>>HP tried selling PCs a few years ago and couldn't make a go of it. Compaq is loosing market share to Dell, Walmart and others and before 9-11 was being tossed around by speculators.
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>Walmart has no marketshare or influence in the tech sector at all.

YET..... You can't sell them short. There is no wisdom in throwing away money just to buy from brand houses. Every PC vendor on the planet was, at one time or another, an unknown with no "market share or influence". When you need a workstation and Dell offers you one for $800 and Walmart offers an equivilent box for $400 are you going to throw away $400 just to buy Dell? Support you say? Ya, right.


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>I think that HP and Compaq have a plan that will work,

I don't.

>I see them going head to head with IBM on the big boy stuff as a whole,

Against the z50's and z90's ?? Walmar thas a better chance of stealing marketshare from Dell than they do from IBM.


>and I see them with staying power seperately in the personal computing area. I don't think that PC's are the focal point of what they have in mind however. There will most likely be a strategic push towards more powerful PDA's and Tablet PCs. At the same time, I bet the Compaq division's will be focusing more on the Freestyle/Mira type projects while HP will be doing more with the imaging and printing.


A compnay trying to focus on two marketing stratagies at the same time? Rarely works.


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>Even if thats not how it plays out (the above is just my broad generalizations of their strategy) it will still put the company in a better position for the future than the Hewlett and Packard families' selfish dimwitted "plans" that were together at the last minute once they realized how transparent they are.


I'm not sure that HP taking on Compaq's debt puts them in a better position.