HP deal for CSC not on the table, source says

Despite media reports that Hewlett-Packard and private equity firm Blackstone Group were in preliminary discussions to acquire Computer Sciences Corp., such a deal never made it on the radar of HP executives and directors, said an HP source.

CSC, an information technology consulting firm, was cited as a possible acquisition target of the Blackstone Group, with HP interested in taking a minority stake in the purchase, according to a media report that surfaced on Jan. 5. CSC shares also jumped nearly 8 percent to close at $54.81 that day.

But reports of these preliminary discussions took HP executives and directors by surprise, said an HP source.

"CSC has occasionally come up from time to time as a potential acquisition, but it's nothing that we ever seriously pursued and nothing we were in talks with recently," said the source, who requested anonymity.

Although HP would like to bolster its services business to compete with archrival IBM, the Silicon Valley icon has tried the major consulting acquisition route before.

Five years ago, HP dropped its bid for the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which it had planned to acquire for $18 billion in cash and stock. The deal fell through as HP and the PricewaterhouseCoopers partners wrangled over the pricing structure and the difficulty in dealing with a partnership, the HP source said.

Two years later, PricewaterhouseCoopers sold its consulting arm to IBM for substantially less, in a $3.5 billion deal.

HP and CSC declined to comment on the potential acquisition of the IT consulting company.

[thedevilbegone]

HP seems to be going on the right track..

Lately HP seems to be getting it right. If you notice it is one of the few companies with ethics. Though it's a company which is cutting costs right now, the below facts about the company make it a solid investment and future growth is assured.

a. You might have noticed that its Chat support division is now GDPowers certified. Though Dell and HP were in the running for the first company to be certified, HP won it hands down. Dell was a long way off. Dell offers charge phone support except for the one month standard hardware warranty. Other than this it also offers email and chat services, but not many know that it exists. HP on the other hand provided a 90 day free telephone support, a one year hardware warranty, and lifetime free chat support. Lifetime here means that as long as the user wants to use it. If the hardware is bad, ofcourse they make the suggestions for replacement. I personally spoke to a guy by the name Harold, and the guy was great. Also there is a way you can access support for any software you have purchased issues regardless of the make of the system. All you need to do is state that you own a particular model and proceed to troubleshoot. And their suggestions actually work.
b. HP has the edge in the AMD series. With Intel coming out with mediocre processors lately AMD is almost on even kneel with Intel even as we speak. HP has always professed that they would push the products based on the market requirements. And you now know for sure that AMD makes the fastest servers and PCs for 64 bit computing. In fact, I believe Steve should have opted for AMD instead of Intel. (Read http://sharikou.blogspot.com/)
If you notice HP's involvement in the development of the Itanium failure, you would understand why HP is now trying to stay away from Intel.
c. They are cutting down costs rampantly. If you notice their range of Compaqs and the Pavilions, they are focussing on the right product mix and technology. (Features like Lightscribe are common feature while other vendors provide software features) However it appears that they are cutting down costs by 25k US jobs last year. Wonder how much it would be this year.

By the way, there are a few details you might require to contact HP chat professionals. One would be the model number of a HP system and also you would require. That would suffice for software issues. You would not be able to access support for hardware. There are a lot of procedures required.