Hewlett-Packard Company or HP (styled as hp) is an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It provides hardware, software and services to 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 William "Bill" Redington Hewlett and David "Dave" Packard starting with a line of electronic test equipment. HP was the world's leading PC manufacturer from 2007 to Q2 2013, after which Lenovo remained ranked ahead of HP. 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 services and consulting business around its products and partner products.
Hewlett-Packard company events have included the spin-off of its electronic and bio-analytical measurement instruments part of its business as Agilent Technologies in 1999, its merger with Compaq in 2002, the sponsor of Mission: Space in 2003, 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, Inc. for $1.2 billion. On September 2, 2010, HP won its bidding war for 3PAR with a $33 a share offer ($2.07 billion), which Dell declined to match.
On October 6, 2014, Hewlett-Packard announced plans to split the PC and printers business from its enterprise products and services business. The split is expected to close by October 2015 and will result in two publicly traded companies: Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc.
Founding
The garage in Palo Alto where Hewlett and Packard began their company Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard graduated with degrees 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. 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment