Mott, regarded by Wall Street as a genius in operational efficiency, based on his tenure at Wal-Mart Stores and Dell, says that the office allows management "to put teams together that can learn very aggressively and rapidly from each other". Reports of already crowded HP offices suggest that things might get very aggressive indeed, with employees having to learn rapidly how to find a desk and other resources. This possibly has escaped Mott, who we noticed in one interview lists interacting with his peers and expanding his knowledge of business and IT as leisure activities.

Mott's wisdom supersedes that of the company's founders, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who saw flexitime as a key to HP's success. In his book, The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company, Packard wrote: "To my mind, flextime is the essence of respect for and trust in people. It says that we both appreciate that our people have busy personal lives and that we trust them to devise, with their supervisor and work group, a schedule that is personally convenient yet fair to others.''

Critics say that while the move could allow HP to shed older employers - who might have the experience Mott is talking about, but don't salute as smartly as younger folk - we can't help but wonder whether it will go down well with Generation Y, in particular, who have demonstrated a tendency not to work for companies which don't allow them a better balance between their work and personal lives.

And it could cause a backlash from customers who might not like the idea of a new HP with Wal-Mart-style service.