Business | General

HP to cut 24,000 jobs over next 3 years during merger with EDS

Hewlett-Packard plans to cut 7.5 per cent of its work force, or 24,600 jobs, seeking to realise savings from its recent acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, the company said on Monday.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 23:52 September 16, 2008
  • Gulf News

San Francisco: Hewlett-Packard plans to cut 7.5 per cent of its work force, or 24,600 jobs, seeking to realise savings from its recent acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, the company said on Monday.

HP said it would carry out the cutbacks over the next three years, while replacing about half the jobs in new areas of its services business. It announced the plan ahead of a meeting with Wall Street analysts to detail the merger plans.

Nearly half of the job reductions will take place in the US, the Palo Alto, California-based company said.

EDS was headquartered in Plano, Texas.

Strategy

"We are good at integrating companies ... I believe we will do it well," HP chairman and chief executive Mark Hurd told financial analysts at the company's headquarters. Hurd was referring to the company's 2002 merger of HP and Compaq Computer and a succession of software deals HP has made.

The $13.2 billion acquisition of EDS, a deal announced in May and closed in August, made HP the world's second largest provider of technology services, up from No. 5.

Rival IBM is no. 1 in computer services, and HP's strategy takes aim at this dominance. The deal bolsters HP's business in the US and Britain, two strong markets for EDS.

EDS also gives HP the no. 1 position in "applications management" - providing maintenance and outsourced management of older software systems.

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