Information AboutHewlett-packard |
The Hewlett-Packard Company (), commonly known as '''HP''', is the world's largest Information Technology corporation (by revenue) and is known worldwide for its printers, personal computers and high end servers. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California , United States , it has a global presence in the fields of computing, printing, and digital imaging, and also provides software and services. The company, which once catered primarily to engineering and medical markets—a line of business it spun off as Agilent Technologies in 1999—now markets to households and small business products such as printers, cameras and ink cartridges found in grocery and department stores. HP posted US $91.7 billion in annual revenue in 2006http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/71/71087/pdf/HP_2006AR.pdf HP 2006 Annual Report compared to US$91.4 billion for IBM , making it the world's largest technology vendor in terms of sales. HP is the No. 1 ranking company in worldwide personal computer shipments, surpassing rival Dell , market research firms Gartner and IDC reported in October 2006;Source: Gartner http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=500384 the gap between HP and Dell widened substantially at the end of 2006, with HP taking a near 3.5% market share lead. The company released an outlook for FY07 of between $103 and $103.2 billion during its Q3 earnings results.http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1041480&highlight= HP - HP reports Third Quarter 2007 results This would make HP the world's first IT company to cross the $100 billion revenue mark.http://redmondmag.com/reports/article.asp?EditorialsID=494 RedmondMag.com - The Race to $100 Billion COMPANY HISTORY Founding William (Bill) Hewlett and David (Dave) Packard both graduated from Stanford University in 1934. The company originated in a Garage in nearby Palo Alto while they were post-grad students at Stanford during the Great Depression . The partnership was formalized on January 1 , 1939 with an investment of US$538.http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/garage/ Hewlett and Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. Packard won the coin toss but named their electronics manufacturing enterprise the "Hewlett-Packard Company". HP incorporated on August 8 , 1947 , and went public on November 6 , 1957 . Of the many projects they worked on, their first financially successful product was a precision audio Oscillator , the Model 200A. Their innovation was the use of a small Light Bulb as a temperature dependent Resistor in a critical portion of the circuit. This allowed them to sell the Model 200A for $54.40 when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over $200. The Model 200 series of generators continued until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but improved in design through the years. At 33 years, it was perhaps the longest-selling basic electronic design of all time. One of the company's earliest customers was The Walt Disney Company , who bought eight Model 200B oscillators (at $71.50 each) for use in certifying the Fantasound Surround Sound systems installed in theaters for the movie '' Fantasia ''. Early years The company was originally rather unfocused, working on a wide range of electronic products for industry and even agriculture. Eventually they elected to focus on high-quality electronic test and measurement equipment. Throughout the 1940s to well into the 1990s the company focused on making signal generators, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, counters, and other test equipment. Their distinguishing feature was pushing the limits of measurement range and accuracy. For instance, almost every HP voltmeter or signal generator has one or more extra clicks of its knobs than its competitors. HP meters would measure down and up an extra 10 to 100 times the units of other meters. Although there were good reasons why competing meters stopped at 1 volt full scale, HP engineers developed ways of extending the range of their equipment by a considerable amount. They also focused on extreme accuracy and stability, leading to a wide range of very accurate, precise, and stable frequency counters, voltmeters, thermometers, and time standards. Following the tradition of the company's first product, the 200A, instruments in the test equipment line were labelled with three to five digits followed by the letter "A". Improved versions went to suffixes "B" through "E". As the company got larger, it started using product designators starting with an alphabetic letter for accessories, supplies, software, and components in order to avoid running out of numbers for major products. The 1960s HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley , although it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the " Traitorous Eight " had abandoned William Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packard's HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were some of the products using these devices. HP partnered in the 1960s with Sony and the Yokogawa Electric companies in Japan to develop several high-quality products. The products were not a huge success, as there were high costs in building HP-looking products in Japan. HP and Yokogawa formed a joint venture (Yokogawa-Hewlett-Packard) in 1963 to market HP products in Japan.http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/hist_60s.html HP bought Yokogawa Electric's share of Hewlett-Packard Japan in 1999.http://www.yokogawa.com/pr/Corporate/News/1999/pr-news-1999-03-en.htm HP spun off a small company, Dynec, to specialize in digital equipment. The name was picked so that the HP logo "hp" could be turned upside down to be the logo "dy" of the new company. Eventually Dynec changed to Dymec, then was folded back into HP. HP experimented with using Digital Equipment Corporation minicomputers with its instruments. But after deciding that it would be easier to buy another small design team than deal with DEC, HP entered the computer market in 1966 with the HP 2100 / HP 1000 series of minicomputers. A simple Accumulator -based design, with registers arranged somewhat similarly to the Intel X86 architecture still used today, it would last 20 years and several attempts to replace it. It would give birth to the HP 9800 and HP 250 series of desktop and business computers, which predated the PC by nearly a decade. The 1970s The HP 3000 was an advanced stack-based design for a business computing server, later redesigned with RISC technology, that has only recently been retired from the market. The HP 2640 series of smart and intelligent terminals introduced forms-based interfaces to ASCII terminals, and also introduced Screen Labeled Function Keys , now commonly used on gas pumps and bank ATMs. Although scoffed at in the formative days of computing, HP would eventually surpass even IBM as the world's largest technology vendor in sales. HP is acknowledged by ''. 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 ; the assembly of the CPU having been entirely executed in discrete components. With CRT display, magnetic-card storage, and printer, the price was around $5000. Steve Wozniak , co-founder of Apple , originally designed the Apple I computer while working at HP, but they turned down his offer of licensing the design of this consumer product to HP because the company wanted to stay in scientific, business, and industrial markets. The company earned global respect for a variety of products. They introduced the world's first ''handheld scientific electronic Calculator '' in 1972 (the HP-35 ), the first ''handheld programmable'' in 1974 (the HP-65 ), the first ''alphanumeric, programmable, expandable'' in 1979 (the HP-41 C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator HP-28C . Like their scientific and business calculators, their Oscilloscope s, Logic Analyzer s, and other measurement instruments have a reputation for sturdiness and usability (the latter products are now part of spin-off Agilent 's product line). The company's design philosophy in this period was summarized as "design for the guy at the next bench". The 1980s In 1984, HP introduced both Inkjet and Laser Printer s for the desktop. Along with its Scanner product line, these have later been developed into successful Multifunction products, the most significant being single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms in HP's tremendously popular LaserJet line of laser printers depend almost entirely on Canon 's components (print engines), which in turn use technology developed by Xerox . HP develops the hardware, firmware, and software that convert data into dots for the mechanism to print. In 1987, the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett and Packard started their business was designated as a California State historical landmark. The 1990s In the 1990s, HP expanded their computer product line, which initially had been targeted at university, research, and business customers, to reach consumers. HP also grew through acquisitions, buying Apollo Computer in 1989 and Convex Computer in 1995. Later in the decade HP opened hpshopping.com as an independent subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; the store was renamed " HP Home & Home Office Store " in 2005. In 1999, all of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and imaging were spun off from HP to form Agilent . Agilent's spin-off was the largest Initial Public Offering in the history of Silicon Valley . The spin-off created an $8 billion company with about 30,000 employees, manufacturing Scientific Instrument s, Semiconductor s, optical networking devices, and Electronic Test Equipment for Telecom and wireless R&D and production. In July 1999, HP appointed Carly Fiorina as CEO. Fiorina was the first woman ever to serve as CEO of a company included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average . Fiorina was forced to resign on February 9 , 2005 . 2000 and beyond HP bought Compaq in 2002. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees), and Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy HP became a major player in desktops, 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. In 2006 HP outsourced its Enterprise support to countries with cheap workers: the Spanish support moved to Slovakia, the German support moved to Bulgaria and so on. Now it looks as if the German support moves back to Germany. TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTS computer and a Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 5740 printer owned by the Houston Independent School District ]] HP has a successful line of printers, scanners, digital cameras, calculators, PDAs, servers, workstations, and home-small business computers, many of the latter were acquired during the 2002 merger with Compaq . HP today promotes itself as not just being a hardware and software company, but also one that offers a full range of services to architect, implement and support today's IT infrastructure. Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) According to HP's 2005 U.S. SEC 10-K filing,http://www.shareholder.com/Common/Edgar/47217/1047469-05-28479/05-00.pdf HP's Imaging and Printing Group is "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." This division is currently headed by Vyomesh Joshi. Products and technology associated with the Imaging and Printing Group include:
