HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
company headquartered in
Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components, as well as software and related services to consumers, small and medium-sized businesses ( SMBs), and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors. The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939, and initially produced a line of electronic test and measurement equipment. The
HP Garage The HP Garage is a private museum where the company Hewlett-Packard (HP) was founded. It is located at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, California. It is considered to be the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley". In the 1930s, Stanford University and its ...
at 367 Addison Avenue is now designated an official California Historical Landmark, and is marked with a plaque calling it the "Birthplace of '
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
'". The company won its first big contract in 1938 to provide test and measurement instruments for
Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
's production of the animated film ''
Fantasia Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore ...
'', which allowed Hewlett and Packard to formally establish the Hewlett-Packard Company on July 2, 1939. The company grew into a
multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
widely respected for its products. HP was the world's leading PC manufacturer from 2007 until the second quarter of 2013, when
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...
moved ahead of HP. HP specialized in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware; designing software; and delivering services. Major product lines included personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software, and a range of printers and other imaging products. The company directly marketed its products to households; small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises, as well as via online distribution; consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers; software partners; and major technology vendors. It also offered services and a consulting business for its products and partner products. In 1999, HP spun off its electronic and bio-analytical test and measurement instruments business into Agilent Technologies; HP retained focus on its later products, including computers and printers. It
merged Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
with
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
in 2002, and acquired
Electronic Data Systems Electronic all cash BSN acc: 1311729000110205 Data Systems (EDS) was an American multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Plano, Texas which was founded in 1962 by Ross Perot. The company was a subs ...
in 2008, which led to combined revenues of $118.4 billion that year and a
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
ranking of 9 in 2009. In November 2009, HP announced its acquisition of
3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...
, and closed the deal on April 12, 2010. On April 28, 2010, HP announced its buyout of Palm, Inc. for $1.2 billion. On September 2, 2010, HP won its bidding war for
3PAR 3PAR Inc. was a manufacturer of systems and software for data storage and information management headquartered in Fremont, California, USA. 3PAR produced computer data storage products, including hardware disk arrays and storage management sof ...
with a $33 a share offer ($2.07 billion), which
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
declined to match. On November 1, 2015, the company spun off its enterprise products and services business
Hewlett Packard Enterprise The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas, United States. HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the H ...
. HP retained the personal computer and printer businesses and was renamed HP Inc.


History

Bill Hewlett and David Packard graduated with degrees in
electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
from
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 1935. The company started in a garage in Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with past professor
Frederick Terman Frederick Emmons Terman (; June 7, 1900 – December 19, 1982) was an American professor and academic administrator. He was the dean of the school of engineering from 1944 to 1958 and provost from 1955 to 1965 at Stanford University. He is widely ...
at Stanford during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, whom they considered a mentor in forming the company. In 1938, Packard and Hewlett began part-time work in a rented garage with an initial capital investment of . In 1939, Hewlett and Packard decided to formalize their partnership. They tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard (HP) or Packard-Hewlett. HP was incorporated on August 18, 1947, and went public on November 6, 1957. Hewlett and Packard's first financially successful product was a precision audio
oscillator Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...
known as the
HP 200A The HP 200A was the first product made by Hewlett-Packard and was manufactured in David Packard's garage in Palo Alto, California. It was a low-distortion audio oscillator used for testing sound equipment. It used the Wien bridge oscillator circ ...
, which used a small incandescent
light bulb An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...
(known as a "pilot light") as a temperature dependent
resistor A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias active el ...
in a critical portion of the circuit, and a negative feedback loop to stabilize the amplitude of the output sinusoidal waveform. This allowed the HP 200A to be sold for when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over . The 200 series of generators continued production until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but improved in design through the years. One of the company's earliest customers was Bud Hawkins, chief sound engineer for Walt Disney Studios, who bought eight HP 200B audio oscillators (at each) to be used in the animated film ''
Fantasia Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore ...
''. HP's profit at the end of 1939, its first full year of business, was on revenues of . In 1942, they built their first building at 395 Page Mill Road and were awarded the
Army-Navy "E" Award The Army-Navy "E" Award was an honor presented to companies during World War II whose production facilities achieved "Excellence in Production" ("E") of war equipment. The award was also known as the Army-Navy Production Award. The award was cr ...
in 1943. HP employed 200 people and produced the audio oscillator, a wave analyzer, distortion analyzers, an audio-signal generator, and the Model 400A vacuum-tube voltmeter during the war. Hewlett and Packard worked on counter-radar technology and artillery shell
proximity fuze A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a Fuze (munitions), fuze that detonates an Explosive material, explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such ...
s during World War II; the work exempted Packard from the draft, but Hewlett had to serve as an officer in the Army Signal Corps after being called to active duty. In 1947, the company was incorporated with Packard as president. He handed the presidency over to Hewlett when he became chairman in 1964, but remained CEO of the company. Sales reached in 1951 with 215 employees. In 1959, a manufacturing plant was established in
Böblingen Böblingen (; Swabian German, Swabian: ''Beblenga'') is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, seat of Böblingen (district), Böblingen District. Sindelfingen and Böblingen are Geographic contiguity, contiguous. History Böblingen was found ...
and a marketing organization in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
.


1960s

HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
, though it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the "
traitorous eight The traitorous eight was a group of eight employees who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1957 to found Fairchild Semiconductor. William Shockley had in 1956 recruited a group of young Ph.D. graduates with the goal to develop and produce ...
" abandoned
William Shockley William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly ...
to create
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
in 1957. Hewlett-Packard's HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. HP Associates was co-founded by another former
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
researcher,
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
inventor
Mohamed Atalla Mohamed M. Atalla ( ar, محمد عطاالله; August 4, 1924 – December 30, 2009) was an Egyptian-American engineer, physicist, cryptographer, inventor and entrepreneur. He was a semiconductor pioneer who made important contributions to ...
, who served as Director of Semiconductor Research. Instruments and
calculators An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-size ...
were some of the products using semiconductor devices from HP Associates. During the 1960s, HP partnered with
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
and Yokogawa Electric in Japan to develop several high-quality products. The products were not a huge success, as there were high costs involved in building HP-looking products in Japan. In 1963, HP and Yokogawa formed the joint venture Yokogawa-Hewlett-Packard to market HP products in Japan. HP bought Yokogawa Electric's share of Hewlett-Packard Japan in 1999. HP spun off the small company Dynac to specialize in digital equipment. The name was picked so that the HP logo could be turned upside down to be a reflected image of the logo of the new company. Dynac was eventually renamed Dymec and folded back into HP in 1959. HP experimented with using
Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
(DEC) minicomputers with its instruments, but entered the computer market in 1966 with the HP 2100 / HP 1000 series of minicomputers after it decided that it would be easier to build another small design team than deal with DEC. The minicomputers had a simple accumulator-based design with two accumulator registers and, in the HP 1000 models, two index registers. The series was produced for 20 years in spite of several attempts to replace it, and was a forerunner of the HP 9800 and
HP 250 The HP 250 was a multiuser business computer by Hewlett-Packard running HP 250 BASIC language as its OS with access to HP's IMAGE database management. It was produced by the General Systems Division (GSD), but was a major repackaging of deskt ...
series of desktop and business computers. At the end of 1968, Packard handed over the duties of CEO to Hewlett to become United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in the incoming Nixon administration. He resumed the chairmanship in 1972 and served until 1993, but Hewlett remained the CEO.


