Free Republic

Palo Alto, Calif. (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. says it has agreed to buy networking software and equipment maker 3Com Corp. for about $2.7 billion in cash. The 3Com products will be folded into HP's own networking equipment business. . . .

I am a Mac user by choice, but my work computer is an HP Pavilion laptop running Vista. I am in NO way trying to bash MS (though I generally am no fan of Gates and his MS beast), but I am seeking real discourse and help. I am a fairly experienced computer users, and have spent a good deal of time over the last few years helping in the technology department at my previous employment. Back in the spring (machine was still under warranty), the HD died (supposedly, I am not convinced) right after a large Windows update (that...

Remember Compaq? Hewlett-Packard acquired the venerable computer company way back in 2002, but it's kept the name alive as a secondary brand ever since, mainly relegating Compaq to overseas markets (Compaq is particularly popular in Asia) and as second-tier PCs sold on the cheap at warehouse-style stores. But now HP is looking to breathe a little new life into the Compaq brand, positioning it not just as a label for extremely cheap computer equipment but also as one with mainstream appeal in the U.S. Today the company is announcing the rollout of a line of ultra-inexpensive PCs, both laptops and...

Former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive Carly Fiorina has taken the first formal step toward running for the U.S. Senate seat of Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina filed for a tax identification number on Tuesday and registered a campaign committee named "Carly for California." The committee will allow her to begin raising money for a potential 2010 run for the Republican nomination. Spokeswoman Beth Miller says the 54-year-old Fiorina, who stumped for Sen. John McCain during his presidential run, will begin meeting with policy advisers and donors but has no timetable for making a formal announcement. If she runs, Fiorina would face...

This year, Acer appears poised to overtake Dell as the world’s second-largest seller of personal computers, which would put a real dent into one of America’s favorite dorm-to-empire business stories. And if this comes to pass, Acer would trail only Hewlett-Packard; no computer company based outside the United States has ever climbed so high.

My HP-48SX ceased functioning about 5 years ago and i still miss it. I recently got the bug to go out and replace it with something. I saw an HP-50 on sale today for about 60 bucks. I bought the 48-SX when they first came out(circa 1989?) for A LOT OF MONEY. I forget the exact amount, but it was either $199.99 or $299.99. I think it was the latter. The only thing wrong with my 48 is the on/off button. I know this because the problem started out minor and gradually got worse. I used to be able to...

Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. will cut 2 percent of its employees, about 6,400 people, to save money.

In this trailer released by WB, Dumbledore narrates the story of Tom Riddle. We see glimpses of the inferi, more orphanage footage, the gates of Hogwarts as Harry and Luna travel up to them, Harry under his invisibility cloak on the train, Dumbledore grabbing a chain from the cave, a close shot of Narcissa, Draco working on the wardrobe, explosions in Diagon Alley and fire at the Burrow, Harry battling off the Inferi, Fenrir Greyback, Harry shouting at Snape, the bridge collapsing, and another "Once again, I must ask too much of you, Harry."

SAN FRANCISCO - Former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina has been diagnosed with breast cancer, a top aide said Tuesday. Fiorina was diagnosed with the disease Feb. 20 and underwent surgery Monday at Stanford Hospital, her chief of staff, Deborah Bowker, told The Associated Press. Bowker said the surgery was successful and Fiorina has an "excellent" prognosis for a full recovery. The San Francisco Chronicle earlier reported Fiorina's condition. Fiorina is a Republican who served as an adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and has been considered a possible candidate for elected office. She has not announced any...

Hewlett-Packard Co. could be breaking U.S. trade sanctions by using a third-party distributor to sell printers in Iran, The Boston Globe reported Monday. According to the newspaper, HP signed a distribution deal with a Dubai-based company called Redington Gulf in 1997, two years after the Clinton administration put sanctions on Iran. And while Redington, as a foreign company, falls outside U.S. regulations, the Globe reported that there is evidence HP knew its equipment would end up circumventing U.S. law. For example, in 1999, HP's Middle East manager at the time, Albrecht Ferling, was quoted as estimating that sales in Iran...

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO turned top John McCain aide, said she doesn't think Sarah Palin is qualified to run a major corporation. For that matter, Fiorina said, McCain, Obama and Biden aren't capable of that kind of job either. Ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO and McCain adviser Carly Fiorina said Sarah Palin could not run a major company. The Republican presidential candidate has been trying to portray himself as someone who can fix the country's economic woes. But that is a far different task than running a Fortune 500 corporation, Fiorina told MSNBC Tuesday. Democratic candidate Barack Obama's camp immediately circulated...

