When Compaq and Hewlett Packard (HP) merge in six to eight months, 10 percent of the resulting company’s work force – 15,000 jobs – could be cut, Compaq officials said.
Though the company is global, Bryan-College Station’s small technology community could feel some effects, said Bryan Compaq Development Center’s Peggy Cruse.
In the $25 billion merger announced earlier this month, the new company, presently called “the new HP,” will have operations in 160 countries and almost 150,000 employees. The Compaq name will be absorbed by HP, and the new HP’s products will be created through a combined labor force of both companies, said Compaq Corporation spokesman Arch Currid.
Both companies will continue to operate independently until the federal government approves the merger, a move expected in the first half of 2002. For now, Currid said, the companies are “business as usual.”
“We still compete in the marketplace and our separate sales departments still have quotas to meet,” Currid said.
The Compaq Development Center at Texas A&M, located in Bryan, houses nine full-time employees and 58 year-round student interns. The Center serves as a subcontractor for Houston-based Compaq Corp, said Cruse, the Bryan Center’s staffing and operations planning administrator. Compaq out-sources testing and programming to the Center, Cruse said.
“We retain most of our students – 77 percent,” she said. “I market them out to positions within Compaq [when they graduate].”
Gared Chastain, a junior computer science major, has been interning with Compaq since May. He said the status of his job after the merger has not been discussed, but he said that he is not worried about it.
“You never really know where you stand in the job market. But nothing’s going to happen before the deal closes, so I’m not worried about it yet,” Chastain said. “Working here is such a great experience, even if the interns are laid off, I’ll still be glad for the hands on work that I’ve done here already.”
Cruse did not have enough information to comment on the merger, but she said any fears she might have about it concern the area’s technological environment.
“Bryan-College Station is constantly trying to become a more technological environment,” Cruse said. “It’s an exciting program.”
Cruse added the Center’s 5 years in Bryan have already impacted the area’s technological work.
The Center will move from Bryan to a new building in Research Park on A&M’s West Campus in February, Cruse said.
The merger, approved unanimously by both companies’ boards, allows for Compaq shareholders to receive 0.6325 of a newly issued HP share for each share of Compaq. Investors who own HP shares will own 64 percent of the new company while Compaq shareholders will own approximately 36 percent.
Five Compaq directors will join the board of directors of the new HP when the merger is closed. Carly Fiorina, Chairman and CEO of HP, will retain her title in the new HP. Michael Capellas, Compaq Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will be the new HP’s president.
The merger creates an $87 billion technology leader, expected to rank first in servers, imaging and printing and access devices like personal computers and handheld devices, Currid said.