Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, software, solutions and services to individual 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 Dave Packard. Currently, HP is the world's leading PC manufacturer, operating in nearly every country. It specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise, and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a diverse range of printers, and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises directly as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors. HP also has strong services and consulting business around its products and partner products.
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 $118.4 billion in 2008 and a Fortune 500 ranking of 9 in 2009. In November 2009, HP announced the acquisition of 3Com; with the deal closing on April 12, 2010. On April 28, 2010, HP announced the buyout of Palm for $1.2 billion. On September 2, 2010, won its bidding war for 3PAR with a $33 a share offer ($2.07 billion) which Dell declined to match.
Hewlett-Packard is not affiliated with Packard Motor Car Corporation, founded by James Ward Packard and William Doud Packard .
Founding
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard 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 incandescent light bulb (known as a "pilot light") as a temperature dependent resistor in a critical portion of the circuit, the negative feedback loop which stabilized the amplitude of the output sinusoidal waveform. 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.
One of the company's earliest customers was Walt Disney Productions, 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.
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