r were
             apparent. A year after the $19 billion purchase of Compaq, Fiorina had cut
             $3.5 billion in annual costs, exceeding predictions by a billion dollars,
             and doing it a year earlier than predicted as well. She did one other
             thing bigger than expected: she erased 17,000 jobs, 2,000 more than
             On the other hand, HP gained market share in several categories,
             obtained 3,000 new patents, and introduced 367 new products. In addition,
             it had " just won a ten-year, $3 billion outsourcing deal with Procter &
             Before the merger, observers predicted that the impact of the deal on
             the business worldâ€"and of course on employees and investors and consumers
             as wellâ€"would be less than desirable. CBS' David Callaway noted that
             "Technology mergers of any size rarely work, and the bigger they are they
             harder they fall. Remember when Hewlett-Packard bought Apollo Computer'
             Disaster. And when Compaq bought Digital Equipment Corp., once the world's
             second largest computer company' Nothing but heartache."
             To be sure, there was some, perhaps even considerable, negative
             impact, although it is doubtful all the negatives have yet been discovered
             and reported, or at least collected in one convenient place.
             As noted earlier, things in some HP California facilities did not
             look good immediately after the merger, proceeding at or even a head of
             downsizing' predictions. Included in those were expectations that space
             reduction in California would amount to $375 million annually, many of them
             ...