COMPAQ WILL BUY DIGITAL FOR $9.6 BILLION; DEAL EXPANDS COMPANY'S RANGE OF PRODUCTS IN BID TO BEST IBM.Byline: Richard Lorant Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. In 1982, Compaq Computer Corp. introduced the first IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) clone, a ``portable'' computer the size of a sewing machine sewing machine, device that stitches cloth and other materials. An attempt at mechanical sewing was made in England (1790) with a machine having a forked, automatic needle that made a single-thread chain. In 1830, B. . With its $9.6 billion purchase of Digital Equipment Corp. announced Monday, Compaq itself is looking like an IBM clone. The deal gives Compaq a similar range of products that IBM has been using as an entree to the more profitable business of helping big companies set up, run and service their computer networks. ``We were always the smaller company coming up. Now (the) challenge is to take the No. 2 computer company in the world, integrate all of its components and take it to the next level,'' said Ben Rosen, Compaq's chairman since 1983 and an early investor in the company. The deal gives Compaq a way to expand its business and helps Digital keep its 42-year-old name alive and put an end to a decade of red ink red ink Health administration A popular term for financial losses. Cf in the Black. and large-scale employee layoffs that have cut its work force in half. ``I have the highest respect for our employees and their perseverance through some very difficult times,'' said Robert Palmer Robert Palmer may refer to:
Compaq already is the world's biggest maker of PCs, but it has spent the past four or five years looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. ways to grow into one of the top three computer manufacturers overall. The Digital deal would make it No. 2 behind IBM. ``As we mapped out our enterprising strategy, we were looking for the missing pieces,'' Compaq chief executive Eckhard Pfeiffer Eckhard Pfeiffer (born August 20, 1941 in Lauban, Germany—now Lubań, Poland) is a business executive of German ancestry, and a former CEO of Compaq from 1991-1998. He joined Compaq from Texas Instruments, and established operations from scratch in both Europe and Asia. said at a news conference. ``What else would we build?'' The answer: Big computers that run networks of smaller machines. The types of computers Digital builds. ``Now we are rounding out the entire spectrum in corporate enterprise computing Refers to information technology in the larger company. See enterprise data and enterprise networking. ,'' Pfeiffer said. Compaq said it planned to pay $4.8 billion in cash and issue 150 million shares of common stock in the deal announced Monday. The companies in 1997 had combined revenues of $37 billion and 87,000 employees. Pfeiffer and Palmer said it was too early to talk about details of cost-saving measures or possible layoffs. Palmer said he planned to stay with the company long enough to ensure a smooth transition. Based in Houston, Compaq ranks fifth in the overall computer industry today with sales of $24.6 billion last year. It has 33,000 employees. Only last year, Compaq bought Tandem Computers in a $3 billion stock deal that doubled its sales force. Under the deal with Compaq, Digital shareholders would get $30 a share in cash and 0.945 Compaq shares for each Digital share. |
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