Hewlett Won't Appeal Judge's Ruling

Hewlett-Packard Compaq Computer

"As I stated when this suit was filed, our goal was to make sure that the outcome of the HP stockholder vote on March 19th was determined in a full, fair and lawful manner," Hewlett said in a statement. "After reviewing the Court's opinion, we have decided not to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Delaware. Additionally, we have decided to discontinue the review and challenge period of the preliminary vote count and permit the vote to be certified."

On Tuesday, a Delaware Chancery judge dismissed all charges against HP after a three-day trial last week in Wilmington. A preliminary count of the March 19 vote shows HP winning its proxy battle by about 45 million votes.

HP's attention now turns toward forging a new channel when it launches the combined company on May 7. As expected, HP will come out of the gate with a dual channel structure--with one group for enterprise products, and another for PCs.

Kevin Gilroy was officially named as commercial channel head for the Americas in the new HP, reporting to Mike Larson, who will be senior vice president for HP's Personal Systems Group for the Americas.

Meanwhile, in the Enterprise Systems Group, led by Jim Milton, senior vice president for the Americas region, Dan Vertrees will head the enterprise channel partners and Bill Weaver will head U.S. Enterprise and Commercial Sales, HP said.

Both Vertrees and Gilroy declined to comment.

But channel executives expressed relief that the uncertainty surrounding the merger was now over. "This is great news," said Don McDowell, vice president of server solutions at Forsythe Solutions, Skokie, Ill. "We can finally get off of dead center. Once we know the rules, we can start playing the game."