[Am-info] HP Claims Compaq Merger Victory

[Fred A. Miller]

HP Claims Compaq Merger Victory

It's all over but the waiting. Hewlett-Packard shareholders
Tuesday cast their votes on the biggest acquisition in the
history of the technology industry. While the company's
management claimed victory by a "slim but sufficient" margin, a
final official vote won't be known for two to four weeks.

HP CEO Carly Fiorina said the board of directors was confident "a
decisive majority of shareholders" had voted in favor of the $22
billion acquisition of Compaq, based on a preliminary estimate of
shareholders proxies by an independent election inspectorate, IVS
Associates. "We've proven a kite rises against the wind, not with
it," Fiorina said during a news conference after the meeting in
Cupertino, Calif.

Walter Hewlett, son of the company's co-founder who has waged a
bitter, public battle with Fiorina against the deal, responded
that the result was too close to call, but he's optimistic the
merger will be defeated. During the meeting, Hewlett received a
standing ovation from the vocal crowd of about 2,000
shareholders. He insisted HP is a strong company and isn't in
crisis. "For many decades, HP has represented a unique vision of
the best an American corporation can be. ... The HP way is not a
relic of another time, and it's not a piece of trivia relevant to
only Hewlett and Packard family members."

Fiorina, who conducted the meeting, didn't say anything new but
stuck to the script she has recited in the six and a half months
since the planned merger was revealed: The deal is a unique
opportunity to save $2.5 billion annually and advance the
company's market position in the Windows NT server business;
double the size of its services workforce; and make HP the leader
in the storage, Unix, and Linux markets. - Christopher T. Heun

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-- 
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
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