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HP/Compaq Merger Apparently Approved

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the gobble-gobble-gobble dept.

Spinality writes "Looks like HP's hotly contested merger with Compaq is going ahead. Various news headlines such as this one at Bloomberg.com report that stockholders voted to merge, against the wishes of the Hewlett and Packard families. " There isn't official word yet, but this looks like it's pretty much a done deal. Anyone else think the business world looks like a game of Pac Man?

16 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. No, Carly ANNOUNCED approval... by R2.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which is different from an actual tally.

    Is she taking a cue from the last Pres. election and getting on the news with a fait accompli in the hopes of discouraging the last remaining mail-in proxy voters? Yes, AG did it backwards and conceded prematurely, but the media had no problem projecting before the polls closed. Lesson learned by Carly?

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  2. Sad news. by Onionesque · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I find it disheartening that it's impossible to maintain a business with integrity and vision in the face of greed. The Hewlett family are not exactly soft, left-wing hippies; they just wanted to protect the strength of their brand.

    Prepare to see the quality of HP products plummet. Prepare to see a slow death of niche imaging products.

    Prepare to see layoffs of otherwise securely employed folks. Rah rah, share value.

    Their network printers were so nice...

    1. Re:Sad news. by istartedi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Prepare to see the quality of HP products plummet. Prepare to see a slow death of niche imaging products

      Prepare to see competitors move in with better products and/or take up the slack. Although unless they are a big competitor I agree that they won't be able to subsidize niche products. I don't know what these niche products are, but perhaps they could be sold to some other company.

      Prepare to see layoffs of otherwise securely employed folks. Rah rah, share value.

      Prepare to see a flood of early retirements from HP. A significant number of them could have the smarts and/or the money to start their own companies. They are likely to be people who miss "the garage" if Compaq suitizes the company too much. They could create some interesting stuff.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    2. Re:Sad news. by Art+Tatum · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I find it disheartening that it's impossible to maintain a business with integrity and vision in the face of greed.

      Nah, it's only impossible if the company is public. The stock market is completely screwed up these days. Instead of being a way for people to invest in a company that they think deserves support, it has become little more than a government-regulated lottery.

    3. Re:Sad news. by bero-rh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I find it disheartening that it's impossible to maintain a business with integrity and vision in the face of greed.

      Nah, it's only impossible if the company is public.

      It's not impossible, just hard.
      Red Hat still manages it (at least right now).
      I agree that going public was a mistake, though.

      The stock market is completely screwed up these days. Instead of being a way for people to invest in a company that they think deserves support, it has become little more than a government-regulated lottery.

      True - a lottery with many spammers (buy this ticket^H^H^H^H^H^Hstock to make money fast!) backing it.

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  3. Share prices by Chocky2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Interesting watching the share prices of HP (NYSE:HWP) and Compaq (NYSE:CPQ) - makes it clear what the markets/analysts think of this!

  4. Retail Computers.... by bje2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    quick question...who else is now big in the world of retail computers...meaning like, you walk into a Best Buy or a Sears, whose computers are you gonna see??? this doesn't matter to me, cause i would personally never buy a computer from a store like that....but i'm just curious, becuase it seems like Compaq and HP were always the majority of the retail desktops out there...who is left to compete? or are they gonna have a virtual monopoly in that field???

    --

    "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
    1. Re:Retail Computers.... by Geek+In+Training · · Score: 3, Insightful

      who else is now big in the world of retail computers

      If the HP/Compaq deal goes through, Dell should be number 2 behind them... and I THINK that they are still phone/web order only.

      Store brands, like PowerSpec by MicroCenter (and the ilk of BestBuy and CompUSA)... the ultra-cheap (but functional) eMachines crap, the super-pricey (but refined) Sony desktops, the elitist (Bang & Olufsen of the PC world) Apple equipment.

      (Obligatory avoidance of "flamebait" moderation by Apple-zealots: I am an Apple owner and fan, but we're not exclusive-- I'm seeing other machines at the moment. Not sure if the relationship is heading towards commitment, but we have plenty of time, right? She does have expensive tastes...)

      IBM is also still out there in some places... it was at Radio Shack between the end of Tandy PCs and the retail agreement with Compaq. IBM prefers to sell its PCs to corporations at a loss and then rob the customers blind with on-site service contracts. My company just committed to buying 30,000 desktops from them. Whee!

