When Carly Fiorina replaced Lew Platt as Hewlett-Packard's CEO in 1999, she coined the term "the New HP" and promised to shake up a culture that had become too complacent. Now, the company is set to reinvent itself again, having completed the largest acquisition in the history of the computer industry. So what's next for the "New, New HP"? Quite a lot. The acquisition of Compaq's business-technology platforms gives HP a formidable lineup of software and hardware. For example, HP will integrate Compaq's Tru64 advanced clustering capabilities into its better-supported HP-UX Unix operating system and eliminate Tru64. HP-UX already runs on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip, which HP helped develop. The high-availability Tandem NSK and Digital OpenVMS operating systems will be ported to Itanium—giving HP all the elements of lower-cost, technically advanced, next-generation high-end computing systems. The deal also makes HP a leader in storage, services, and PCs. But hegemony isn't assured.
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