1970s

The HP 3000 was an advanced stack-based design for a business computing server, later redesigned with
RISC In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comput ...
technology. The HP 2640 series of smart and intelligent terminals introduced forms-based interfaces to
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
terminals, and also introduced
screen labeled function keys A soft key is a button flexibly programmable to invoke any of a number of functions rather than being associated with a single fixed function or a fixed set of functions. A softkey often takes the form of a screen-labeled function key located al ...
, now commonly used on gas pumps and bank ATMs. The HP 2640 series included one of the first bit mapped graphics displays that, when combined with the HP 2100 21MX F-Series microcoded Scientific Instruction Set, enabled the first commercial
WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
presentation program,
BRUNO Bruno may refer to: People and fictional characters *Bruno (name), including lists of people and fictional characters with either the given name or surname * Bruno, Duke of Saxony (died 880) * Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne, ...
, that later became the program HP-Draw on the HP 3000. Although scoffed at in the formative days of computing, HP surpassed IBM as the world's largest technology vendor in terms of sales. HP was identified by '' Wired'' magazine as the producer of the world's first device to be called a personal computer: the
Hewlett-Packard 9100A The Hewlett-Packard 9100A (hp 9100A) is an early programmable calculator (or computer), first appearing in 1968. HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Bill Hewlett said, "If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our ...
, introduced in 1968. HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Hewlett said: "If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our customers' computer gurus because it didn't look like an IBM. We therefore decided to call it a calculator, and all such nonsense disappeared." An engineering triumph at the time, the logic circuit was produced without any
integrated circuits An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
, and the CPU assembly was entirely executed in discrete components. With
CRT CRT or Crt may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Medicine and biology * Calreticulin, a protein *Capillary refill time, for blood to refill capillaries *Cardiac resynchronization therapy and CRT defibrillator (CRT-D) * Catheter-re ...
display, magnetic-card storage, and printer, the price was around $5,000. The machine's keyboard was a cross between that of a scientific calculator and an adding machine. There was no alphabetic keyboard.
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
co-founder
Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve Jobs, he c ...
originally designed the
Apple I The Apple Computer 1, originally released as the Apple Computer and known later as the Apple I or Apple-1, is an 8-bit desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak. The idea ...
computer while working at HP and offered it to them under their right of first refusal to his work; they did not take it up as the company wanted to stay in scientific, business, and industrial markets. Wozniak said that HP "turned him down five times", but that his loyalty to HP made him hesitant to start Apple with
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
. The company earned global respect for a variety of products. They introduced the world's first handheld scientific electronic
calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...
in 1972 (the HP-35), the first handheld programmable in 1974 (the HP-65), the first alphanumeric, programmable, expandable in 1979 (the HP-41C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator, the
HP-28C The HP-28C and HP-28S were two graphing calculators produced by Hewlett-Packard from 1986 to 1992. The HP-28C was the first handheld calculator capable of solving equations Symbolic computation#Expressions, symbolically. They were replaced by th ...
. Like their scientific and business calculators, HP
oscilloscope An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetiti ...
s,
logic analyzer A logic analyzer is an electronic instrument that captures and displays multiple signals from a digital system or digital circuit. A logic analyzer may convert the captured data into timing diagrams, protocol decodes, state machine traces, a ...
s, and other measurement instruments had a reputation for sturdiness and usability. HP introduced the Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus (HPIB) computer peripheral interface (later cloned by National Instruments as GPIB and standardized by the
IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
as IEEE-488) on their relay actuator products in 1973, that was later integrated into most high end test & measurement equipment it produced from 1980 onward. As early as 1977 HP began production of the HP856x spectrum analyzers to complement its RF power meters and sensors capable of measuring signals in excess of 20 GHz. HP also produced configurable chassis based sweep generators capable of generating signals to 20GHz. Other T&M products of the time included lab grade multimeters, microwave frequency counters, RF amplfiers, high accuracy microwave detectors, lab grade power supplies and more. These products were succeeded by modernized versions as well as the introduction of the scalar and
vector network analyzer A network analyzer is an instrument that measures the network parameters of electrical networks. Today, network analyzers commonly measure s–parameters because reflection and transmission of electrical networks are easy to measure at high ...
product lines prior to the business being spun off into Agilent Technologies. The HP 9800 series of technical desktop computers started in 1975 with the 9815. The HP series 80 started in 1979 with the 85. These machines used a version of the
BASIC programming language BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. Dartmouth BASIC, The original version was created by John ...
, which was available immediately after they were switched on, and used a proprietary magnetic tape for storage. HP computers were similar in capabilities to the much later
IBM Personal Computer The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
, though the limitations of available technology forced prices to be high. In 1978, Hewlett stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by
John A. Young John A. Young (born April 24, 1932) is an American business executive and electrical engineer. He was chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1978 to 1992. He also formerly served as a director of Wells Fargo & Company. Biography Young ...
.


1980s

HP expanded into
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
in the 1980s. Activists supporting divestment from South Africa accused HP of "automating
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
". Sales reached $6.5 billion in 1985 with 85,000 employees. In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers for the desktop. Along with its scanner product line, the printers have later been developed into successful
multifunction An MFP (multi-function product/printer/peripheral), multi-functional, all-in-one (AIO), or multi-function device (MFD), is an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one, so as to have a smaller footprint in a ...
products, the most significant being single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms in HP's LaserJet line of laser printers depend almost entirely on Canon Inc.'s components (print engines), which in turn use technology developed by
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
. HP developed the hardware, firmware, and software to convert data into dots for printing. On March 3, 1986, HP registered the HP.com domain name, making it the ninth Internet .com domain to be registered. In 1987, the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett and Packard started their business was designated as a
California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meeting at least one of ...
.


