HP Clarifies Comments On Year 2000
Business Wire - October 15, 1998 14:06
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 15, 1998-- Hewlett-Packard Company today clarified its stance on the possible effect of Year 2000 concerns on customer spending patterns. HP's top executive responded to one possible scenario, posed by an industry consultant, at a recent event.
"It's impossible to predict what will happen, so HP's approach is to prepare for multiple scenarios," said Lewis E. Platt, HP chairman, president and chief executive officer. "We are staying close to our huge customer base and focusing on the wide spectrum of our customers' needs."
HP customers come from many markets, from global enterprises to small businesses and consumers, manufacturing to health care, chemical analysis, test and measurement, and so on.
HP said the range of customer reactions to the Year 2000 could be as follows:
-- increase new hardware purchases to replace legacy systems that are not Year 2000 compliant;
-- delay new hardware purchases and concentrate spending on upgrades such as operating systems and for items largely without Year 2000 issues, such as printers;
-- change the mix of products they buy, perhaps choosing to invest in servers, networking, systems and consulting at the expense of new PCs;
-- identify 1999 as the year to steer dollars to information-technology (IT) solutions, accelerating purchases that otherwise would have occurred in the year 2000 or later; or
-- exhibit no change in overall IT spending or in the mix of IT spending.
"Regardless of which scenario or range of scenarios unfolds, HP is accepting the uncertainties with added resolve to be aggressive in the marketplace, to intensify our relationships with customers and to use the turn of the millenium as a new way to show customers all that HP can do for them," Platt said. "We intend to remain flexible to address and resolve customers' uncertain environments."
Platt's caution on the unknown aspects of customer spending patterns reflects the disclosures the company made in its 10-Q report for the third quarter of 1998, which ended July 31 and which is filed with the SEC. That filing provides a broader description of the risks associated with the Year 2000 issue.
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