back to article HP buys EDS: What are they thinking?

Mark Hurd must know what happens to HP bosses who strike a legacy-defining deal. He’s the man who took over from Carly Fiorina, shortly after her takeover of Compaq turned out to be not quite such a big idea after all. The Compaq integration was managed to death – and yet you’d be hard pressed to point at much of what remains …

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  1. Rukario
    Happy

    Perfect day for it

    Seeing as how EDS are so loved by Private Eye... subscribers' copies are going in the post today so it managed to miss getting in to this issue.

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  3. Chris
    Dead Vulture

    eummm

    Just a wee little side note... Dubya hails from CT (Connecticut)... Granted he did spend most of his adult life in TX and he was the governor but he is NOT a TeXan...

  4. Mitch Russell
    Alert

    A new market for HP systems

    Just replace the systems at all the EDS run data centers and managed desktops. Built-in demand!

  5. Pete Silver badge

    an ideal match (no, really)

    Let's face it, HP makes printer ink. Oh it has a small computer division, but we can effectively forget about that. EDS creates lots of documents (and very little else, from what we hear). What could be better than HP producing all the ink and EDS using it?

    Given that being bought by HP is pretty much the kiss of death (Compaq, Unix Systems Lab, and nearly 100 other companies they've bought over the years) I hope they remember to step up production of red ink.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buy Canon!

    And other HP competitors ... from IBM and Sun to $generic-ink-cartridge-co

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    *Pete

    How could it be possible to give Compaq a kiss of death. It was already dead and starting to get more than a touch whiffy. If you talk to any of the staff they've all crossed the Compaq part of history out of their minds and staff now considered themselves as either pre-merger HP or pre-merger DEC.

  8. TranceMist
    Thumb Up

    Perfect

    Despite all of those differences, they're perfect for each other.

    They both suck.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buying on a falling market

    It is an interesting move. I think your posters make good points. I never understood why the daemon Kali was so keen to pay so much for Comaq's corpse. If she'd waited only a few months it'd have been dirt cheap.

    Hurd seems to be doing something similar - well, not quite so utterly daft, that'd take the sort of genius vacuum that took HP stock down below $20 and kept it there for several years. There's a major recession just warming up, again, give it a few months and it might have been a real bargain - particularly if he's hoping to avoid any cultural conflict by replacing EDS staff with machines. He clearly thinks that the customers won't notice, which is an interesting comment on the company he'd bought.

    Was somebody else wanting to buy EDS? That'd be my only explanation for buying a lame horse at live-horse prices when all you want is its hide.

    Mind you, given EDS' background, there'd be the unusual situation for them of finding an improved management style in the ex-HP organisation - but they probably won't like it!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    This real loser is Sun

    EDS has been recommending Sun to the disservice of their customers and keeping Sun afloat. Expect EDS purchases of Sun's poor technology to dry up next quarter.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Naomi Campbell banned from BA flights

    "Hurd has a strategy to replace EDS people with machines" WTF?

    can anyone say "skynet"?

    I for one welcome our new robot overlords....

    "Paris" because anyone currently working for EDS is about to get shafted in front of the whole IT world!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    robots...

    "Hurd has a strategy to replace EDS people with machines" WTF?

    can anyone say "skynet"?

    I for one welcome our new robot overlords....

    "Paris" because anyone currently working for EDS is about to get shafted in front of the whole IT world!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe Mark Hurd just enjoys herding cats as a hobby...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

    Sure seems like what this merger will probably be like...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Depends

    Ha, the usual amount of cack spouted forth so far, I see.

    As an EDS'er, this seems to be a positive turn of events. EDS is somewhat in the doldrums at the moment, much like the rest of the IT services industry. I've yet to speak to any colleagues who aren't viewing this aquisition in a positive light. Both companies have been through savage job cutting in the recent past, so the risks of been taken over are more than mitigated by the exanded career potential. On the business side, Dell and Sun will be dropped like a stone in favour of the HP clients and servers. As a network admin, I'm not sure how much extra business HP will do on the comms side, though. Cisco is pretty much the supplier of choice for most EDS accounts and the HP product range seems limited to the LAN, as far as I'm aware. All in all, it seems to me that this aquisition is quite complementary in nature, although I think HP have paid way over the odds. One thing that remains to be seen is how long the EDS brand name survives.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    so hp now own

    a major interest in the UK MOD I.T Infrastructure (the DII/F Project)

    ...

    lets see if they can screw it up any more then EDS were on their own then.

    i see major problems in my careers future.

  16. Matthew
    Boffin

    RE: Depends

    "Both companies have been through savage job cutting in the recent past, so the risks of been [sic] taken over are more than mitigated by the exanded [sic] career potential."

    Basically, who is going to listen to your opinion when you can't even use correct grammar or spelling?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To Matthew

    I'm mildly dyslexic and the lack of a spell checker on this site doesn't help matters. Being dyslexic does not make me an idiot and certainly has no bearing on my ability to comment on this or any other news story. Obviously, the appearance of a reasoned, adult comment has captured the attention of one of the playground bullies. I'm off.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Meh!

    Yawn. So I have a new overlord - as a "conscript" it will be my fourth in as many years. Haven't seen any change in my job since I got moved to EDS. The client will still be as clueless about expressing their requirements tomorrow as today, the new overlord will still change the designers with monotonous regularity so I'll have to train a new bunch of them in sprocket making, and the work done by my bestshore (TM) colleagues will still need redoing. And the rest of you who don't work for EDS or HP can carry on kidding yourselves that you are better than us. Dream on - we are all just counting down the days till we die....