1990s

In the 1990s, HP expanded their computer product line, which initially had been targeted at university, research, and business users, to reach consumers. HP also grew through acquisitions: it bought
Apollo Computer Apollo Computer Inc., founded in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo wa ...
in 1989 and
Convex Computer Convex Computer Corporation was a company that developed, manufactured and marketed Vector processor, vector minisupercomputers and supercomputers for small-to-medium-sized businesses. Their later Exemplar series of parallel computing machines wer ...
in 1995. In 1992, Young was succeeded by Lewis E. Platt, and in 1993 and Hewlett and Packard stepped down from the board with Platt succeeding Packard as chairman. In 1993, HP acquired Advanced Design System from Pathwave. The ADS suite of RF simulation tools was spun off into Agilent in 1999 along with related T&M business units, all of which were carried forward into the spinoff of Agilent into Keysight. Later in the decade, HP opened hpshopping.com as an independent subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; in 2005, the store was renamed "HP Home & Home Office Store". From 1995 to 1998, Hewlett-Packard were sponsors of the English football team
Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...
. In 1999, all of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and imaging were spun off from HP to form Agilent Technologies. Agilent's spin-off was the largest
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
in the history of
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
, and it created an company with about 30,000 employees, manufacturing scientific instruments,
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
s, optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless,
research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
, and production. In July 1999, HP appointed Carly Fiorina as the first female
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of a Fortune-20 company in the
Dow Jones Industrial Average The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
. Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors.


Sales to Iran despite sanctions

In 1997, HP started selling its products in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
through a European subsidiary and a
Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
-based Middle Eastern distributor, despite U.S. export sanctions prohibiting such deals imposed by
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
's 1995 executive orders. The story was initially reported by ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', and it triggered an inquiry by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
(SEC). HP responded that products worth 120 million were sold in fiscal year 2008 for distribution via Redington Gulf, a company based in the Netherlands, and that as these sales took place through a foreign subsidiary, HP had not violated sanctions. HP named Redington Gulf "Wholesaler of the Year" in 2003, which in turn published a press release stating that " e seeds of the Redington-Hewlett-Packard relationship were sowed six years ago for one market — Iran." At the time, Redington Gulf had only three employees whose sole purpose was to sell HP products to the Iran market. According to former officials who worked on sanctions, HP used a loophole by routing their sales through a foreign subsidiary. HP ended its relationship with Redington Gulf after the SEC inquiry.


2000–2005

On September 3, 2001, HP announced that an agreement had been reached with
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
to merge the two companies. In May 2002, after passing a shareholder vote, HP officially merged with Compaq. Prior to this, plans had been in place to consolidate the companies' product teams and product lines. As Compaq took over Tandem Computers in 1997 and
Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
in 1998, HP offers support for the former Tandem NonStop family and Digital Equipment products PDP-11, VAX and AlphaServer. The merger occurred after a proxy fight with Bill Hewlett's son Walter, who objected to the merger. HP became a major producer in
desktop computer A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...
s, laptops, and servers for many different markets. After the merger with Compaq, the new ticker symbol became "HPQ", a combination of the two previous symbols, "HWP" and "CPQ", to show the significance of the alliance and also key letters from the two companies Hewlett-Packard and Compaq (the latter company being famous for its "Q" logo on all of its products). In 2004, HP released the DV 1000 Series, including the HP Pavilion dv 1658 and 1040. In May 2006, HP began its campaign, "The Computer is Personal Again"; the campaign was designed to bring back the personal computer as a personal product. The campaign utilized viral marketing, sophisticated visuals, and its own website. Some of the ads featured Pharrell,
Petra Nemcova Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jab ...
, Mark Burnett, Mark Cuban,
Alicia Keys Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Col ...
,
Jay-Z Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one of ...
,
Gwen Stefani Gwen Renée Stefani (; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, fashion designer and actress. She is a co-founder, lead vocalist, and the primary songwriter of the band No Doubt, whose singles include "Just a Girl", "Spiderwebs ...
, and Shaun White. In January 2005, following years of underperformance, which included HP's Compaq merger that fell short and disappointing earning reports, the board asked Fiorina to resign as chair and chief executive officer of the company, and she did on February 9, 2005. After her departure, HP's stock jumped 6.9 percent. Robert Wayman, chief financial officer of HP, served as interim CEO while the board undertook a formal search for a replacement.
Mark Hurd Mark Vincent Hurd (January 1, 1957 – October 18, 2019) was an Americans, American technology executive who served as Co-CEO and as a member of the board of directors of Oracle Corporation. He had previously served as Chairman, Chief Executive ...
of
NCR Corporation NCR Corporation, previously known as National Cash Register, is an American software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and electronic products. It manufactures self-service kiosks, point-of-sale termin ...
was hired to take over as CEO and president, effective April 1, 2005. Hurd was the board's top choice given the revival of NCR that took place under his leadership.


2006–2009

In 2006, HP unveiled several new products including desktops, enhanced notebooks, a workstation, and software to manage them—OpenView Client Configuration Manager 2.0. In the same year, HP's share price skyrocketed due to consistent results in the last couple quarters of the year with Hurd's plan to cut back HP's workforce and lower costs. In July 2007, HP signed a definitive agreement to acquire Opsware in a cash tender deal that values the company at per share, which combined Opsware software with the
Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...
enterprise IT management software. In the first few years of Hurd's tenure as CEO, HP's stock price more than doubled. By the end of the 2007 fiscal year, HP reached the mark for the first time. The company's annual revenue reached , allowing HP to overtake competitor IBM. On May 13, 2008, HP and
Electronic Data Systems Electronic all cash BSN acc: 1311729000110205 Data Systems (EDS) was an American multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Plano, Texas which was founded in 1962 by Ross Perot. The company was a subs ...
(EDS) announced that they had signed a definitive agreement under which HP would purchase EDS. On June 30, HP announced that the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 had expired. "The transaction still requires EDS stockholder approval and regulatory clearance from the European Commission and other non-U.S. jurisdictions and is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the other closing conditions specified in the merger agreement." The agreement was finalized on August 26, 2008, at $13 billion, and it was publicly announced that EDS would be re-branded. The first targeted layoff of 24,600 former EDS workers was announced on September 15, 2008. (The company's 2008 annual report gave the number as 24,700, to be completed by end of 2009.) This round was factored into purchase price as a liability against goodwill. As of September 23, 2009, EDS is known as
HP Enterprise Services DXC Technology is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia. History DXC Technology was founded on April 3, 2017 when the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE ...
. On November 11, 2009,
3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...
and Hewlett-Packard announced that the latter would be acquiring 3Com for in cash. The acquisition was one of the biggest in size among a series of takeovers and acquisitions by technology giants to push their way to become one-stop shops. Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007, tech giants have constantly felt the pressure to expand beyond their current market niches.
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
purchased
Perot Systems Perot Systems was an information technology services provider founded in 1988 by a group of investors led by Ross Perot and based in Plano, Texas, United States. Perot Systems provided information technology services in the industries of health ...
recently to invade into the technology consulting business area previously dominated by IBM. Hewlett-Packard's latest move marked its incursion into enterprise networking gear market dominated by
Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
.


