Dell inc. vs HP

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: b, E N E M U, course: Finance, language: English, abstract: Hewlett Packard started in 1939 in a garage by two people, Bill Hewlett and David Packard with just $538 of working capital. After a string of failures, their company's first successful product, an audio oscillator better than anything on the market, earned a U.S. patent and an order from Disney Studios for eight units to help produce the animated film Fantasia. From 1940 to 1950 they moved from their garage to a rented building on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto and then constructed their first HP-owned building that was 10,000 square foot. In 1957, HP had their first public stock offering November 6, 1957 and net revenues were $30 million with 1,778 employees and 373 products. In the 1960 s, HP was listed on the New York and Pacific exchanges as HWP and had its first listing on Fortune magazine as of one of the 500 U.S. companies. HP in 1967 started operations in Boeblingen, Germany introducing a non-invasive fetal heart monitor that helps babies by detecting fetal distress during labor. In the 1970 s revenues increased to $365 million with over 16,000 employees. ( HP.com ) In the 1980 s revenues again increased to $6.5 billion with over 85,000 employees. They introduced their first personal computer, the HP-85 and introduced HP LaserJet printers, the company s most successful single product ever considered a standard for laser printing today. HP moves to the top 50 on Fortune 500 listing - 1 - at No. 49. Finally in the 1990 s, HP opens research facilities in Tokyo, Japan with net revenues of $13.2 billion and over 91,000 employees. ( HP.com ) HP also introduced portable computers that lasted on batteries that would last a flight across the U.S.