- published: 22 Jul 2016
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Coordinates: 37°24′49″N 122°08′42″W / 37.413579°N 122.14508°W / 37.413579; -122.14508
The Hewlett-Packard Company (commonly referred to as HP) was an American global information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components as well as software and related 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 specialized in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines included 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 marketed 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 had services and consulting business around its products and partner products.
Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is an American business executive and political candidate. She is currently the president and chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise as well as the chairwoman of HP Inc.
A native of Long Island, New York, she is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. Whitman served as an executive in The Walt Disney Company where she was vice president of strategic planning throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, she served as an executive for DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, and Hasbro. Whitman served as president and chief executive officer of eBay from 1998 to 2008. During her 10 years with the company, she oversaw its expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. In 2014, Whitman was named 20th in Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women in the world.
In 2008, she was cited by The New York Times as among the women most likely to become the first female President of the United States. In February 2009, Whitman announced her candidacy for Governor of California, becoming the third woman in a 20-year period to run for the office. She won the Republican primary in June 2010. The fourth wealthiest woman in the state of California with a net worth of $1.3 billion in 2010, she spent more of her own money on the race than any other political candidate spent on a single election in American history, spending $144 million total of her own fortune and $178.5 million including donors. Whitman was defeated by Jerry Brown in the 2010 California gubernatorial election.
Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American former technology business executive and former Presidential candidate in the 2016 Republican primaries. She currently chairs the non-profit philanthropic organization Good360.
Fiorina began her business career at AT&T in 1980 as a management trainee and rose through the ranks to become the company's first female executive officer. In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for AT&T's equipment and technology spin-off, Lucent Technologies. As chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005, she was the first woman to lead a top-20 company as ranked by Fortune magazine.
In 2002, Fiorina oversaw what was then the largest technology sector merger in history, in which HP acquired rival personal computer manufacturer Compaq. The transaction made HP the world's largest seller of personal computers. HP subsequently laid off 30,000 U.S. employees in order to save an existing 80,000 jobs by making the company more competitive. By 2004, HP's total number of both U.S. and non-U.S. employees, including roughly 8,000 employees of companies acquired by HP after 2001, was around the same number as the pre-merger number of employees at HP and Compaq combined. On February 9, 2005, the HP board of directors forced Fiorina to resign as chief executive officer and chair.