HP works to beat Sun to podcasting

Sun Microsystems' blog effort has far outpaced that of Hewlett-Packard, but at least among the executive ranks, HP beat its Silicon Valley rival to blogging in an audio format.

Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz, one of the most aggressive executive bloggers, pledged in March to begin podcasting--distributing audio information on a blog using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology. Essentially, podcasting is used to broadcast audio to anyone who subscribes.

Nora Denzel, the senior vice president who runs HP's adaptive enterprise program, posted her first Agility Radio audio blog entry on April 28. It's not a podcast yet, strictly speaking, but HP is "laying the groundwork and fully intends for this to be a podcast" once the company upgrades its blog site software, a company representative said.

Denzel insists on her blog that it isn't a mere fashion statement. "It isn't really important to me that I keep up with the latest trend or try to be as cool as everyone else in the industry. I just wanted a fun, informal, low-maintenance way to communicate. Because if it isn't fun, I'm not going to do it."