Hewlett-Packard Company ( ), commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA. HP is the largest technology company in the world and operates in nearly every country. HP specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, storage, and networking hardware, software and services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise servers, related storage devices, as well as a diverse range of printers and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small to medium size businesses and enterprises both directly, via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors.

HP posted US $91.7 billion in annual revenue in 2006, compared to US$91.4 billion for IBM, making HP the world's largest technology vendor in terms of sales. In 2007 the revenue was $104 billion, making HP the first IT company in history to report revenues exceeding $100 billion. HP is the largest worldwide seller of personal computers, surpassing rival Dell, according to market research firms Gartner and IDC reported in January 2008; the gap between HP and Dell widened substantially at the end of 2007, with HP taking a near 3.9% market share lead. HP is also the 6th largest software company in the world. In 2008 HP retained its global leadership position in inkjet, laser, large format and multi-function printers market. Also HP become #2 globally in IT services as reported by IDC & Gartner. It is one of the only American PC-focused computer companies publicly traded under the NYSE.

Major company changes include a spin-off of part of its business as Agilent Technologies in 1999, its merger with Compaq in 2002, and the acquisition of EDS in 2008, which led to combined revenues of US$ 118.4 Billion in 2008 and a Fortune 500 ranking of 9 in 2009. In November 2009, HP announced the acquisition of 3Com.

Company history

Founding

William Hewlett and David Packard both graduated in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1935. The company originated in a garage in nearby Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with a past professor, Frederick Terman at Stanford during the Great Depression. Terman was considered a mentor to them in forming Hewlett-Packard.In 1939, Packard and Hewlett established Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Packard's garage with an initial capital investment of US$538. 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 18, 1947, and went public on November 6, 1957.

Of the many projects they worked on, their very first financially successful product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A. 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, which 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.

From the 1940s until well into the 1990s the company concentrated on making electronic test equipment – signal generators, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, frequency counters, thermometers, time standards, wave analyzers, and many other instruments. A distinguishing feature was pushing the limits of measurement range and accuracy; many HP instruments were more sensitive, accurate, and precise than other comparable equipment.

Following the pattern set by the company's first product, the 200A, test instruments were labelled with three to five digits followed by the letter "A". Improved versions went to suffixes "B" through "E". As the product range grew wider HP started using product designators starting with a letter for accessories, supplies, software, and components.

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. HP bought Yokogawa Electric's share of Hewlett-Packard Japan in 1999.

HP spun off a small company, Dynac, 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 Dynac changed to Dymec, then was folded back into HP in 1959.HP experimented with using Digital Equipment Corporation minicomputers with its instruments. But after deciding that it would be easier to build another small design team than deal with DEC, HP entered the computer market in 1966 with the HP 2100 / HP 1000 series of minicomputers. These had a simple accumulator-based design, with registers arranged somewhat similarly to the Intel x86 architecture still used today. 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 series of desktop and business computers.

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 terms of sales.

HP is identified by Wired magazine as the producer of the world's first marketed, mass-produced personal computer, the Hewlett-Packard 9100A, introduced 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 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; 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. The machine's keyboard was a cross between that of a scientific calculator and an adding machine. There was no alphabetic keyboard.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, originally designed the Apple I computer while working at HP and offered it to them under their right of first refusal to his work, but they did not take it up as 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-41C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator, the HP-28C. Like their scientific and business calculators, their oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, 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 98x5 series of technical desktop computers started in 1975 with the 9815, and the cheaper 80 series, again of technical computers, started in 1979 with the 85[757871]. These machines used a version of the BASIC programming language 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, although the limitations of available technology forced prices to be high.

The 1980s

In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers 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.

On March 3, 1986, HP registered the HP.com domain name, making it the ninth Internet domain ever to be registered.This gives HP the position today to be one of the very few large corporations worldwide to be in the Internet Hall of Fame owning a two letter domain name.

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 users, 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; in 2005, the store was renamed "HP Home & Home Office Store."

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, semiconductors, optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless R&D and production.

In July 1999, HP appointed Carly Fiorina as CEO, the first female CEO of a company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Fiorina served as CEO during the tech downtown of the turn of the second millennium. During her tenure, the market halved HP’s value commensurate with other tech companies at the time and the company incurred heavy job losses. The HP Board of Directors asked Fiorina to step down in 2005, and she resigned on February 9, 2005.