2010–2012

On April 28, 2010, Palm, Inc. and HP announced that the latter would buy the former for in cash and debt. Adding Palm handsets to the HP product line created some overlap with the iPAQ series of mobile devices, but was thought to significantly improve HP's mobile presence as iPAQ devices had not been selling well. Buying Palm, Inc. gave HP a library of valuable patents and the mobile operating platform, webOS. On July 1, 2010, the acquisition of Palm, Inc. was finalized. Purchasing its webOS was a big gamble to build HP's own ecosystem. On July 1, 2011, HP launched its first tablet, HP TouchPad, which brought webOS to tablet devices. On September 2, 2010, HP won the bidding war for
3PAR 3PAR Inc. was a manufacturer of systems and software for data storage and information management headquartered in Fremont, California, USA. 3PAR produced computer data storage products, including hardware disk arrays and storage management sof ...
with a a share offer () that Dell declined to match. After HP acquired Palm Inc., it phased out the Compaq brand. On August 6, 2010, Hurd resigned amid controversy and CFO
Cathie Lesjak Catherine "Cathie" A. Lesjak was the chief financial officer (CFO) of HP Inc. She became CFO of Hewlett‑Packard Company on January 1, 2007 and was the interim CEO from August 6, 2010 to November 1, 2010. During her tenure as interim CEO, HP paid ...
assumed the role of interim CEO. Hurd had turned HP around and was widely regarded as one of
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
's star CEOs, and under his leadership, HP became the largest computer company in the world when measured by total revenue. He was accused of
sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
against a colleague, though the allegations were deemed baseless. The investigation led to questions concerning some of his private expenses and the lack of disclosure related to the friendship. Some observers have argued that Hurd was innocent, but the board asked for his resignation to avoid negative public relations. Public analysis was divided between those who saw it as a commendable tough action by HP in handling expenses irregularities, and those who saw it as an ill-advised, hasty, and expensive reaction in ousting a remarkably capable leader who had turned the business around. At HP, Hurd oversaw a series of acquisitions worth over $20 billion, which allowed the company to expand into services of networking equipment and smartphones. HP shares dropped by 8.4% in after-hours trading, hitting a 52-week low with $9 billion in market capitalization shaved off. Larry Ellison publicly attacked HP's board for Hurd's ousting, stating that the HP board had "made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago". On September 30, 2010,
Léo Apotheker Léo Apotheker (born 18 September 1953) is a German business executive. He served briefly as the chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from November 2010 until his dismissal in September 2011. He also served as co-chief executive officer o ...
was named HP's new CEO and president. His appointment sparked a strong reaction from Ellison, who complained that Apotheker had been in charge of
SAP Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separa ...
when one of its subsidiaries was systematically stealing software from Oracle. SAP accepted that its subsidiary, which has now closed, illegally accessed Oracle intellectual property. Following Hurd's departure, HP was seen to be problematic by the market, with margins falling and having failed to redirect and establish itself in major new markets such as cloud and mobile services. Apotheker's strategy was to broadly aim at disposing hardware and moving into the more profitable
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
services
sector Sector may refer to: Places * Sector, West Virginia, U.S. Geometry * Circular sector, the portion of a disc enclosed by two radii and a circular arc * Hyperbolic sector, a region enclosed by two radii and a hyperbolic arc * Spherical sector, a po ...
. On August 18, 2011, HP announced that it would strategically exit the
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
and
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...
business, and focus on higher-margin "strategic priorities of Cloud, solutions and software with an emphasis on enterprise, commercial and government markets". It also contemplated selling off its personal computer division or spinning it off into a separate company, and quitting PC development while continuing to sell servers and other equipment to business customers, which was a strategy undertaken by IBM in 2005. HP's stock dropped by about a further 40% after the company abruptly announced a number of decisions: to discontinue its webOS device business (mobile phones and tablet computers), the intent to sell its
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
division (at the time HP was the largest personal computer manufacturer in the world), and to acquire British
big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...
software firm
Autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
for a 79%
premium Premium may refer to: Marketing * Premium (marketing), a promotional item that can be received for a small fee when redeeming proofs of purchase that come with or on retail products * Premium segment, high-price brands or services in marketing, ...
, seen externally as an "absurdly high" price for a business with known concerns over its accounts. Media analysts described HP's actions as a "botched strategy shift" and a "chaotic" attempt to rapidly reposition HP and enhance earnings.Why Hewlett-Packard's Impulse Buy Didn't Pay Off
Bloomberg BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
November 29, 2012: ''"Apotheker believed that HP's platform was sinking ... ndappeared to be in a hurry to transform the company ... In a rapid series of moves announced in August 2011, Apotheker killed HP's six-week-old TouchPad tablet, explored plans for a spin-out of its PC business, and championed the acquisition of Autonomy. One former HP executive who worked there at the time says it appeared that Apotheker and the board didn't know what to do, and were trying anything they could think of. It wasn't a strategy, he says. It was chaos ... Oracle CEO Larry Ellison called Autonomy's asking price 'absurdly high'."''
' The Autonomy acquisition was objected to by HP's own CFO.Rage of the Titans: Whitman vs Lynch
''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...
'', November 25, 2012
HP lost more than in market capitalization during Apotheker's tenure, and on September 22, 2011, the HP Board of Directors fired him as chief executive and replaced him with fellow board member and former
eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
chief Meg Whitman, with
Raymond J. Lane Raymond J. Lane (born December 26, 1946) is an American business executive and strategist specializing in technology and finance. Lane is best known for assisting corporations with technology strategy, organizational development, team building, ...
as executive chairman. Although Apotheker served barely ten months, he received over in compensation. Weeks later, HP announced that a review had concluded their PC division was too integrated and critical to business operations, and the company reaffirmed their commitment to the Personal Systems Group. In November 2012, HP wrote off almost related to the Autonomy acquisition, which became the subject of intense litigation, as HP accused Autonomy's previous management of fraudulently exaggerating Autonomy's financial position and called in law enforcement and regulators in both countries, while Autonomy's previous management accused HP of "textbook"
obfuscation Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent u ...
and finger pointing to protect HP's executives from criticism and conceal HP culpability, their prior knowledge of Autonomy's financial position, and gross mismanagement of Autonomy after acquisition.Motion by Hussain, 2014-08-11
p.1-6
On March 21, 2012, HP said its printing and PC divisions would become one unit headed by Todd Bradley from the PC division, and printing chief Vyomesh Joshi left the company. On May 23, 2012, HP announced plans to lay off approximately 27,000 employees, after posting a profit decline of 31% in the second quarter of 2012. Profits declined because of the growing popularity of smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices, which slowed down personal computer sales. On May 30, 2012, HP unveiled its first
net zero Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the " ...
energy data center, which uses solar energy and other renewable sources instead of traditional power grids. On July 10, 2012, HP's Server Monitoring Software was discovered to have a previously unknown security vulnerability. A security warning was given to customers about two vulnerabilities, and a
patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...
addressing the issues was released. One month later, HP's official training center was hacked and defaced by a Pakistani hacker known as Hitcher to demonstrate a Web vulnerability. On September 10, 2012, HP revised their restructuring figures and started cutting 29,000 jobs.