HP to cut 24,600 jobs worldwide Tuesday, 16 September 2008 07:28 US technology giant Hewlett-Packard has said that it will cut 24,600 jobs worldwide over the next three years as part of its integration with computer services firm Electronic Data Systems. The company employs 4,000 in Ireland in locations in Leixlip, Dublin, Galway and Belfast. World leading computer maker HP bought Texas-based business services outsourcing titan EDS in August as part of a $13.9 billion deal that aimed to create a global powerhouse in computer services to compete against IBM. Advertisement The workforce reduction aims to 'streamline the combined company's...

Self-described Vagina-American Kate Clinton trashed the family of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin as "insane" today, called religious conservatives "cancerous" and mocked their belief in Jesus Christ in an article posted at Progressive.com (http://www.progressive.org/mag/wxclinton091208.html).Clinton, an out lesbian comic is the emcee of the Out & Equal Workplace Summit 'Outie Awards' dinner being held in Austin, Texas this weekend.The gay and lesbian meeting is sponsored by many top American companies, including Hewlett Packard which is sponsoring the awards dinner.Other sponsors include Freddie Mac, which is being bailed out by the federal government and many other companies that will disappoint many...

The carefully crafted ecosystem of tech companies built around Microsoft's Windows operating system is showing signs of strain. Hewlett-Packard, a longtime Microsoft ally, has quietly assembled a group of engineers to develop software that would make Windows Vista easier to use, or bypass some of its more onerous features. A Skunk Works of engineers at the company is even angling to replace Windows with an HP-assembled operating system, sources say.

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a prominent U.S.-based public interest group litigating and lobbying for pro-abortion policies world-wide, has released its annual report for 2007. The reported CRR budget confirms that large US foundations continue their heavy financial support for radical social policies not only in the US, but all over the world. The report shows that close to fifty percent of CRR’s $14 million budget is financed by more than forty American foundations. The Hewlett and Packard foundations lead the way. Other prominent donors include Ford and MacArthur foundations as well as George Soros’ Open Society Institute. CRR...

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina may or may not be on Arizona Sen. John McCain's short list for vice president, but she already is taking a crucial role in the Republican presidential hopeful's campaign. In March, Fiorina was picked by the Republican National Committee to chair a group directed to raise money and get out the vote for this year's elections. Shortly after that move was announced, Fiorina was interviewed by Business Week about her role. "My role is to be the primary advocate for John McCain and for the Republican Party," she said. "Certainly there are a lot of...

As chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company, Carly Fiorina coined the term “perfect enough” to goad the hidebound, overly cautious company to embrace change and innovation more quickly. Now, as the Republican National Committee’s "Victory Chair," Fiorina is pushing John McCain for president. She says conservatives who are skeptical about him need to look at the broader picture. “When people strive for perfection, they frequently don’t make much progress,” Fiorina tells Newsmax. “So what I said in my book ‘Tough Choices’ is, if you’re focused on making progress, if you’re focused on making the right choices, then perfect enough is...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - After running one of Silicon Valley's powerhouse companies for six years, Carly Fiorina now has her sights set on the White House. Not for her — not yet, at least. But for John McCain. Fiorina, 53, joined the Republican senator's presidential campaign this spring. She brings with her a long list of wealthy friends and supporters and intimate insight into how some of the largest corporations work, having been at the helm of Hewlett-Packard Co. and before that, senior management at AT&T Inc. and its spinoff Lucent Technologies. While the new gig is her first in...

Memory plus resistor may add up to longer-lasting batteries and faster-booting computers After nearly 40 years, researchers have discovered a new type of building block for electronic circuits. And there's at least a chance it will spare you from recharging your phone every other day. Scientists at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, Calif., report in Nature that a new nanometer-scale electric switch "remembers" whether it is on or off after its power is turned off. (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.)Researchers believe that the memristor, or memory resistor, might become a useful tool for constructing nonvolatile computer memory,...

Sitting patiently before your computer as it boots up could soon be a thing of the past following the discovery of a new basic type of electrical circuit by electronics heavyweight Hewlett-Packard (HP). According to the basics of electronic theory, there are three fundamental elements involved in the function of a passive electrical circuit, namely resistors, capacitors and inductors. However, after four decades of searching, HP scientists are now claiming to have found a potentially significant fourth element. The Hewlett-Packard research team, led by Stanley Williams, has this week announced it has proven the existence of the “memristor” (memory resistor)...

IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. (INTC) improved their standings Monday in the newest tally of the world's fastest 500 computers, a closely watched measure of progress in the industry. The list, published twice a year by academic researchers, once again was topped by an IBM Corp. supercomputer in the Lawrence Livermore national nuclear lab. The BlueGene/L system, as it is known, was recently upgraded and showed the ability to perform at 478 teraflops - 478 trillion calculations per second. That's tens of thousands of times faster than your average desktop PC today. The No. 2 performer was an IBM supercomputer...

People used to think the very idea that a major PC vendor would offer desktop Linux was beyond a joke. HP will soon be joining Dell in offering at least one Linux desktop line in its SKU sales listing. Here's why I believe this. First, Dell successfully broke the Windows-only wall when it added Ubuntu Linux 7.04 to three systems in its consumer line in May. While Dell hasn't released any sales numbers, its Linux sales must be doing well. You don't start offering Ubuntu on another brand-new laptop line and announce that you'll soon be selling Ubuntu to SMBs...

Today HP execs wrote to tell us that their company has been awarded a top international Linux security certification. The certification, called the Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL4+) Common Criteria security certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, applies to HP servers, workstations and notebooks. In June, if you’ll remember, IBM was awarded the same EAL4+ certification for RHEL5 running on IBM System x, System p, System z, and BladeCenter servers. This cert is part of the Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS), an internationally recognized standard used by governments and businesses worldwide to determine the level of security...

Sent my HP laptop into HP for repairs since I had their accidental damage coverage. The problems started soon after. Although I had registered the computer when I bought it and had a copy of the insurance policy on hand, I still had to find the sales receipt of the laptop and the policy before they would process the claim. Rather stupid since they had all the info on file. The policy says 6 day door-to-door service. I was given a return date of 13 days later. The computer never showed up. I had a URL to a status page...

I bought an HP-AMD64 Dual core, 2Gig Media Center about a month ago and I'm having all kinds of stability problems with it. Anybody else have WindowsXP Media that had the same type of problems and found a cure?

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- When Microsoft Corp. delivers a mysterious prototype for government testing this coming week, it will mark a crucial juncture for a high-stakes bid to change the way consumers get their Internet access. That bid has cast Microsoft and a group of powerful allies from Silicon Valley in the relatively unfamiliar role of Washington policy players. Microsoft's prototype, delivered on behalf of the group, is a wireless device that could provide the public with free and more widespread access to the Web instead of relying on networks owned by big telecom and cable firms. That breakthrough,...

Hewlett-Packard is closing custom deals for thousands of desktop PCs running Linux, which has the company assessing the possibility of offering factory-loaded Linux systems, an HP executive said. "We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard," said Doug Small, worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing at HP. "We are in a massive deal right now for ... multi-thousands of units of a desktop opportunity for Linux. That's an indicator." He declined to...

Think stock not scandal By in Mountain View �¨ More by this author Published Wednesday 24th January 2007 19:57 GMT Research Library - All papers free to download HP shareholders might just applaud CEO Mark Hurd's hefty 2006 pay package, while those with more emotional ties to the company's historical reputation will recoil in horror. Hurd pocketed close to $20m last year with $1.4m coming from his salary, $8.6m coming from bonuses and millions more arriving in the form of stock-based and other compensation. Believe it or not, the total 2006 payout fell well short of Hurd's $24.4m 2005 bonanza,...

Excerpt - BOSTON, Jan 18, 2007 (AP Worldstream via COMTEX News Network) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. extended its lead over Dell Inc. in the worldwide personal-computer market in the fourth quarter, according to a report by two top technology research firms. The analyses from IDC and Gartner Inc. produced slightly different numbers but the same general results: With overall PC sales unspectacular, HP managed to outgrow the rest of the market and lead the worldwide tally of PC sales for the second quarter in a row. PC sales increased roughly 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner, while IDC...

Hewlett-Packard researchers have designed a faster, more energy-efficient chip by packing in more transistors--without shrinking them.These nanoscale crossbars, developed at HP, could lead to an entirely new chip architecture that would improve chip performance without shrinking transistors. The crossbars are to be placed on top of the transistors, replacing the wire interconnects currently found between them and freeing up space for more transistors. Credit: Hewlett-Packard Company In the chip-making industry, the best way to increase the speed of electronics and make them cheaper has always been to shrink a chip's transistors to create room for more. But now researchers at...

