Lew Platt, the last HP CEO to give a talk including the HP 3000 in the company's strategic plans, died today of a brain aneurism at age 64. Platt took over the reins of HP in 1992 from CEO John Young, becoming only the second man other than founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard to lead the company.

On Platt's watch, the 3000 group enjoyed a renaissance of the platform, catching up on needed networking enhancements to MPE/iX in an era when the Internet was taking the business world by storm. Ultimately, critics within HP's board as well as Wall Street analysts painted his leadership as lacking initiative to seize the opportunities of the dot-com boom.

But after he resigned in 1999 to make way for Carly Fiorina, Platt helmed the Jackson-Kendall winery. Last year he took over at Boeing as chairman, pulling that longtime HP 3000 customer out of a bog of mismanagement.

CNET's report has the most complete summary of Platt's position as a supporter of the HP Way. HP posted a brief statement about the former CEO and board chairman.