2013–2015

On December 31, 2013, HP revised the number of jobs cut from 29,000 to 34,000 up to October 2014. The number of jobs cut until the end of 2013 was 24,600. At the end of 2013 the company had 317,500 employees. On May 22, 2014, HP announced it would cut a further 11,000 to 16,000 jobs, in addition to the 34,000 announced in 2013. Whitman said: "We are gradually shaping HP into a more nimble, lower-cost, more customer and partner-centric company that can successfully compete across a rapidly changing IT landscape." During the June 2014 HP Discover customer event in
Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
, Whitman and Martin Fink announced a project for a radically new computer architecture called The Machine. Based on memristors and
silicon photonics Silicon photonics is the study and application of photonic systems which use silicon as an optical medium. The silicon is usually patterned with sub-micrometre precision, into microphotonic components. These operate in the infrared, most commo ...
, it was supposed to come into commercialization before the end of the decade, and represented 75% of the research activity in HP Labs at the time. On October 6, 2014, HP announced it was going to split into two separate companies to separate its personal computer and printer businesses from its technology services. The split, which was first reported by ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' and confirmed by other media, resulted in two publicly traded companies on November 1, 2015:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas, United States. HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the H ...
and HP Inc. The split was structured so that Hewlett-Packard changed its name to HP Inc. and spun off Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a new publicly traded company. HP Inc. is the legal successor of old Hewlett-Packard; it retains old Hewlett-Packard's stock price history and its longtime stock ticker symbol, , while Hewlett Packard Enterprise trades under its own symbol, . Whitman became chairman of HP Inc. and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise,
Patricia Russo Patricia F. Russo (born June 12, 1952, in Trenton, New Jersey) is an American businessperson. Russo is most widely known for having served as chief executive officer of Lucent Technologies, and its successor, Alcatel-Lucent, a large communication ...
became chairman of the enterprise business, and
Dion Weisler Dion Joseph Weisler (born 20 August 1967) is an Australian-born businessman, and was the chief executive officer and president of HP Inc. from November 2015, when HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise split into separate companies, to November ...
became CEO of HP, Inc. On October 29, 2014, Hewlett-Packard announced their new Sprout personal computer. In May 2015, the company announced it would be selling its controlling 51 percent stake in its
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
data-networking business to
Tsinghua Unigroup Tsinghua Unigroup is a Chinese technology and semiconductor manufacturer that also supplies digital infrastructure and services to domestic and global markets. Based in Beijing, it is among the country’s largest technology conglomerates; subsid ...
for a fee of at least .


Facilities

HP's global operations were directed from its headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Its US operations were directed from its facility in an
unincorporated area An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
of Harris County, Texas, near
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
. Its Latin America offices were in unincorporated
Miami-Dade County Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...
, Florida. Its European offices were in
Meyrin Meyrin () is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. The main site of CERN, the European particle physics research organisation, is in Meyrin. Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the 1950s, when construction of CE ...
, close to Geneva, Switzerland," but it also had a research center in the Paris-Saclay cluster 20 km south of
Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. Its Asia-Pacific offices were in
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
. It also had large operations in Leixlip, Ireland;
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
; Boise, Idaho;
Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...
;
Fort Collins, Colorado Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado Larimer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 359 ...
; Roseville, California; Saint Petersburg, Florida;
San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
;
Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...
; Vancouver, Washington;
Conway, Arkansas Conway is a city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Faulkner County, located in the state's most populous Metropolitan Statistical Area, Central Arkansas. Although considered a suburb of Little Rock, Conway is unusual in that ...
; and Plano, Texas. In the UK, HP was based at a large site in
Bracknell, Berkshire Bracknell () is a large town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the Borough of Bracknell Forest. It lies to the east of Reading, south of Maiden ...
, with offices in various UK locations, including a landmark office tower in London,
88 Wood Street 88 Wood Street is a commercial skyscraper in London, located on Wood Street in the City of London. The architect was the Richard Rogers Partnership, now known as Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, and the director in charge was Graham Stirk. The b ...
. Its acquisition of
3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...
expanded its employee base to
Marlborough, Massachusetts Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 41,793 at the 2020 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the ...
, where it has been manufacturing its convertible laptop series since late 2019. The company also had a large workforce and numerous offices in
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
, Romania, and at
Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
, India, to address their back end and IT operations. MphasiS, which is headquartered at Bangalore, also enabled HP to increase their footprint in the city as it was a subsidiary of EDS which the company acquired.


