Hewlett claims HP fixed Compaq vote

CNN Money ^ | March 28, 2002: 2:29 PM EST

[EBUCK]

If Compaq/HP merge, it will be a major cluster***k in my opinion and HP will probably come out worse in the bargain as their share of the printer market rapidly erodes around them.

Right on the money. HP needs to re-double it's printer R+D and kick crap out of the competition again. Buying into the shakey (at best) PC market is not the solution.

EBUCK

[jwalsh07]

Informed opinion is always welcomed. The honchos at HP see the same thing that you and I see. Printing profits are going to decrease and IT in all modalities will increase including what your company is doing.

Either you get on board the IT bus and fight for a seat or you lose in the business that HP and Compaq are in. They may get a seat, they may not, time will tell.

[editor-surveyor]

Go Walter!

[beckett]

If Walter Hewlett has the goods to back up this charge, it could cook Carly Fiorina's goose.

[editor-surveyor]

" it could cook Carly Fiorina's goose."

Not much goose there to cook; great bones for the pooch though! :o)

[eno_]

HP is a giant, diversified company that has been around for a very long time.

H-P spun a lot of that diversity off into Agilent. A stupid move, but water over the dam now.

[eno_]

Have you ever met her? I have. She is a no account witch who's only plan is to make money for herself. She has no interest in seeing HP succeed. Just like Lucent, she's in it for personal gain.(period).

Amen to that. She is one of the vampires that killed a great American company. She is of the species of management that put career management first, second, and third. She will churn HP's numbers with acquisitions and divestitures until it all collapses, like LU.

[eno_]

With the right moves the server bus. could be cornered

They COULD have taken advantage of the Intel IA 64 deal by "front running" Intel's technology shift with their servers. If they ported .Net Server to these systems Microsoft would leave skid marks on Unisys and dance with HP. But this opportunity is rapidly expiring.

[RightOnline]

"Also, Compaq's core business is PCs, so it would allow Compaq, or what remains of it, to dominate the market."

You've made some excellent points above...........but this isn't one of 'em. This merger wouldn't help Compaq in the slightest to "dominate the market".

It's not axiomatic that taking a company and folding it into a larger company automatically makes company #1 "bigger" or more effective or more efficient.........or somehow miraculously improves their products, their fulfillment, their management.......their overall competitiveness. If anything, I believe it will hurt them one hell of a lot.

Why, you ask? Market confusion. I've been in the biz a long time, and I'll tell you that large customers like stability. This merger reeks of instability; an odor that is already sticking to both companies (HP & Compaq). IOW, it's already hurting both of them. That's a fact.

[habs4ever]

Hmmmmmmm, you mean she'd do something that stinky to guarantee her package of $70 mil when the deal gets done??That would be...unethical ;-)There have to be at least one or two emails or memos floating around that could prove Hewlett's claim, if it happened.Deutche bank ought to contact some Board members of HWP and push back :-)Bang the stock out.

[NativeNewYorker]

At a more macro level, it calls into question the inherent conflict of interest when investment banks own asset managers.

Clearly the zillion dollar suits in the high floor corner offices can dictate policy to green eyeshaders in the cube farm, and to hell with fiduciary responsibility to Aunt Minnie.

One hates to see a rationale for govt regs forcing firms to be in one business OR the other, but whorishly unethical types like Ms. Carly may give regulators a headline peg.

[TexasGunRunner]

The 9-1 vote is misleading...I know a number of CPQ shareholders who chose not to vote because on the CPQ side, and failure to vote was counted as a no vote. I belive the 9-1 margin is based on actual votes cast.

I only know of one employee who voted for it...I know at least 20 who voted against it.

This deal sucks!

[TexasGunRunner]

CPQ employees were told there would be no raises this year (each year it occurs in the March time frame) *for anyone*. Then they set aside $330Mln for 6000 of Michael Capellas' friends to carve up. It makes me sick and is a clear indication of what he really thinks about employees and his fidiciary responsibilities.

