I'm sure that Hewlett Packard in Bangalore is a fine place to work (or, the hazards of over-analysis)

I occasionally dip into my Google Analytics data to look for trends, and ideally to manufacture them.

Perhaps it's appropriate for me to make a confession at this point - while the majority of my traffic comes from the United States, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed if that were to change, and the majority of my traffic were instead to come from India. Why do I feel this way? Because there are a lot of Indians, and if the Indian traffic on my blog outweighs the American traffic, then I'll have a substantial readership indeed.

So every once in a while I'll throw something into the blog that I believe will be of interest to this populous subcontinent. And I'm not just talking about my two posts (whoops, three) about James Macpherson and Pasadena Now, or my post about President Obama's tax policies. I've also talked about a sports injury centre, Wal-Mart and Carrefour expansion in India, Navnitlal and Sons, and the Irrigation Association of India (IAI).

I have to be honest - I haven't covered San Marino or Andorra to this depth. Now Finland and Ecuador? That's a whole other story. And yes, I still have to cover Tanzania.

But when I actually went to see what content was really popular in India, I was surprised to discover that one of the popular entries was a September 2010 blog post entitled Worthless speculation - who else could acquire Hewlett Packard?

At first this mystified me, because there was nothing in that post that directly referenced India.

Then I checked to see if that post possibly contained a search term that caused people to rush to the page. As it turns out, however, all of the visits were via direct link.

Then I noticed that all of the visits came from the city of Bangalore.

And when I checked the service provider, everything fell into place - the listed service provider was Hewlett Packard.

So apparently what happened is that some HP worker in Bangalore happened upon my post, and either couldn't stop reading it, or decided to tell his/her co-workers about it. I can imagine the lunchroom conversation now:

So this stupid American blogger thinks that AT&T may acquire us?

Yes. Bizarre, isn't it?

I hear that people in the United States hate AT&T. That's what my iPhone-using friend told me.

Yes, the iPhone is only available via AT&T in the United States.

And that probably won't change any time soon.

Unless the stupid American blogger says that Apple and AT&T will stay exclusive forever. Then I'm certain that another American company will offer the iPhone.

Well, to do my due diligence, I should mention that Hewlett Packard has ten locations in Bangalore. The first location on the list is as follows:

Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt. Ltd.
Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt. Ltd.

Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt. Ltd.
24, Salarpuria Arena Building
Adugodi, Hosur Road
Bangalore - 560 030

9:00 AM - 6:00 PM, Monday - Friday (IST)


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But after hours, the HP workers could presumably go to the nearby MICO Sports Club, where cricket and hockey (field hockey, I think) are played. The sports facility is presumably named for the nearby MICO Bosch factory.

Hmm...maybe AT&T will buy Bosch.