HP investors should hope one of them isn't Hurd.
"While H-P played spy games, rivals got busy
"During the past nine months, while outgoing H-P Chairwoman Patricia Dunn was reportedly convincing Hurd to approve the most ridiculous aspects of the company's internal probe, executives at EMC were acquiring software companies to boost sales and profit growth.
"The best examples of how Massachusetts-based EMC has been well ahead of H-P in planning for the future are in the markets for two types of software, one that helps corporations automate and integrate their business processes and another called virtualization software...
"The problem for Hurd is that at the exact time he should be focused on integrating Mercury into H-P, he's scheduling news conferences to explain his role in the spy scandal. Last week H-P filed a note to alert securities regulators that it is extending its tender offer for Mercury shares, which it originally said it hoped to do by the end of July.
H-P said in its quarterly filing that it hopes to close the deal in the fourth quarter -- as long as Mercury files its long-awaited annual report for 2005, which has been delayed because of accounting problems caused by backdated stock options.
"A tender offer requires all sorts of legal work to process. With some members of H-P's general counsel's office, as well as outside legal counsel Larry Sonsini, being investigated by the state of California, the Department of Justice, and, now, a congressional committee, what are the odds that the Mercury files are getting top priority at H-P right now?
"As the spying controversy intensifies, what other strategic priorities will be put on the back burner?
"The press conference Friday 'has nothing to do with H-P's strategy or operations,' Hurd said in a statement Thursday.
"My point exactly.
"John Shinal is the technology editor of MarketWatch in San Francisco."
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