HP Proxy Winner Could Take Days Or Weeks To Determine

"Anyone who says they know the outcome is just guessing," said Joe Burke, Arrow Electronics vice president and general manager, midrange business, North American Computer Products group.

The HP shareholder meeting is scheduled for Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. PST in Cupertino, Calif.

On Monday, the warring camps in the nearly five-month-long proxy battle sent final messages in an effort to garner last minute support.

HP, for its part, tried to play down expectations that a final resolution to the merger will be reached on Tuesday.

In an SEC filing Monday, the company said, "On the eve of the March 19 special shareowner meeting, it might be useful to set employees' expectations on what is likely to happen--both at the meeting itself and in the following few weeks. Employees who are expecting to learn the outcome of the proxy vote during the meeting itself will be disappointed. The special HP meeting, which will be held in Cupertino, California, will be generally a procedural affair centered on legal formalities."

Sources close to the proxy battle said that while most institutional votes will be counted by tomorrow, shares owned by individuals and some smaller institutions must be counted by hand. Complicating the matter, shareholders can vote as many times as they want with only the last dated proxy counting toward the final vote.

Walter Hewlett, for his part, issued a statement late Tuesday thanking supporters and issuing last-minute voting instructions.

Meanwhile, sources told CRN the merged company's channel organization would likely be divided into a value channel and a velocity channel with one executive to head each organization.

The move defies expectations that a single channel czar would call the shots in the merged company. The value channel executive will most likely chart strategy for midrange systems, storage and services partners, while the velocity executive will be responsible for PCs and printers. The value channel executive will report to Peter Blackmore, head of the new IT infrastructure group. The volume channel executive will likely report to Duane Zitzner, head of the new Access Devices group.

The dual channel structure raises concerns for some who argued that the current industry environment dictates that the velocity and volume channel managers should report to a single channel executive in order to maintain a consistent channel strategy throughout the organization.