      I say, if it's in your house, build it yourself. If it's for someone who has your phone number (like your mom, brother, uncle, etc.), have them go pick out an HP-in-a-box at WalMart for $699 (price) or an iMac at CompUSA (quality). Get the warranty and support, because man, you don't want them calling you asking you why their computer is performing an illegal operation, and you REALLY don't want to spend the time trying to get them to understand Linux either. Unless they'll pay your salary. :)

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  5. decisive majority? by seanadams.com · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ``A decisive majority'' of shares not affiliated with the Hewlett and Packard families voted yes, Fiorina said.

    It's going to take more than just a majority of non-hewlett shares to swing this one. The Hewlett family's shares account for 18% of the company. It's going to take *61%* of the remaining 82% to make a majority of the total shares.

  6. Re:Even so, Carly should go... by jmu1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can certainly agree on the devices side. I support many, many HP printers in a mid-sized University Library, I'll tell you what, if you use a Deskjet, be prepared to fight to the death to get rid of all the other software that gets installed... I just wish that they would quit with the whole "let's see how much extranious software we can install before the machine becomes completly unusable" bit and get back to work!

  7. Pac Man? No... by guttentag · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Anyone else think the business world looks like a game of Pac Man?
    Pac Man has to contend with ghosts who make a genuine effort to prevent him from gobbling up everything on the screen. Real-world companies can escape this danger by buying off the Justice Department through contributions to a presidential campaign.

    Have you ever seen a "what's good for Pac Man is good for the game" cheat?

  8. Re:Merger a good thing by sphealey · · Score: 3, Insightful
    With the current state of the (US) economy, it's a very smart move for hp & compaq to merge
    Care to comment on the results of Compaq's takeovers of Tandem and Digital? HP's takeover of Apollo? AT&T + NCR? The track record just isn't there for technology mergers, particularly when the cultural issues are as bad as they will be between Houston and Palo Alto.

    sPh

  9. Why go to Best Buy? Support the little guys! by Akardam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now, I have to admit, I'm biased, since I work for one of the little guys, but I wouldn't work for 'em if I didn't feel strongly about it.

    Say what you will about the mom and pop shops, but I've seen customer after customer come to us utterly frustrated by their experience with a name-brand pre-built. Seriously, the next computer you get, don't just waddle down to Best Buy or Sears, check out the small shops.

    In my opinion, you get better value, better support, and a better warranty from the smaller companies than you do from the big ones.

    Anyway, just my 2 bits.

  10. Re:Don't count your chickens... by sg3000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > The official tally may take as long as six
    > weeks to be completed

    I agree. I also think that Fiorina has nothing to lose by trumpeting a victory prematurely. If after 6 weeks, she's proven wrong, she has a lot more things to worry about than prematurely crowing about victory.

    In fact, from what I've heard, there's less than a 2 percent margin right now, which means investors are split on what to do here. That hurts the CEO's credibility in either case, which means the real winners in all of this may be Dell and IBM.

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  11. Mediocrity for Dummies by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This merger, once inevitably complete, will create an astoundingly mediocire entity that will likely lose in equity the entire purchase price of the acquisition.

    I agree with Carly that HP is in need of major repair - the HP way, though laudable, represents a bygone era that simply can't be applied to modern business. That said, combining HP with another model of mediocrity, Compaq, in a hope to eek out savings-through-scale in the cut-throat, low-margin hardware business is simply not going to increase value.

    These companies will spend at least two years properly integrating, during which time Dell and IBM will continue to lead, and in fact increase their leads in hardware and services. After the dust has settled on the two year merger process, the new HP will simply make its quarterly numbers by cutting staff and relying on long-term contracts in its traditional businesses....like 90% of the other mergers of the recent past.

  12. Re:Typical CEO business-school thinking... by acroyear · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Cringley wrote, back when the merger was first proposed, that this merger came about for one reason and one reason only : it bought Carly Fiorina another 18 months to two years at the top of HP, which she otherwise would have lost for having basically not produced a damn thing in the way of profit or improvement during her time there.

    Compaq was at a desperate dead end, and Carly Fiorina of HP wants to keep her job. Buying Compaq effectively resets the shot clock, buying her another 18 to 24 months before the HP board gives her the boot. This whole $25 billion deal is about executive ego. No other explanation comes even close to making sense.

    I'm inclined to agree...

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