomy no longer being autonomous. Demand a refund of your $10.5B.

Services Angle: The Autonomy deal can be viewed as investing in a legacy technology or as HPs path to developing a differentiation in enterprise search for unstructured data. It’s puzzling.

Well, that was fun. Have a great weekend!