WhereIsAtlas · Technology

HP (Hewlett-Packard)

From a garage in Palo Alto to the printer-and-PC giant that split itself in two

Transformed — The Garage-founded tech giant split in 2015 into HP Inc. (printing/PCs) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in a Palo Alto garage now marked as 'the birthplace of Silicon Valley.' Their first product was an audio oscillator, sold to Walt Disney for use in the animated film Fantasia. From there HP built a reputation for precision test-and-measurement instruments, then calculators, minicomputers and, memorably, its 1968 'The HP Way' culture of openness and trust — a management model that became a blueprint for the industry.

In the 1980s and 90s HP expanded into printers (its inkjet and laser lines became hugely profitable) and personal computers, eventually becoming one of the world's largest PC makers. In 1999 it spun off its instruments business as Agilent Technologies; the Carly Fiorina era followed, marked by the controversial $25 billion acquisition of Compaq in 2002, a deal that made HP bigger but never the sum of its parts.

The 2010s were a slow-motion unraveling. The disastrous 2011 acquisition of Autonomy — later written down by billions amid accounting-fraud allegations — and a string of leadership changes and restructurings left HP smaller and less certain. In 2015 the company split into two: HP Inc. (PCs and printing) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (servers, storage and networking). Both survive today, but the single, beloved HP of the garage era is gone.

Quick facts

Founded
1939, Hewlett & Packard garage
First product
HP 200A audio oscillator
Bought Compaq
$25B (2002)
Autonomy write-down
≈ $8.8B (2012)
Split into two
Nov 2015

Sources

Related: compaq · intel · ibm