Sitel Corporation Closing Robertson Road Call Centre Cindy Clyne and Dan Pihlainen - Wednesday, November 29, 2006 Some bad news for employees at Sitel Corporation in Bells Corners. The company's Roberston Road call centre is closing effective April 30th. The company hasn't confirmed the news yet, but some employees say they've been told their jobs are being outsourced to Costa Rica. There is word that some of the 800 jobs will transferred to the company's Kanata office, however the company hasn't said yet how many jobs will be saved.

Excerpt - Demand for computers during the Thanksgiving weekend appeared to be strong, with both notebook and desktop models enjoying brisk sales driven by deep discounts. Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) was a standout, with some analysts reporting long lines in its stores and strong demand, even though the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker wasn't selling systems on the cheap. Shoppers at big-box retailers lined up to get the deeply discounted computers, but once the specials were gone, consumers didn't linger or buy more expensive systems, said Richard Doherty, research director at Envisoneering, at market- research firm. He said the strategy of...

HP's freshest board member Ken Thompson won't need to take the company's Pretexting 101 course offering. As Wachovia's CEO, Thompson has become well acquainted with the legal concerns surrounding phone record fraud. Just months before the HP scandal materialized, Wachovia was found to be keeping curious company. The financial services firm stood out as the largest customer of Global Information Group, paying the Florida-based data broker and suspected pretexter $456,250. It's not clear what Wachovia hired Global Information to do. Wachovia won't say. And, when a Global Information staffer was brought before Congress in June to testify about the practice...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. supplanted Dell Inc. as the world leader in personal computer shipments during the third quarter, returning the bragging rights to Silicon Valley for the first time in nearly three years, according to figures released Wednesday by two influential research firms. Both Gartner Inc. and IDC pegged the overall third-quarter growth of the global PC market at just under 7 percent, but that trend was overshadowed by the industry's new pecking order. The changing of the guard occurred after HP's shipments climbed by 15 percent from a year ago while Dell's edged up by...

The wraps came off high-definition DVD players at this year's annual Consumer Electronics Show, offering the final component to replicate the movie theater experience at home. And while a fierce DVD format war likely will delay the mass adoption of such devices, digital video is here to stay - the Consumer Electronics Association trade group estimates 25 million U.S. homes will have a high-def TV set by year's end. But big, expensive flat-panel sets aside, this year's gadget show offered plenty of smaller screens for video... Yahoo Inc., DirecTV, Starz Entertainment Group and Sony were also among the companies getting...

Former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carly Fiorina said Monday that she was stunned and saddened by the spying scandal engulfing her former company, noting the fiasco highlighted the "boardroom dysfunction" that led to her ouster. [Tech Talk Podcast - Former CEO Carly Fiorina talks about HP's scandal, the corporate glass ceiling for women, and fake testicles.] Fiorina, 52, who was fired by the HP board in early 2005, is promoting her new memoir, "Tough Choices," which recalls her colorful but controversial career as a high-profile Silicon Valley executive. Her book was published this week, at a time when the Palo Alto...

Carly Fiorina wins praise for defining a new vision for a slow-moving bureaucracy that had essentially missed the Internet revolution. Before Fiorina, HP had a murky strategy for linking its computer, server and printer businesses. She recast HP as an IBM-like strategic partner for customers trying to take advantage of the always-on aspects of the Web era.  Carly Fiorina's career has followed an uncannily cinematic arc. A restless law school dropout becomes a master sales rep for Ma Bell, then rises higher in business than any other woman, running Hewlett-Packard Co. for six years. She wrestles that stodgy Silicon...

The California AG has charged Dunn with four felony counts, but her lawyer claims they've got the wrong person for the wrong reason California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has charged former Hewlett-Packard () Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and others involved in the company's spying scandal with four felony counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy. "One of our state's most venerable corporate institutions lost its way," said Lockyer at a press conference on Oct. 4 announcing the charges in the month-old scandal. The indictments give Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd and the company reason to breathe easier, even as they await word...

