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HP/Compaq Merger Apparently Approved
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?
Don't care if Carly is running HP into the ground but respect her Linux friendlyness?
Allow me to weild the clue-stick here. If HP disappears because Ms. Fiorina wants to measure dicks with Mr. Palmisano of IBM, she might as well be giving weekly handjobs to Mr. Torvalds for all the good it will do Linux.
In fact, if HP does get involved with Linux heavily and then goes down to mismanagement, they'll become just more fodder for the MS FUD machine: another Linux comany bites the dust.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
There goes 15 years of my loyalty as an HP customer down the drain in one shot.
sPh
The whole HP-Compaq merger thing is a typical example of how high-level executives who understand "business" think:
- They have to "do something" to justify their compensation.
- They don't understand the technology, so they don't have a clue as to how to make use of the innovations their employees generate (Xerox comes to mind immediately, but they're just the most obvious example).
- They do understand high-level finance, and how to fire people to create short-term gains.
So, they do what they understand - move big pieces around on the board, construct complex financial objects that obscure the connection between their actions and company performance, and fire people whose functions are superficially redundant.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I have a pitiful few shares of HP stock from my time there, and over the past few months, I've received an absolute torrent of competing proxy solicitations from the HP board and Walter Hewlett. Every week, I got at least one new proxy card from each party with a "send this in Right Now" letter. This stuff arrived faster than one could conceivably respond (and even though I'd promptly returned the first green proxy card I got...) Towards the end, the HP board even priority-mailed me a prepaid Fedex envelope with another proxy card, and shortly thereafter a premetered ($3.50) priority-mail envelope. Last, and IMHO rather underhandedly, the board set up a phone-in-and-vote-your-proxy process during the last three or so days, something they would NEVER have let their opposition get away with. UN election monitors would NOT approve...
Also worthy of note is the tone of the cover letters: the Walter Hewlett "anti" camp focused on the bad business sense of the merger, but the Board quickly started a series of personal attacks on Walter Hewlett. This did NOT impress me with their confidence in their case: when you run out of logical arguments, slander your opponent's person.
It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings, and there is NO reliable way to guess who'll still be standing to deliver that final aria. The tons (literally!) of proxy cards sent in to the warring factions' accountants must be sorted and matched by sig and date to weed out proxies revoked by subsequently-sent proxies (and since so MANY cards were sent out, there'll be hundreds if not thousands of revotes); this will certainly take a week. Also consider (shock horror!) the possibility that the electronic or telephonic proxy-submission processes might have been manipulated. Carly's no Ken Lay, and it sure ain't the HP Way, but there's a LOT riding on this (several top management jobs, for example), so the possibility of skulduggery is NOT to be ignored.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Anyone else think the business world looks like a game of Pac Man?
It's pure math, really. There is a significant, steady stream of new businesses being created, even if you only count the ones that make it past the infancy stage. Additional ones are being created buy spin-offs/spin-outs/demergers/whateveryoucallits.
In a country with a relatively stable population, this can only mean one of two things: Either the average size of firms must be decreasing, or a number of firms must be disappearing. The strongest of these two factors will of course be the latter. Given that the two ways in which companies can disappear are bankruptcies/liquidations and mergers, you could say that mergers are good. Even if a merger is followed by layoffs etc., a company remains to pay severance packages and face other liabilities. Furthermore, a merger is usually less wasteful than closing a company, as valuable assets such as brand names are more likely to be preserved.
In a dynamic world with quick changes in technologies and customer preferences, continuous restructuring is necessary and desirable. Mergers are important mechanisms of such restructuring, alongside entrepreneurship, bankruptcy, strategic alliances etc.
I have friend who used to work at HP and still owns stock. Two things he says:
1. a. He is not for the merger
b. Does not have a single friend who is for the merger
c. Does not have a single friend who knows
of another co-worker who is for the merger
2. a. He does not like Carly
b. See 1b
c. See 1c
Too bad to see a company run by engineers now being led by a history major(i think).
For what it's worth.