[GretchenEE]

The first time I got a view of this "deal" on TV I knew it was a "get out of our way, sons of the founders, or be dam***." Now it's here in print:

"We find it regrettable that Mr. Hewlett has chosen to resort to baseless claims without regard to the impact of his false accusations on HP's business reputation and employees," HP said in a statement. "We continue our progress in planning for a successful integration of our merger with Compaq. We look forward to the receipt of the certified vote result from the HP shareowner meeting, which we expect within a few weeks."

[TexasGunRunner]

Deadweight. If you tried to give this business to Mike Dell for free he would scream and run away. He would rather eat anthrax than merge with the rotting corpse of the minicomputer business. The Digital deal sunk Compaq. That's why Compaq holders want sooooo much to sell.

You are mistaken on several counts:
1) Dell just hired Jeff Lynn (from CPQ) to build a services organization because it is an absolute requirement for providing a total solution which corporate customers demand. Dell is also actively looking to buy services companies - smaller ones that can be easily integrated into Dell.
2) DEC had an awesome services organization, and a number of other valuable assets.
3) The DEC/Tandem acquisitions hurt CPQ because they *never* successfully integrated the companies. They were major merger failures. To this day, there are Digital and Tandem domains within the enterprise. Even after nearly 4 years, CPQ hardware sellers are still not actively promoting services contracts (the key assumption to making the DEC acquisition work).
4) CPQ shareholders willing to sell are taking a short-term view of this. If they want to cash out, this is the quickest way to make back what they lost last year. Long-term, CPQ alone is a very good bet.

This deal should fail because the same people who failed to make the DEC/Tandem mergers work, are going to cause this to fail also.

[thucydides]

For all but very large control shareholders, expressing one's disagreement in a shareholder vote is not much of a remedy. In any case, I was simply pointing out how institutional and many other investors think about these issues: if you don't like the management, sell.

[annalex]

Go Walter!

Sue them blind!

[MarkWar]

>She is one of the vampires that killed a great American company.

I don't know. I've never met her, but I think she's kind of cute in the photos. To my eyes, she's got that Chrissie Evert kind of laser-eye tough girl look. I like it.

FYI, when I flipped over to HP to get that photo, I looked at their Board of Directors list and what name do I see first? "Condit!"

Philip M. Condit is chairman of the board and chief executive officer, the Boeing company, an aerospace manufacturer.
Patricia C. Dunn is co-chairman and global chief executive, Barclay's Global Investors, a global investment firm.
Carleton S. Fiorina is chairman and chief executive officer, HP.
Sam Ginn is retired chairman, Vodafone AirTouch Plc.
Richard A. Hackborn is former chairman and retired executive vice president, Computer Products Organization, HP.
Walter B. Hewlett is an independent software developer and chairman, Vermont Telephone Company.
George A. Keyworth II is chairman and senior fellow, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a public policy research institute.
Robert E. Knowling Jr. is chairman and CEO, Internet Access Technologies Inc.
Robert P. Wayman is executive vice president and chief financial officer, HP.

In the IT business, HP has always been rumored to be the minicomputer of choice for the the black ops shops and government intelligence shops. Does anybody know if THIS Condit is related to the Gary Condit this forum knows so well?

Black Jade -- Are you aware of any links between Boeing, their Phil Condit, and Chandra's Gary Condit?

Mark W.

[annalex]

it could cook Carly Fiorina's goose.

You'd think that ruining Lucent should be enough cooking for her goose, but it appears that the management class these days can shake off the guilt of mere incompetence. Sue them.

[annalex]

This merger wouldn't help Compaq in the slightest to "dominate the market".

All I am really saying is that the deal is better for Compaq than it is for HP; MarkWar seems to hold the same opinion in #31. We all agree that the odds of market domination are still low. You are correct that market confusion would probably doom the PC business. Another way of saying that is, one can buy a company but one cannot buy that company's customers.