Miles to go before we sleep together

Will they, won't they? The HP-Compaq merger is heading toward a nail-biting finish. Yet again. If nothing else comes up. The latest was the leaked voice-mail, Carly Fiorina urging HP's CFO to swing into action to fix Deutsche Bank to "get them in the right place". 

Just before all this, an April 3 HP press release announced a "merger milestone" naming 150 senior managers for the 'new

HP'. The merger was ON. But Walter Hewlett was having none of this. He filed suit, saying that HP had arm-twisted

Deutsche Bank. The Delaware judge agreed and froze everything until an April 23 trial. 

India, too, has been watching all this closely. The merger will shake the industry, the ranking of companies, and the ranks of some key people. Unlike in the world, Compaq India is ahead of HP India in every segment except peripherals. It was #4 in DQ's rankings last year, three steps and 14 percent ahead of HP's 1,540 crore. The PC market-leader's systems revenues are 80% more that HP India's, and it's the same story in services. 

A sad part of such a merger is that a strong brand like Compaq's will simply fade away over the next couple of years. That's what happened when Compaq acquired Digital. There were few IT-using enterprises in India without a PDP or Vax or Digital Unix server, from small data-processors to VSNL, but that powerful brand died. So strong was it in services in India, though, that Digital was allowed to remain a separate, subsidiary entity, uniquely in India. But Compaq India will not have that privilege. Even if it did, it would have lost its brands.

The bigger question is about people. The merger will shake up the HR world, with over 15,000 layoffs globally, at a time when there are enough people out of jobs from Anderson and so many other companies. But closer to home, what does the picture look like?

Compaq India's strong position in this market suggests that the likely admin head of the new HP would be Balu Doraisamy. Though he denies such 'speculative rumors', the few industry people I've spoken to agree that this is the most likely scenario. The buzz is that while he will also handle the Enterprise business, HP India's current CEO Arun K Thiagarajan will drive the crucial and emerging Services business (reporting in to the APAC region). VP Ravi Aggarwal would drive the Imaging and Printing business, and Ravi Swaminathan (from Compaq) the Personal Systems Group. If the buzz is true, that leaves a question on several key executives, notably Neelam Dhawan of Compaq.

Meanwhile, with all eyes on the April ruling, laser printers been busy spewing out resumes in India, as in the world.