After a series of reports that HP would ditch Merced in favour of its successor, McKinley, the company has been forced to issue a formal statement of rebuttal. We have to admit that we joined in the fun too, and may indeed have fanned some of the flames, but HP's main media target is news.com. The statement said it "corrects" a Cnet report on August 19th that "inaccurately characterised" HP's position. We think HP is being a little unfair to Cnet. One mole on the COMP.ARCH newsgroup had this to say: "This is fun stuff. Get a little circular thing going in comp.arch these days .. it works its way to the trades and HP makes a press release. Man they have to be in pain out there, no doubt? You wonder if Clow of the HP Old Guard has gotten a good tongue lashin'. One wonders..." ®