    Paris - cos she has a life - more than can be said for us !

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    spell checkers?

    Sites don't need spell checkers when spell checkers are trivial addons with browsers.

    Dyslexic employees need spell checkers more than the rest of the Interweb users do, simply to avoid the kind of comments we've just seen.

    Someone who is both dyslexic and not using Firefox's spell checker can only be daft, or a self-confessed IT professional.

    IE fully qualified EDS employee?

  20. paul brain
    Pirate

    What did HP get out of the compaq takeover ?

    In one word, the rock solid Proliant range.

    Worth buying Compaq for. HP mid-range servers were simply pants before they got a hold of these assets, Besides that, the compaq brand can and will die, they always do when converted, post take-over, in to a consumer brand.

    I don't understand why HP would want to take over EDS, maybe they will dumb down EDS too and turn it into PC World's 'The TechGuys' ???.

    Nah..... That's harsh.

    So long EDS, and thanks for all the phish

  21. Joe Blonca
    Stop

    HP lacks IP and is a reseller of others technology

    HP has seen the writing on the wall. They don't own any of their own technology, so they must make money some way... and that is in services. They can't make money from Linux, other than selling a box running Intel or AMD (not their technology).

    They can't provide ANY kind of value add, since they are stuck selling everyone else's tech... Their ONLY value add is Service. We'll see how this works in the long run for them. Right now it seems to be pretty good. They seem to be beating DELL at their game. Let's see if they can beat IBM at their game. Oh wait... IBM has their own tech.

  22. Ascylto
    Coat

    Glory be to HP!

    This news is manna from heaven for the UK government. They can now use HP's name to manage future failing projects instead of EDS. To Joe Public it might look as though the government is acting responsibly!

    Mine's the one with the hidden microphone in the lining.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh goody another great idea from the CEO

    Let's replace all EDS's infrastructure with HP Kit, and the customers can pay.

    I've seen these ideas before, a CEO, who has bog all idea of what their end customers do, or want, decides that changing their kit, applications, telecoms providers to their choice means that the company will make bigger margins and reduce costs, and the clients will like it because they get charged less, sometimes.

    Except that:

    A) If the customers had wanted HP's choice of kit they would have bought it from HP in the first place. Even IBM Global services aren't that daft, still Sun's biggest customer I think.

    B) Some clients like the DoD, MoD, etc. etc. might have a lot to say about how and where HP might want to manage their kit.

    I can think of several examples where companies have done stuff like this and they have lost clients or incurred extra costs, rather than saved them because they couldn't shut a data centre and transfer it offshore, nor manage it from offshore as the data centre contained systems the clients had specifically told their supplier they had to be sited and managed in country for security reasons. The supplier that switched all their network kit to a new cheap supplier, only to find that several NATO governments didn't like their choice of Chinese kit.

    Still it could be worse, it could have been Microsoft doing the buying, can we look forward to some further consolidation.

    Cisco buys CAP, Sun buys Accenture....

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Good old offshore operations

    "HP would be buying a firm that already has its offshore operations in place"

    They might be in place, but mature they are not. Anyone who has had the fun of working on a project with EDS and their offshore boys at Mphasis will know that good communication is not the order of the day between the two organisations.

    And how long those operations will be in place is anybody's guess. In India, employees are treated more like commodities. If Outsourcing Firm X has a big project on and needs more people, it can "buy" employees from Outsourcing Firm Y. This skills merry-go-round plays havoc with project management and resourcing - you can interview someone on Monday, have them onsite on Tuesday, and by Friday they are working at a different firm altogether.

    Cue blown delivery dates.

    Add to that a culture where people are liberal with the truth when it comes to skills and experience, and you have an operational nightmare.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    What happens to all the 'offshoring' ?

    Lots of companies rely on EDS to provide offshoring and inshoring for various services. Wonder what will happen if these companies, like Sun, who compete with HP ?

  26. Ray
    Pirate

    EDS @ SUN

    Wonder if SUN will continue the contracts it has signed with EDS now that the latter is owned by HP.

    Offshoring/outsourcing is a waste of time over the long run as Service Providers pay one tenth of a pittance to their staff. This results in poor standards with a high turnover of staff to the detriment of the firm that outsourced their department(s)

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Be aware EDS'ers

    "As an EDS'er, this seems to be a positive turn of events. EDS is somewhat in the doldrums at the moment, much like the rest of the IT services industry. I've yet to speak to any colleagues who aren't viewing this aquisition in a positive light. Both companies have been through savage job cutting in the recent past, so the risks of been taken over are more than mitigated by the exanded career potential."

    I was a valued and contented consultant in my past life with both DEC and Compaq - then we were taken over by the dark side - yes, HP. Since being consumed in 2001 I have had one pay increase of 3%, a relentless erosion of benefits, negligable training and zero career progression. Oh, and we are now not allowed to claim lunch when working away from home! Low level managers with HP are chosen for their compliance and lack of of talent, middle management have no imagination and a callous disregard for employee welfare. Upper management concentrate on looking good in the eyes of the head honcho and feathering their own nests. Mark Hurd has a limited vocabulary and consists of the terms "Cut costs" and "Cut headcount". His sole focus is the shareholders to the exclusion of all else.

    So EDS'ers be warned. The only reason for sticking around is if you have a good redundancy package from EDS, which HP must honor. Many of the old Deccies and Compaq'ers stick around purely for this reason - they know they are not valued, or wanted, but won't give HP the satisfaction of getting rid of them for free.

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