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 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/6254.html), 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..." ®