SAN FRANCISCO - California’s attorney general announced indictments Wednesday against Hewlett-Packard’s ousted chairwoman Patricia Dunn and former ethics lawyer Kevin Hunsaker for their roles in a snowballing boardroom espionage scandal. “In this misguided effort, people inside and outside HP violated privacy rights and broke state law. Those who cross the legal line must be held accountable,” Attorney General Bill Lockyer told reporters. Three private detectives involved in the US computer equipment giant’s alleged spying operations were also indicted, Lockyer said. Dunn and Hunsaker were indicted along with Ronald DeLia, Matthew Depante and Bryan Wagner, Lockyer said at a press conference...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - A California court issued arrest warrants Wednesday for former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, former senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker and three private investigators tied to the technology giant's pretexting scandal after they were charged with felonies in connection with the H-P boardroom leak scandal. The five are charged with fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy. ~ snip ~

From the House Committee on Energy and Commerce website - Schedule - Hewlett-Packard’s Pretexting Scandal Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Thursday, September 28, 2006 2123 Rayburn House Office Building 10:00 AM ET Webcast available Available now in PDF format - Testimony of Patricia C. Dunn Testimony of Mark Hurd

See for example this thread first. Over the course of the past couple of weeks, a large scandal has broken concerning the efforts of unscrupulous, highly-placed individuals to gain access to the private phone records and conversations of dissenters. The rights of these dissenters are guaranteed by law. Does this sound familiar? Are you thinking of the words “NSA interecpt / wiretap program?” If you are, then we are not connecting here. I am speaking of the recent controversy regarding some of the corporate executives at Hewlett-Packard, and their attempts to unearth the source of leaks of corporate secrets (or...

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd announces he has accepted the resignation of former chairwoman Patricia Dunn from the board of directors as a result of the H-P leak investigation and spying scandal. MORE...

SAN FRANCISCO — Succumbing to pressure from a spiraling controversy over a media leak investigation, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s embattled chairwoman abruptly resigned from the company's board Friday (Sept. 22). Patricia Dunn had said previously she would abandon the role of chair, but remain a member of the board, next January. HP (Palo Alto, Calif.) appointed Mark Hurd, president CEO, chairman of the board. The company also appointed Richard Hackborn, a member of the board since 1992, lead director. The shakeup follows more than two weeks of spiraling controversy over an HP investigation into board room leaks that utilized a technique called...

Excerpt - Don't blame Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, her new lawyer said Wednesday, for the convulsions the company's board have suffered in the wake of its troubled investigation of boardroom leaks. "She's neither a lawyer nor is she an investigator," said James Brosnahan, the Morrison & Foerster litigator whom Dunn hired this week. "And she's not the kind of person, frankly, who would advise people to do something illegal." Dunn has come under scrutiny for her role in directing the troubled probe -- The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she closely supervised it -- and she's the latest figure...

Intel third horseman Andy Grove has chastised HP for its recent management shakeup. The printing, imaging and spying company should not have elevated CEO Mark Hurd to the Chairmanship, according to Intel's ex-top dog. "Every time I see that a company that has departed from the ... combined chairman-chief executive role go back . . . I'm sorry to see that," Grove told the AP in an interview. HP took the unusual step of rewarding Hurd for presiding over the company's spy scandal by promoting him to the Chairman role. The top spot will be vacated when current Chairman Patricia...

Excerpt - Hewlett-Packard Co. may be the world's largest technology company, but the superlative that better suits it these days is Provider of the World's Strangest Corporate Drama. For two weeks, almost every day has brought revelations of questionable tactics that HP investigators used this year and last to root out who had been describing boardroom deliberations to the media. Corporate intelligence is an old and frequently practiced art, but HP's efforts feel more Watergate than Wall Street. Not only did investigators impersonate board members, employees and journalists to obtain their phone records, but according to multiple reports, they also...

Excerpt - Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive Mark V. Hurd approved an elaborate "sting" operation on a reporter in February in an attempt to plug leaks to the media, according to an e-mail message sent by HP Chairman Patricia C. Dunn. The document, one of more than two dozen e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, for the first time links Hurd to an internal investigation of media leaks that has led to criminal probes and will be the subject of a congressional hearing next week. ~ snip ~

VMS support goes to India next week HP Leak of the Day (C) This must be embarrassing By Charlie Demerjian: Wednesday 13 September 2006, 09:25 LUCKY FOR HP that they caught the onerous 'mad leaker', this could get embarrassing for it if leaks continued. So, for the HP leak of the day, we turn to VMS, layoffs, and other things only a board member would have access to this early. I guess they didn't plug all the holes. It seems that a good chunk of VMS front line support is going to the subcontinent to save a meagre few dollars...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - A Congressional panel on Friday asked outgoing Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, H-P general counsel Ann Baskins and two others tied to the company's controversial probe into media leaks to appear at a hearing on the matter later this month. The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters to Dunn, Baskins, H-P's outside counsel Larry Sonsini and private investigator Ronald DeLia, seeking their testimony at a Sept. 28 hearing. The committee previously gave H-P until Sept. 18 to turn in requested documents related to the investigation. The requests came a...