2000 and beyond

HP merged with Compaq in 2002. The merger occurred after a proxy fight with Bill Hewlett's son Walter, who objected to the merger. 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 desktop, 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 (Compaq logo was famous for its "Q" on the logo and on products).

In May 2006, HP began its campaign, The Computer is Personal Again. The campaign was designed to bring back the fact that the PC is a personal product. The campaign utilized viral marketing, sophisticated visuals, and its own web site (www.hp.com/personal). Some of the ads featured well-known personalities, including Pharrell, Petra Nemcova, Mark Burnett, Mark Cuban, Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, and Shaun White.

On May 13, 2008, HP and Electronic Data Systems 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 and it was publicly announced that EDS would be re-branded "EDS an HP company." As of September 23, 2009 EDS is known as HP Enterprise Services.

On November 11, 2009, 3Com and Hewlett-Packard announced that Hewlett-Packard will be acquiring 3Com for $2.7 billion in cash.The acquisition is the 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 purchased Perot Systems 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.

Facilities

HP's global operations are directed from its headquarters in Palo Alto, California, USA. Its U.S. operations are directed from its facility in Houston, Texas, USA—the site originally belonging to Compaq, which it acquired. Latin America operations are directed from Miami, Florida, USA, European operations from Geneva, Switzerland, and Asia-Pacific operations from Singapore. It also has large operations in San Diego, California and Plano, Texas—the former headquarters of EDS, which HP acquired. Its recent acquisition of 3Com will expand its employee base to Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Products and organizational structure

HP has successful lines of printers, scanners, digital cameras, calculators, PDAs, servers, workstation computers, and computers for home and small business use computers; many of the computers came from the 2002 merger with Compaq. HP today promotes 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) 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." Products and technology associated with IPG include Inkjet and LaserJet printers, consumables and related products, Officejet all-in-one multifunction printer/scanner/faxes, Large Format Printers, Indigo Digital Press, HP Web Jetadmin printer management software, HP Output Management suite of software, LightScribe optical recording technology, HP Photosmart digital cameras and photo printers, HP SPaM, and Snapfish by HP, a photo sharing and photo products service. On December 23, 2008, HP releases iPrint Photo for iPhone a free downloadable software application that allows to print 4" x 6" photos.http://vsslfpro.zcce.compaq.com/plmcontent/NACSC/SML/default.htm HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG) claims to be "one of the leading vendors of personal computers ("PCs") in the world based on unit volume shipped and annual revenue." PSG includes business PCs and accessories, consumer PCs and accessories, (e.g., HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, VoodooPC), handheld computing (e.g., iPAQ Pocket PC), and digital "connected" entertainment (e.g., HP MediaSmart TVs, HP MediaSmart Servers, HP MediaVaults, DVD+RW drives). HP resold the Apple iPod until November 2005.

HP Enterprise Business (EB) incorporates Technical services, Enterprise Services (formerly known as EDS), HP Software & Solutions, and Enterprise Storage and Networking Group (ESN). The Enterprise Storage and Servers Group (ESS) oversees "back end" products. like storage and servers.

HP Software & Solutions is the company's enterprise software division. For years, HP has produced and marketed its brand of enterprise management software, HP OpenView. HP has purchased a total of 12 software companies as part of a publicized, deliberate strategy to augment its software offerings for large business customers. The division markets its software in four categories: business technology optimization software, information management software, business intelligence solutions, and communications and media software and solutions. HP's networking business unit ProCurve is responsible for the family of network switches, wireless access points, and routers.. They are currently a Business Unit of ESN.

HP's Office of Strategy and Technology, has four main functions: (1) steering the company's $3.6 billion research and development investment, (2) fostering the development of the company's global technical community, (3) leading the company's strategy and corporate development efforts, and (4) performing worldwide corporate marketing activities. Under this office is HP Labs, the research arm of HP. Founded in 1966, HP Labs's function is to deliver new 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. HP IdeaLab further provides a web forum on early-state innovations to encourage open feedback from consumers and the development community.

HP also offers managed services where they provide complete IT-support solutions for other companies and organisations. In their Dublin office, for instance, they offer IT support for the Bank of Ireland, and for Microsoft they offer Professional and Premiere support for the Windows-operating system, Exchange, SharePoint and Microsoft Office products for the EMEA markets.

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 ... [which] 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." The following are the tenets of The HP Way:

1. We have trust and respect for individuals.
2. We focus on a high level of achievement and contribution.
3. We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity.
4. We achieve our common objectives through teamwork.
5. We encourage flexibility and innovation.

