Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) has ended merger talks with EMC Corp and was planning to announce this development as soon as yesterday, deciding to walk away after months of fruitless negotiations, people briefed on the matter said.
The official cessation of discussions to merge two of the tech industry’s largest enterprise-oriented firms might come as a disappointment to activist investors Elliott Management Corp, which has pushed hard for storage products maker EMC to pursue merger or spinoff opportunities.
Pressure is building on EMC as rival technology companies, such as eBay Inc and Symantec Corp, begin spinning off operations in an attempt to unlock shareholder value, become more agile, and capitalize on faster-growing businesses.
It is unclear when talks ended following months-long discussions, the people said on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.
Executives from the two companies were still trying to hammer out a deal as recently as last week, but talks bogged down on price and are now dead, the people said.
HP has temporarily suspended its stock buyback program ahead of its Nov. 25 earnings because the company said it is in possession of material non-public information.
When pressed by stock analysts, HP chief financial officer Cathie Lesjak noted on a conference call that the non-public information pertains to a possible acquisition.
HP and EMC declined to comment on Tuesday.
It is also unclear what specifically was discussed.
A straight-up merger of the two companies would have created one of the industry’s largest providers of data storage, and created a computing giant with deep penetration in the business of providing computing hardware and services to corporations.
Elliot Management, which owns 2.2 percent of EMC, has been vocal about wanting EMC to merge or spin off some of its assets, such as software subsidiary VMWare.
However, EMC has publicly said it plans to keep its company together.
HP is now engaged in a breakup of its own, which analysts said should discourage merger thoughts.
HP has said it plans to split into Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, a tech infrastructure, software and services business, and HP Inc, a leading player in the slow-growing PC and printer markets.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to