Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Carly Fiorina

HP Agrees To Acquire Autonomy For $10.3 Billion, While Considering Killing Off WebOS and Spinning Off Hardware Business

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:27:21 +0000

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) has agreed to buy Autonomy Corporation plc (LON:AU) for $10.3 billion. After the acquisition is complete, HP would spin off their PC business to focus on enterprise. Autonomy shareholders would receive $42.11 per share after the acquisition. This is a 64% premium from the day before the acquisition offer.

HP CEO Leo Apotheker is planning to lessen HP’s reliance on the sales of personal computers as consumer demand has increased more for Apple computers and devices.

“Their focus is on being more of a software and services company and not dependent on the hardware businesses,” stated Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg. “The hardware business has become a difficult business. In many ways it’s a commodity-driven business. This is a major strategic shift for HP.”

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina had acquired Compaq for $17.6 billion in 2002. Sales in HP’s current period is expected to be about $32.1-$32.5 billion. Wall Street was expecting the numbers to be closer to $34 billion.

Based in Cambridge, England Autonomy will give HP software that searches through a broad range of data including e-mail, music, social network posts, video, etc. Autonomy is the second largest U.K. based software company. Some of their customers include Coca-Cola, the U.S. SEC, and Nestle.

It is also rumored that HP will be abandoning mobile software that they acquired from last year’s acquisition of Palm Inc. This is due to disappointing sales of tablets and phones that run on WebOS. HP would record a one-time charge of around $1 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter related to cutting off WebOS.

[Bloomberg]

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina Progess In Political Careers

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:26:20 +0000

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman (pictured left) and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (pictured right) are progressing in their political careers. Whitman won the Republic nomination for governor of California and Fiorina won the U.S. Senate primary election.

Whitman and Fiorina is competing against Democrat rivals Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Barbara Boxer. Boxer has been in the U.S. Congress for almost 28 years.

Chris Kelly, former Facebook privacy chief attempted to run for the Attorney General of California too. He put in about $12 million of his own money into the campaign. He received a loan from a Delaware-based private equity company to exercise stock options in Facebook. He sold enough stock options to power his campaign.

It was reported that Whitman put in about $80 million of her own money to compete against California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Whitman left eBay in 2008 and Fiorina was asked to step down in February 2005. [CNET]

Carly Fiorina Is Running For Senate

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:57:26 +0000

Meg Whitman isn’t the only former tech CEO running for a government position. Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina announced that she is running for a U.S. Senate seat in California. Fiorina was the CEO of HP from 1999-2005. Before working at HP as the CEO, she was an executive at AT&T. While at AT&T she helped coordinate the spin-off and IPO of Lucent. At HP, she coordinated the merger with Compaq in 2002. Fiorina most recently survived breast cancer.