Hewlett-Packard's Certified Professional (HP-CP) program was developed to confirm the technical skills, sales competencies and knowledge that is required to propose and deploy, service and support technology and solutions sold by HP. HP-CP is intended for customers, resellers, and HP employees.

Corporate social responsibility

In July 2007, the company announced that it had met its target, set in 2004, to recycle 1 billion pound of electronics, toner and ink cartridges. 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.

In 2008, HP released its supply chain emissions data – an industry first.

In September, 2009, Newsweek ranked HP #1 on its 2009 Green Rankings of America's 500 largest corporations. According to environmentalleader.com, "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."

Brand and legacy

HP has many sponsorships. One well known sponsorship is of Walt Disney World's Epcot Park's Mission: SPACE. Others can be found on Hewlett-Packard's website [757872].From 1995 to 1999 they were the shirt sponsor of English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.They also sponsored the BMW Williams Formula 1 team. Hewlett-Packard also has the naming rights arrangement for the HP Pavilion at San Jose, home of the San Jose Sharks NHL hockey team.

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 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 is used on home entertainment laptops and all home desktops.)

HP uses DEC's "StorageWorks" brand on storage systems; Tandem's "NonStop" servers are now branded as "HP Integrity NonStop".

Controversy

On September 5, 2006, Newsweek revealed that HP's general counsel, at the behest of chairwoman Patricia Dunn, contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists in order to identify the source of an information leak. In turn, those security experts recruited private investigators who used a spying technique known as pretexting. The pretexting involved investigators impersonating HP board members and nine journalists (including reporters for CNET, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) 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 article in January 2006. Most HP employees accused of criminal acts have since been acquitted.

See also

• List of Hewlett-Packard products
• List of computer system manufacturers
• List of acquisitions by Hewlett-Packard
• HP Linux Imaging and Printing
• HP User Group

References

1. http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/71/71087/pdf/HP_2006AR.pdf HP 2006 Annual Report
2. HP Reports Fourth Quarter 2007 Results: Financial News -
3. http://redmondmag.com/reports/article.asp?EditorialsID=494 RedmondMag.com - The Race to $100 Billion
4. Source: Gartner http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=584210
5. Software Top 100: "The World's Largest Software Companies"
6. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/facts.html
7. HP History: HP's Garage
8. HP History : 1960s
9. Yokogawa Electric Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Company Announce "Hewlett-Packard Japan to become Wholly Owned HP Subsidiary" HP and Yokogawa Sign Agreement
10. Dynac DY-2500 at HP Virtual Museum
11. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/full_list/
12. Wired 8.12
13. VB.com Domain Timeline
14. VB.com Internet Hall of Fame - List of Large Companies that own a Two Letter Domain
15. Arensman, Russ. "Unfinished business: managing one of the biggest spin-offs in corporate history would be a challenge even in the best of times. But what Agilent's Ned Barnholt got was the worst of times. (Cover Story)." Electronic Business 28.10 (Oct 2002): 36(6).
16. HP's share price moved from 45.36 to 20.14 during Fiorina's leadership, a performance of -56% (share price data from Bloomberg); the market as a whole, as measured by the benchmark Dow Jones U.S. Large Cap Technology Index,fell by 51% between 1999-07-19 and 2005-02-09.
17. press release
18. HP Press Release: HP Announces Expiration of Waiting Period Under HSR Act
19. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/091111xa.html
20. http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/privacy.html#10
21. http://www.hp.com/country/us/en/contact/office_locs.html
22. http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/Worldwide_Dir5.pdf
23. http://www.shareholder.com/Common/Edgar/47217/1047469-05-28479/05-00.pdf
24. http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/free/software/iprint-photo.html?jumpi=ex_r602_go/iprintphoto
25. HP Press release archives
26. HP ProCurve Networking - Network of Choice
27. HP Executive Team Bios: Shane Robison
28. ProCurve Networking by HP - Features
29. Title of backgrounder
30. HP-MS support deal
31. Hewlett-Packard Alumni "HP Way" page
32. http://www.hpalumni.org/hp_way.htm
33. HP United States - Computers, Laptops, Servers, Printers & more
34. Large Enterprise Business IT products, services, and solutions - HP
35. Suspicions and Spies in Silicon Valley | Newsweek Business |Newsweek.com
36. HP outlines long-term strategy |CNET News.com
37. Calif. court drops charges against Dunn

External links

• Hewlett-Packard home
• HP Printing and The Science Museum of Minnesota
• The Museum of HP Calculators
• HP History Links