BRIEFCASE HP PRESIDENT RESIGNS SUDDENLY.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Reports

Michael D. Capellas, the president of Hewlett-Packard, resigned suddenly on Monday, raising doubts about whether its recent merger with Compaq had run into trouble. Investors shaved more than 10 percent off the company's share price.

Capellas, 48, the former chief executive of Compaq, is departing less than six months after the merger was complete and the two companies began operating as a single corporation.

Throughout the bitter proxy fight touched off by the merger plan, the senior management and directors of both companies portrayed Capellas as the ideal partner to Carly Fiorina as they tried to make the largest merger in the history of the computer business a success.

The departure of Capellas, coming so soon after the merger, is unsettling, according to industry analysts. Still, they said, it will probably prove to be a momentary setback if Hewlett-Packard continues to show that the merged company is hitting its cost-cutting targets and keeping pace in the marketplace.

Ford ex-CEO talks about departure

Saying he'd ``probably do a lot of things differently,'' former Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Jacques Nasser made his first public comments Monday since his stormy ouster from Ford last October.

Nasser held a news conference Monday to announce he has joined Bank One Corp.'s private-equity business, One Equity Partners LLC. As a senior partner, Nasser, 54, will help Bank One identify, evaluate and manage direct equity investments around the world.

He will also serve as nonexecutive chairman of Polaroid Corp., the Waltham, Mass., instant film and camera company that One Equity bought out of bankruptcy this summer for $255 million.

Ex-Napster guru unveils new idea

Napster co-founder Sean Parker unveils his latest business venture today, a software application called Plaxo that automatically updates users' address book contact information by piggybacking on the Microsoft Outlook program.

Parker said the idea for Plaxo came after he grew tired of constantly updating his own growing contact list of e-mail and phone numbers.

So, he started tinkering, and the Mountain View-based startup received $1.8 million in funding from Sequoia Capital in February and $200,000 from other investors.

Those who choose to try Plaxo's beta version are able to download the software for free, choose which Outlook address book contacts to update, and e-mails will be sent to those people prompting them to enter their most current information.