Hewlett continues fight against HP/Q deal

A MEMBER OF THE HEWLETT FAMILY, Walter, has written a letter to the boards of Compaq and Hewlett Packard urging them to drop the proposed merger.

In the letter, which he filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Hewlett asked the firms to turn the clock back and let the deal unravel.

He warned that if the deal came to a shareholder vote the mess would get greater and greater.

Both Carleton Fiorina, HP's CEO and Michael Capellas, the CEO of Compaq, have argued persistently that the deal will go on, despite many investors and the Packard Foundation, as well as Packard and Hewlett family members being against the merger.

The controversy is easy to follow as the protagonists and antagonists have been filing their thoughts with the SEC.

This filing from yesterday, for example, is an interview between news.com and an interview with Webb McKinney.

Earlier in the week, Carleton Fiorina spelled her thoughts out to HP employees with this filing, where she recommended they educate themselves about the benefits of taking over Compaq.

The spinning has reached fever pitch this week and we just wonder how long Capellas and Fiorina can hold out, given the pressure they're under from family members and the wiseacres on Wall Street. µ