Products and organizational structure

HP produced lines of printers, scanners, digital cameras, calculators,
personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
s, servers, workstation computers, and computers for home and small-business use; many of the computers came from the 2002 merger with Compaq. HP promoted itself as supplying not just hardware and software, but also a full range of services to design, implement, and support IT infrastructure. HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) was described by the company in 2005 as "the leading imaging and printing systems provider in the world for printer hardware, printing supplies and scanning devices, providing solutions across customer segments from individual consumers to small and medium businesses to large enterprises". Products and technology associated with IPG include: * Inkjet and LaserJet printers * consumables and related products * Officejet all-in-one multifunction printer/scanner/faxes * Designjet and Scitex Large Format Printers * Indigo Digital Press * HP Web Jetadmin printer management software * HP Output Management suite of software *
LightScribe LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology that was created by the Hewlett-Packard Company. It uses specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels with text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and print ...
optical recording technology *
HP Photosmart Hewlett-Packard's line of digital cameras is called PhotoSmart The company also makes a line of consumer-based photo printers under the same branding. Digital cameras The original HP digital camera was an Intel Miniature card-based model simply ...
digital cameras and photo printers *
HP SPaM HP SPaM ( Hewlett-Packard Strategic Planning and Modeling) is an internal consulting group that supports HP businesses on mission-critical strategic and operation decisions. As evidenced by its publications and awards, SPaM has been a prominent e ...
* Snapfish by HP, a photo sharing and photo products service. On December 23, 2008, HP released iPrint Photo for iPhone. HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG) was claimed by HP in 2005 to be "one of the leading vendors of personal computers ("PCs") in the world based on unit volume shipped and annual revenue". PSG dealt with: * business PCs and accessories * consumer PCs and accessories, (e.g., HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, VoodooPC) * handheld computing (e.g., iPAQ Pocket PC) * digital "connected" entertainment (e.g., HP MediaSmart TVs, HP MediaSmart Servers, HP MediaVaults, DVD+RW drives) * Apple
iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...
(until November 2005).
HP Enterprise Business The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
(EB) incorporated
HP Technology Services HP Technology Services is a business unit within the HP Enterprise Business division of Hewlett-Packard (HP), a large information technology (IT) vendor. HP Technology Services provides IT design, planning, implementation, integration and mainte ...
and
Enterprise Services Enterprise integration is a technical field of enterprise architecture, which is focused on the study of topics such as system interconnection, electronic data interchange, product data exchange and distributed computing environments. It is a c ...
(an amalgamation of the former EDS, and what was known as HP Services). HP Enterprise Security Services oversaw professional services such as network security, information security and information assurance/compliancy,
HP Software Division Micro Focus International plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational software industry, software and information technology business based in Newbury, Berkshire, England. The firm provides software and consultant, consultancy. T ...
, and Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking Group (ESSN). The Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking Group (ESSN) oversaw "back end" products like storage and servers.
HP Networking Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its predecessor entities have a long history of developing and selling networking products. Today it offers campus and small business networking products through its wholly owned company Aruba Networks which was acq ...
(former
ProCurve HP ProCurve was the name of the networking division of Hewlett-Packard from 1998 to 2010 and associated with the products that it sold. The name of the division was changed to HP Networking in September 2010 after HP bought 3Com Coporation. His ...
) was responsible for the NW family of products.
HP Software Division Micro Focus International plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational software industry, software and information technology business based in Newbury, Berkshire, England. The firm provides software and consultant, consultancy. T ...
was the company's enterprise software unit, which produced and marketed its brand of enterprise-management software,
HP OpenView HP OpenView is the former name for a Hewlett-Packard product family that consisted of network and systems management products. In 2007, HP OpenView was rebranded as HP BTO (''Business Technology Optimization'') Software when it became part of the ...
. From September 2005 HP purchased several software companies as part of a publicized, deliberate strategy to augment its software offerings for large business customers. HP Software sold several categories of software, including: * business service management software *
application lifecycle management Application lifecycle management (ALM) is the product lifecycle management (governance, development, and maintenance) of computer programs. It encompasses requirements management, software architecture, computer programming, software testing, so ...
software * mobile apps *
big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...
and
analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...
* service and portfolio management software * automation and
orchestration Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orc ...
software * enterprise
security software Computer security software or cybersecurity software is any computer program designed to influence information security. This is often taken in the context of defending computer systems or data, yet can incorporate programs designed specifically ...
**
ArcSight ArcSight, Inc. was an American software company that provided security management and compliance software packages for enterprises and government agencies. The company was acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2010. When HP split into two companie ...
** Fortify Software ** Atalla ** TippingPoint HP Software also provided
software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...
(SaaS),
cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...
solutions, and software services, including consulting, education, professional services, and support. HP's Office of Strategy and Technology had four main functions: * To steer the company's $3.6 billion research and development investment * To foster the development of the company's global technical community * To lead the company's strategy and corporate development efforts * To perform worldwide corporate marketing activities The research arm of HP is called
HP Labs HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for HP Inc. HP Labs' headquarters is in Palo Alto, California and the group has research and development facilities in Bristol, UK. The development of programmable desktop calculators, ink ...
. HP also offered managed services by which they provide complete IT-support solutions for other companies and organizations. Some examples of these include: * offering "Professional Support" and desktop "Premier Support" for
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
in the EMEA marketplace. This was done from the Leixlip campus near
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
,
Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...
and Israel. Support was offered for Microsoft Windows, Exchange, SharePoint, and some office applications. * outsourced services for companies like
Bank of Ireland Bank of Ireland Group plc ( ga, Banc na hÉireann) is a commercial bank operation in Ireland and one of the traditional Big Four Irish banks. Historically the premier banking organisation in Ireland, the Bank occupies a unique position in Iris ...
, some UK banks, the U.S. defense forces. * the computerisation project at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.


Staff and culture


Notable people

* Michael Capellas (Compaq CEO/Chairman – HP President) *
Barney Oliver Bernard M. Oliver (May 17, 1916 – November 23, 1995), also known as Barney Oliver, was a scientist who made contributions in many fields, including radar, television, and computers. He was the founder and director of Hewlett Packard ( HP) labo ...
, founder and director of HP laboratories *
Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve Jobs, he c ...
* Tom Perkins * Carly Fiorina, 2016 Republican presidential candidate *
Matt Shaheen Matthew Frank Shaheen (born June 8, 1965) is an American politician serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from the 66th district. Elected in the November 2014, he assumed office in January 2015. Early life and education Sh ...
, management consultant executive at
HP Enterprise Services DXC Technology is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia. History DXC Technology was founded on April 3, 2017 when the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE ...
in Plano,
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
; Republican member of the
Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abou ...


Corporate social responsibility

In July 2007, the company announced that it had met its 2004 target to recycle one billion pounds of
electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
, toner, and ink cartridges. It set a new goal of recycling a further two billion pounds of hardware by the end of 2010. In 2006, the company recovered 187 million pounds of electronics. In 2008, HP released its supply chain emissions data. In September 2009, ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' ranked HP No. 1 on its 2009 Green Rankings of America's 500 largest corporations. According to Environmental Leader (now Environment + Energy Leader), "Hewlett-Packard earned its number one position due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction programs, and was the first major IT company to report GHG emissions associated with its supply chain, according to the ranking. In addition, HP has made an effort to remove toxic substances from its products, though Greenpeace has targeted the company for not doing better." HP took the top spot on ''Corporate Responsibility Magazine''s 100 Best Corporate Citizens List for 2010. HP beat out other
Russell 1000 Index The Russell 1000 Index is a stock market index that tracks the highest-ranking 1,000 stocks in the Russell 3000 Index, which represent about 93% of the total market capitalization of that index. , the stocks of the Russell 1000 Index had a weighted ...
companies because of its leadership in seven categories including environment, climate changes and corporate philanthropy. In 2009, HP was ranked fifth. ''Fortune'' magazine named HP one of the World's Most Admired Companies in 2010, placing it No. 2 in the computer industry and No. 32 overall in its list of the top 50. This year in the computer industry HP was ranked No. 1 in social responsibility, long-term investment, global competitiveness, and use of corporate assets. In May 2011, HP released a Global Responsibility report covering accomplishments in 2010. It provides a comprehensive view of HP's global citizenship programs, performance, and goals and describes how HP used its technology, influence, and expertise to make a positive impact on the world. The company's 2009 report won best corporate responsibility report of the year, and claims HP decreased its total energy use by 9 percent when compared with 2008. HP recovered a total of 118,000 tonnes of electronic products and supplies for recycling in 2009, including 61 million print cartridges. In an April 2010 ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' article, HP was one of 12 companies commended for "designing products to be safe from the start, following the principles of green chemistry". The commendations came from Environment California, an environmental advocacy group, who praised select companies in the Golden State and the Bay Area for their conservational efforts. In May 2010, HP was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute. It was one of 100 companies to earn the distinction of top winner and was the only computer hardware vendor to be recognized. HP was listed in
Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
's Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics manufacturers according to their policies on sustainability, energy and climate, and green products. In November 2011, HP secured first place (out of 15) in this ranking with a score of 5.9. It scored the most points on the new Sustainable Operations criteria, having the best program for measuring and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from its suppliers and scoring maximum points for its thorough paper procurement policy. In the November 2012 report, HP was ranked second with a score of 5.7. HP earned recognition of its work in data privacy and security. In 2010 the company ranked No. 4 in the Ponemon Institute's annual study of the most trusted companies for privacy. Since 2006, HP has worked directly with the U.S. Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Commerce to establish a new strategy for federal legislation. HP played a key role in work toward the December 2010 FTC report "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change". After winning nine straight annual "Most Respected Company in China" awards from the Economic Observer and Peking University, HP China added the "10 Year Contribution" award to its list of accolades. In its 2012 rankings of consumer electronics companies on progress relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated HP second out of 24 companies.


