Rank 4: Compaq India: Grand Finale

Mergers are rarely of exact equals, but their global impact often

includes interesting situations when the company being absorbed is much stronger

than the buyer.

Compaq India was so far ahead, it was reasonably certain that the post-merger

HP would be Compaq-dominated. And this happened not only with top managers, but

also product lines.

Performance Highlights Services keeps growth positive Systems dipped, still twice of competitor-IBM Topped portables numbers, but lost PC top slot Strengths Strong PC/ laptop position and retail network Strong enterprise range: From storage to Intel- and Alpha-servers to Tandem Himalaya; backed by growing services revenue Post-merger into HP Systems/ services complement HP’s printers Compaq’s managers dominate the new HP Compaq’s PC brands live on in India: Presario, Evo, etc (HP Brio, Pavilion withdrawn). Tandem Himalaya becomes HP Nonstop server Compaq Computers Pvt. Ltd. l Startup: 1994 l Products & services: Computer Hardware, Solutions and Services l Branches:8 l Address: Compaq Centre 92, Industrial Suburb 2nd Stage, Yeshwantpur, Bangalore 560022 l Tel: 3097785 l Fax: 3374395 l Website: compaq.co.in

Compaq held on to its #4 position in the DQ Top20, while HP slipped to #10,

in Compaq’s last year of operation before the two merged in May 2002. With a

wide range of PCs, notebooks, storage products and servers of all types, it made

it to well over twice its nearest competitor, IBM, in systems revenue. Even

though it lost the PC top slot to HCL, and Sun was ahead again in Unix servers,

Compaq stayed ahead in the overall servers segment.

Compaq’s share of the merged HP-Compaq revenue pie is a healthy 57%. Along

with Digital GlobalSoft, it also adds up to 57% of the 2001-02 revenues of the

five companies (HP, Compaq, HP ISO, Digital GlobalSoft and HP Global e:Business

Operations).

What did Compaq bring to the merger table in India? Almost everything that HP

was missing in: strong PC and laptop brands, servers, mainframes–and services.

In the Intel-based range, the Compaq sub-brands will carry on globally along

with the HP brands. In India, however, HP’s Pavilion and Brio are withdrawn,

while the Compaq products live on: Presario, Evo, Proliant, iPaq, and so on.

In storage products, both HP and Compaq product lines are alive. At the top

end, Compaq’s Himalaya (now HP Nonstop server) is a stock-exchanges’

favorite and a strong, high-value addition to HP’s already strong portfolio.

As with all such mergers, the Compaq brand name will gradually die, as

Digital’s brand did, barring its software and services subsidiary. You’ll

still find Digital VAX/VMS systems and even PDP11s from the 1980s in data

centers, with half the world’s global fund transfers and forex trading still

happening on VMS-based systems. "Ultimately the Compaq brand will fade

away," says Balu Doraisamy, former Compaq chief, now heading the new HP

India. "It has to. You cannot have two strong brands competing with each

other internally."