Personal Systems Group (PSG) HP's Personal Systems Group is "one of the leading vendors of personal computers ("PCs") in the world based on unit volume shipped and annual revenue." Personal Systems Group products/technology include:
Technology Solutions Group (TSG) In HP's financial reporting, HP groups its Enterprise Storage and Servers, HP Services and Software under Technology Solutions Group. HP's Enterprise Storage and Servers Group has product/technology including:
HP's Software division has products/technologies:
With the major acquisitions of Peregrine and Mercury Interactive completed, HP has dropped the names OpenView, Peregrine and Mercury from its portfolio. The Business Technology Optimization (BTO) part of the software division is now being referred to as HP Software. The OpenCall branding still remains. HP Labs See Also: HP Labs ''HP Labs'' (or HP Laboratories) is the research arm of HP. Founded in 1966, HP Labs' function is to deliver breakthrough technologies and to create business opportunities that go beyond HP's current strategies. An example of recent HP Lab technology includes the Memory Spot Chip . Partnerships HP is a supporter of FOSS and Linux . Some HP employees, such as Linux CTO and former Debian Project Leader Bdale Garbee actively contribute and have Open Source job responsibilities. Many others participate in the Open Source community as volunteers. HP is also known in the (GNU/) Linux community for releasing drivers for many of their printers under the GNU GPL . Hewlett-Packard also continues Compaq 's extensive relationship with Microsoft and uses technology from most major software and hardware vendors. Until November 2005, HP offered a re-branded version of the Apple IPod . HP partners with many application software companies, for example SAP AG . Sponsorships HP has many sponsorships. One well known sponsorship is . Others can be found on Hewlett-Packard's website {Link without Title} From 1995 to 1999 they were the shirt sponsor of English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur . Product legacy Agilent Technologies , not HP, retains the direct product legacy of the original company founded in 1939. Agilent's current portfolio of electronic instruments are descended from HP's very earliest products. HP entered the computer business only after its instrumentation competencies were well-established. After the acquisition of Compaq in 2002, HP has maintained the "Compaq Presario" brand on low-end home laptops, the "HP Compaq" brand on business desktops and laptops, and the "HP ProLiant" brand on Intel-architecture servers. (The "HP Pavilion" brand is used on home entertainment laptops and all home desktops.)http://www.hp.com/ HP uses DEC's "StorageWorks" brand on storage systems; Tandem's "NonStop" servers are now branded as "HP Integrity NonStop".http://www.hp.com/country/us/en/solutions/leb.html CULTURE The founders, known to friends and employees alike as Bill and Dave, developed a unique management style that has come to be known as the HP Way. In Bill's words, the HP Way is "a core ideology . . . [that] includes a deep respect for the individual, a dedication to affordable quality and reliability, a commitment to community responsibility, and a view that the company exists to make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity."http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/expert/strauss092205.mspx The HP Alumni Association maintains a tribute to Bill and Dave's version of the HP Way, circa 1992.http://www.hpalumni.org/hp_way.htm CONTROVERSY HP pretexting scandal See Also: 2006 HP spying scandal On , had hired a team of independent electronic-security experts that later spied on HP board members and several journalists, to determine the source of leak of confidential details regarding HP's long-term strategy in January, 2006. The independent, third party company used a technique known as Pretexting to obtain call records of HP board members and nine journalists, including reporters for CNET, the '' New York Times '' and the '' Wall Street Journal ''. Dunn has claimed she did not know the methods the investigators used to determine the source of the leak.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/09/HP.TMP Board member George Keyworth was ultimately outed as the source. On September 12 2006 Keyworth resigned from the board and HP announced that Mark Hurd , the current CEO and president, would replace Dunn as Chairman after the HP board meeting on January 18 2007 . On September 22 2006 Hurd announced at a special press briefing that Ms. Dunn had resigned effective immediately from both the Chairmanship role and as a director of the Board; On September 28 2006 , Ann Baskins , HP's general counsel (head attorney) resigned1 hours before she was to appear as a witness at which she would later invoke the Fifth Amendment to "not be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime."2 Investigation by the government On October 4 2006 , California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed criminal charges and arrest warrants against Kevin Hunsaker , Dunn and three outside investigators.3 On September 11 2006 , the United States House Committee On Energy And Commerce wrote to Patricia Dunn stating that they have been conducting an investigation on Internet-based data brokers who allegedly use "lies, fraud and deception" to acquire personal information, and allow anyone who paid a "modest fee" to acquire "itemized incoming and outgoing call logs", and when had learned about HP's use of pretexting through their September 6 SEC filing and through their own inquiry of HP's Nominating and Governance Committee, stating they are "troubled" by