http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/opsware http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/opsware Hewlett-Packard has software to automate datacenters; EDS has datacenters which need automating. That's part of the logic behind HP's $13.9 billion acquisition of the tech-services business. The deal proves that Marc Andreessen is prescient. After he sold Netscape to AOL, Andreessen launched LoudCloud, a website-hosting business powered by advanced software. In the wake of the bust, Andreessen sold the hosting part of the business to EDS, and relaunched the company as Opsware, the name of its automation software. HP bought Opsware last year. While reuniting LoudCloud's constituent parts isn't the reason why Mark Hurd is doing the deal, he is proving that Andreessen's early vision of combining software and services was on the money. Timing is everything.

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=390131&view=rss&microfeed=true Digg cofounder Jay Adelson is now asked by the likes of Kara Swisher how he'd fix big media companies, as in this clip. But there was a time when he barely knew what to do with his own Internet startup, Equinix. That tale and more covers 54 out of 294 pages in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's soon-to-be-released book about Web 2.0. The first page of the book's index, one of many to come:

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=388271&view=rss&microfeed=true Opsware's sale to Hewlett-Packard netted founder Marc Andreessen a cool $98,279,186.25. [DocuDrama]]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=302180&view=rss&microfeed=true Opsware, the boring but modestly successful software company founded by Marc Andreessen, has been sold to Hewlett-Packard, the boring but modestly successful hardware company founded by Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, for $1.6 billion. It's a predictable deal — two years ago, I said HP would buy Opsware — but by waiting, Opsware commanded a nice price. The company, after all, only recently crowed about its market cap crossing $1 billion for the first time. Opsware's sale to HP leaves Andreessen free to focus on Ning, his startup which makes software to build social networks. It also put $138 million in his pocket.

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=281365&view=rss&microfeed=true http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=275883&view=rss&microfeed=true Late to the blogging game and caught in the throes of newbie enthusiasm, Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen hasn't yet learned the virtues of thinking before clicking the "Publish" button. Here's the story of the post he quickly came to regret.Andreessen picked up a recent Valleywag item on Microsoft's "people ready" ad campaign. In an ethically questionable deal, Federated Media bloggers agreed to tout the slogan. That, in turn, inspired him to claim that blog.pmarca.com is "so not people-ready." (A Google search still shows the missing post.) The Andreessen of the '90s was a famous Microsoft trash-talker, and this seemed like a reversion to form - but not for long. Almost as soon as he wrote it, he reconsidered and deleted the posting. Could his cowardice have anything to do with the booming business that Opsware, his boring but modestly successful software company, does with the giant of Redmond?]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=271592&view=rss&microfeed=true Yahoo Finance]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=269376&view=rss&microfeed=true