Brand

According to a 2009 BusinessWeek study, HP was the world's 11th most valuable brand. HP had many sponsorships, such as Mission: SPACE in
Epcot Epcot, stylized in all uppercase as EPCOT, is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division. Inspired by an unreal ...
at the
Walt Disney World Resort The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake, Florida, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando ...
. From 1995 to 1999, and again from 2013, HP had been the shirt sponsor of
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
club
Tottenham Hotspur F.C. Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...
From 1997 to 1999 they sponsored
Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...
club
North Melbourne Football Club The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos, is a professional Australian rules football club. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Kangaroos also ...
. They also sponsored the
BMW Williams Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, currently racing in Formula One as Williams Racing, is a British Formula One motor racing team and constructor. It was founded by former team owner Frank Williams (Formula One), Frank Williams and aut ...
Formula 1 team until 2005 (a sponsorship formerly held by Compaq), and since 2010 sponsored Renault F1. HP also had the naming rights arrangement for the
HP Pavilion at San Jose The SAP Center at San Jose (originally known as San Jose Arena and the HP Pavilion at San Jose) is an indoor arena located in San Jose, California. Its primary tenant is the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League, for which the arena has ...
, whose naming rights were acquired by SAP AG and consequently renamed
SAP Center at San Jose The SAP Center at San Jose (originally known as San Jose Arena and the HP Pavilion at San Jose) is an indoor arena located in San Jose, California. Its primary tenant is the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League, for which the arena has ...
. HP also maintained a number of corporate sponsorships in the business sector, including sponsorships of trade organisations including
Fespa FESPA is a federation of trade associations and an organiser of exhibitions and conferences for the screenprinting and digital printing industry. The name originally stood for Federation of European Screen Printers Associations, but, with the ad ...
(print trade exhibitions), and
O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
's Velocity (web development) conference. After the acquisition of Compaq in 2002, HP maintained the Compaq Presario brand on low-end home desktops and laptops, the HP Compaq brand on business desktops and laptops, and the HP ProLiant brand on Intel-architecture servers. The HP Pavilion brand was used on home entertainment laptops and all home desktops. Tandem's "NonStop" servers were rebranded as "HP Integrity NonStop".


Controversies


Restatement

In March 2003, HP restated its first-quarter cash flow from operations, reducing it by 18 percent because of an accounting error. The actual cash flow from operations was $647 million, and not $791 million as reported; HP shifted $144 million to net cash used in investing activities.


Spying scandal

On September 5, 2006, Shawn Cabalfin and David O'Neil of ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' wrote that HP's
general counsel A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their ...
, at the behest of chairwoman Patricia Dunn, contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists to identify the source of an information leak. In turn, those security experts recruited private investigators who used
pretexting Pretexting is a type of social engineering attack that involves a situation, or pretext, created by an attacker in order to lure a victim into a vulnerable situation and to trick them into giving private information, specifically information that t ...
, which involved investigators impersonating HP board members and nine journalists (including reporters for
CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...
, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'') in order to obtain their phone records. The information leaked related to HP's long-term strategy and was published as part of a
CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...
article in January 2006. Most HP employees accused of criminal acts have since been acquitted.


Hardware

In November 2007, HP released a BIOS update covering a wide range of laptops with the intent to speed up the computer fan and have it run constantly while the computer was on or off to prevent the overheating of defective
Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
graphics processing units (GPUs) that had been shipped to many of the original equipment manufacturers, including HP, Dell, and Apple. The defect concerned the new packaging material used by Nvidia from 2007 onwards in joining the graphics chip onto the motherboard, which did not perform well under thermal cycling and was prone to develop stress cracks – effectively severing the connection between the GPU and the motherboard that led to a blank screen. In July 2008, HP issued an extension to the initial one-year warranty to replace the motherboards of selected models. However this option was not extended to all models with the defective Nvidia chipsets, despite research showing that these computers were also affected by the fault. Furthermore, the replacement of the motherboard was a temporary fix, since the fault was inherent in all units of the affected models from the point of manufacture, including the replacement motherboards offered by HP as a free "repair". Since then, several websites have been documenting the issue. There have been several small-claims lawsuits filed in several states, as well as suits filed in other countries. HP also faced a class-action lawsuit in 2009 over its i7 processor computers: the complainants stated that their systems consistently locked up within 30 minutes of powering on. Even after being replaced with newer i7 systems, the lockups continued.


Lawsuit against Oracle

HP filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court in Santa Clara, claiming that Oracle had breached an agreement to support the Itanium microprocessor used in HP's high-end enterprise servers. On June 15, 2011, HP sent a "formal legal demand" letter to Oracle in an attempt to force them to reverse its decision to discontinue software development on Intel Itanium microprocessors and build its own servers. HP won the lawsuit in 2012, which required Oracle to continue producing software compatible with the Itanium processor. HP was awarded $3 billion in damages against Oracle on June 30, 2016, arguing that Oracle canceling support damaged HP's Itanium server brand. Oracle said it would appeal both the decision and damages.


