I am writing this just before jumping on a plane. One of the things you learn quickly in my job is that you never have control over the weather, nor over the news. So care to hear what’s my take on HP buying AppIQ even if I have to keep it short? Good, read on.Neither company company should require an introduction, but if you need a brush up, here is one for AppIQ, and a more recent one for HP.So what’s going to happen if the acquisition goes through in 45 days as expected? I imagine that the market shares of “StorageWorks AppIQ” (or whatever name they will decide) will jump even higher. HP is pretty good at flexing its sales muscles, for example putting together difficult_to_refuse bundles, so I wouldn’t be surprised if AppIQ would be offered, already installed on a Proliant, as an add on for an EVA or XP array.In the past HP was not shy to make pacts even with the devil (sorry EMC) trying to bring some sense to its storage management applications. Now, when the deal completes they will have the golden boy of storage management on their side. Messing things up should be difficult, but you never know… What about AppIQ competitors, will they face more hardship? I am not going to fumble around with this, yes, unless the Command Central, Control Center or who-else of the World will come up with really captivating novelties, customers will move away. The last I heard from AppIQ, they were promoting a multivendor effort to create open standards for storage management. Not sure if that will stand under HP rules, but if it does, the other vendors should jump on it. Gotta go now, but we’ll talk about this again, I’m sure.