the information, "particularly that it involves HP—one of America's corporate icons." The committee requested, under Rules X and XI of the United States House Of Representatives , information from HP by September 18 2006 : At the September 28 2006 hearing, Dunn and Hurd Hurd's prepared testimony . both testified extensively about the investigation. Dunn testified that until June or July 2006, she did not realize that "pretexting" could involve identity misrepresentation. Dunn repeatedly insisted that she had believed that personal phone records could be obtained through legal methods. Other witnesses refused to answer questions due to the ongoing criminal investigations. Perceived impact on the company's operations Despite the intense media coverage, investors continue to show faith in the company. As of October 23 , the price of the company's stock had actually increased from $36.50 to $39.87 per share,http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=HPQ&a=08&b=5&c=2006&d=09&e=10&f=2006&g=d a six-year high, apparently reflecting a belief in the investment community that the events described here will have little to no impact on the company's financial results. On October 8 , 2006 Reuters story noted that Hewlett-Packard is hardly the only company to benefit from information gathered via such "rogue"http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/061008/investigations.html?.v=2 pretexting methods. On October 12 , 2006 HP announced the appointment of Jon Hoak as vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer. Hoak served as senior vice president and general counsel for NCR from 1993 until May 2006.http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2006/061012a.html On December 7 , 2006 HP paid $14.5 Million to settle civil charges brought by the California Attorney General.http://news.com.com/HP+settles+with+California+in+spy+scandal/2100-1014_3-6141814.html?tag=nefd.lede In December 2006, two members of Congress requested that H-P provide more information regarding CEO Mark Hurd's sale of $1.4 million of stock options on August 25 , the same day he was questioned by attorneys investigating the pretexting scandal.http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/feds-charge-investigator-h-p-pretexting/story.aspx?guid=%7B09B86183-1C6F-4197-8EF1-ACED2CB92A67%7D Mark Hurd explained that the August trade was part of his normal investment strategy to diversify assets and was made during a regularly scheduled trading window for senior officers and directors. Additionally, Hurd assured the Subcommittee that the August trade had nothing to do with his interview by attorneys investigating the leak investigation and that he had initiated the trade before any such request had been made to him. As of February 2007, the scandal seems to be fading away, and the company's stock price has gone up another five percent to range between $42 and $43 per share. Traceable e-mail Fred Adler of HP revealed before a U.S. Congressional Inquiry that HP Security used an e-mail tracking service called ReadNotify.com to trace a bogus leak in an e-mail sent to . Adler said HP Security considers Web bugs to be a legitimate investigative tool, and has used them a number of times.http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127444-c,onlineprivacy/article.html The California attorney general’s office has said that this practice was not part of the Pretexting charges.http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=25624 Iraq During the 2003 Invasion Of Iraq HP shipped militarily useful technology to US forces. In August 2006, a video was widely distributed showing a soldier "repairing" an HP printer/fax/copier by destroying it with a machine gun, saying that HP wanted to charge him for the information he needed to fix it. HP responded with the statement: "HP was aware of the issue and resolved it back in March. HP responds to each customer service request individually as appropriate and that response is confidential. We take customer service seriously and are committed to providing good customer service." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/30/hp_soldier/ It is not clear from either the video or the article why the soldier did not use whatever system the Army has for supporting equipment that it buys and ships into battle zones. MANAGEMENT
History
DIVERSITY Hewlett-Packard received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2003, the second year of the report. In addition, the company was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by ''Working Mothers'' magazine. Hewlett-Packard is also involved in the NEPAD E-school Program to provide all schools in Africa with computers and internet access. Hewlett-Packard sponsors employee resource groups globally for black, LGBT , Latino, young, handicapped and other minorities. ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY In July 2007, the company announced that it had met its target, set in 2004, to Recycle 1 billion Pound s of Electronics and toner and Ink Cartridge s4. It has set a new goal of recycling a further 2 billion pounds of hardware by the end of 2010. In 2006, the company recovered 187 million pounds of electronics, 73 percent more than its closest competitor. The company has been a leader in environmental responsibility. Its global environmental strategy is based on designing products for the environment, as well as ensuring that the company’s own operations and Supply Chain are efficient and not harmful to the planet. ACQUISITIONS Below are some of the notable acquisitions Unofficial list of HP acquisitions and divestitures of companies and product lines acquired by HP over the decades:
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