HP wage and hour lawsuit

Several class action firms filed a class action lawsuit on January 12, 2012, against HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (“HP”), entitled "Jeffrey Wall, etc. v. HP, Inc." (formerly known as Hewlett-Packard Company, et al.), Case No. 30-2012-00537897, pending in the Superior Court of California, County of Orange. According to the lawsuit, HP allegedly failed to pay commission payments and incentive compensation that its California sales employees were owed within the timeframes proscribed by California law (Labor Code §§ 201, 202 and 204). In 2017, FDAzar obtained a settlement of $25 million for class participants and changed the way HP pays incentive compensation and commission payments.


Takeover of Autonomy

In November 2012, HP recorded a write-down of around $8.8 billion related to its acquisition a year earlier of the UK-based Autonomy Corporation PLC. HP accused Autonomy of deliberately inflating the value of the company prior to its takeover, which the former management team of Autonomy denied. At the time, HP had fired its previous CEO for expenses irregularities a year before, and appointed Apotheker as CEO and president. HP was seen as problematic by the market, with margins falling and having failed to redirect and establish itself in major new markets such as cloud and mobile services. As part of Apotheker's strategy, Autonomy was acquired by HP in October 2011. HP paid for 87.3% of the shares, valuing Autonomy at around () overall, a
premium Premium may refer to: Marketing * Premium (marketing), a promotional item that can be received for a small fee when redeeming proofs of purchase that come with or on retail products * Premium segment, high-price brands or services in marketing, ...
of around 79% over market price. The deal was widely criticized as "absurdly high", a "botched strategy shift" and a "chaotic" attempt to rapidly reposition HP and enhance earnings, and had been objected to even by HP's own CFO. Within a year, Apotheker was fired, major culture clashes became apparent, and HP wrote off $8.8 billion of Autonomy's value. HP claim this resulted from "accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures" by the previous management, who in turn accused HP of a "textbook example of defensive stalling" to conceal evidence of its own prior knowledge, gross mismanagement, and undermining of the company, noting public awareness since 2009 of its financial reporting issues and that even HP's CFO disagreed with the price paid. External observers generally stated that only a small part of the write-off appears to be due to accounting mis-statements, and that HP had previously overpaid for businesses.The mysterious case of Hewlett-Packard's Autonomy deal
''
Marketwatch MarketWatch is a website that provides financial information, business news, analysis, and stock market data. Along with ''The Wall Street Journal'' and ''Barron's'', it is a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, a property of News Corp. Histor ...
'', August 19, 2014
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the SEC joined the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
in investigating the potential anomalies. HP incurred damage with its stock falling to its lowest in decades. Three lawsuits were brought by shareholders against HP for the fall in value of HP shares. In August 2014, a
United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...
judge threw out a proposed settlement, which Autonomy's previous management had argued would be collusive and intended to divert scrutiny of HP's own responsibility and knowledge. It essentially engaged the plaintiff's attorneys from the existing cases and redirected them against the previous Autonomy vendors and management for a fee of up to , with plaintiffs agreeing to end any claims against HP's management and similarly redirect those claims against the previous Autonomy vendors and management. In January 2015 the SFO closed its investigation as the likelihood of a successful prosecution was low. The dispute continued in the US, and is being investigated by the UK and Ireland Financial Reporting Council. On June 9, 2015, HP agreed to pay to investors who bought HP shares between August 19, 2011, and November 20, 2012, to settle the lawsuits over the Autonomy purchase. Another term of the shareholder settlement was to sue Autonomy management, which occurred in London in 2019. HP "failed to produce a smoking gun for the fraud it alleges", and its accountants admitted that they "never formally prepared anything to attribute the irregularities to the amount of the fraud".


Israeli settlements

On October 25, 2012,
Richard Falk Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the author ...
, the United Nations Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the
Palestinian territories The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The I ...
occupied since 1967, called to boycott HP and other businesses that profit from
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
s on occupied Palestinian lands until they brought their operations in line with international human rights and humanitarian law. In 2014, the
Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
voted to move forward with divestment from HP to pressure Israeli in regards to their policies toward Palestinians. In 2015, the Human Rights Commission of
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, requested to place
Caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...
,
G4S G4S is a British Multinational corporation, multinational private security company headquartered in London, England. The company was set up in 2004 when London-based Securicor amalgamated with Danish firm Group 4 Falck. The company offers a ran ...
, HP, and Motorola Solutions on the city's "Do Not Buy" list.


Bribery

On April 9, 2014, an administrative proceeding before the SEC was settled by HP consenting to an order acknowledging that HP had violated the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (, ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. The FCPA is applicable world ...
(FCPA) when HP subsidiaries in Russia, Poland, and Mexico made improper payments to government officials to obtain or retain lucrative public contracts. The SEC's order found that HP's subsidiary in Russia paid more than through agents and various shell companies to a Russian government official to retain a multimillion-dollar contract with the federal prosecutor's office; in Poland, HP's subsidiary provided gifts and cash bribes worth more than to a Polish government official to obtain contracts with the national police agency; and to win a software sale to Mexico's state-owned petroleum company, HP's subsidiary in Mexico paid more than in inflated commissions to a consultant with close ties to company officials, one of whom was funneled money. HP agreed to pay to settle the SEC charges and a parallel criminal case.


See also

*
ArcSight ArcSight, Inc. was an American software company that provided security management and compliance software packages for enterprises and government agencies. The company was acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2010. When HP split into two companie ...
* Fortify *
HP calculators HP calculators are various calculators manufactured by the Hewlett-Packard company over the years. Their desktop models included the HP 9800 series, while their handheld models started with the HP-35. Their focus has been on high-end scientific ...
*
HP Linux Imaging and Printing The HPLIP (HP Linux Imaging and Printlng) project—initiated and led by HP Inc. (HP)—aims to ease Linux systems' ability to interact with HP's inkjet and laser printers with full printing, scanning, and faxing support. the supplied printer ...
* HP Software & Solutions * HP User Group * List of acquisitions by Hewlett-Packard *
List of computer system manufacturers A computer system is a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware, operating system (main software), and the means to use peripheral equipment needed and used for full or mostly full operation. Such systems may constitute personal com ...
* List of Hewlett-Packard products * TippingPoint


References


External links

*
The Museum of HP Calculators



Protect 724 Community
{{Authority control 1939 establishments in California 2015 disestablishments in California American brands American companies established in 1939 American companies disestablished in 2015 Cloud computing providers Companies based in Palo Alto, California Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Computer companies established in 1939 Computer companies disestablished in 2015 Computer printer companies Defunct companies based in California Defunct manufacturing companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Display technology companies Electronic calculator companies Electronics companies established in 1939 Former components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average Information technology companies of the United States Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2015 Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Netbook manufacturers Networking hardware companies Superfund sites in California Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Technology companies disestablished in 2015 Technology companies established in 1939