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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (95354)	2/21/2002 10:15:54 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

El: Seventeen working days "in advance" of March 19th is tomorrow. If the people at ISS know the day counting rules, then in counting 'days', you don't count the last day but you do count the first day, and "working" days do not include Saturdays and Sundays. If they report is accurate, I would assume that ISS wishes to be absolutely accurate in this matter. There are, believe or not, laws on how to count days.

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (95354)	2/21/2002 11:55:40 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Respond to of 97611

WHY CAN WE ALL JUST GET ALONG???? :))) H-P board member joins merger volley February 21, 2002 16:39:57 (ET) PALO ALTO, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Patricia Dunn, one of Hewlett-Packard's nine board members, told company employees in a letter Thursday that despite claims by the opposition, corporate directors carefully weighed all options before trying to merge with Compaq. Dunn, who is CEO of Barclays Global Investors, whose parent organization is the No. 2 overall H-P shareholder with a 3.1 percent stake of the company, warned employees not to be misled by the claims of dissident board member Walter Hewlett. "This board spent a great deal of time with management in review, discussion and debate about the proposal to merge with Compaq," Dunn wrote. "There has not been an issue raised by investors, analysts, employees or market pundits that was not raised by the board in its deliberations." In earlier statements to shareholders, Walter Hewlett, son of H-P co-founder William Hewlett, had said that H-P's decision to merge with Compaq was hastily adopted after a phone conversation between H-P CEO Carly Fiorina and Compaq CEO Michael Capellas. According to Hewlett, H-P first aimed to turn around the company by becoming a leading service provider. It set out to buy PriceWaterhouseCoopers. When the deal to buy PWC fell through, H-P was ready to go it alone, Hewlett said. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, management chose to jump at the "suddenly available option" of combining with Compaq. "That is not careful planning and execution," Hewlett said. "It is haphazard and reactive." In another letter on H-P's internal Web site, the company told employees that it has not agreed to alter retiree health benefits as a result of the Compaq merger. Employees had been questioning if changes were planned, the company said. Management will communicate any changes to benefits programs well before implementing them, said Susan Bowick, head of human resources for the company. "Nobody will have to read about anything in the fine print of a proxy statement," Bowick said. "That's not how we do business at H-P." The shareholder vote to decide the fate of the H-P/Compaq merger is set for March 19 in Cupertino, Calif. For late-breaking market news you can't afford to miss, go to cbs.marketwatch.com