“RE: Everybody's Heard About Compaq and Hewlett Packard”

Hewlett-Packard already laid off 6,000 people just a month ago, so I wouldn't have thought them to be in a financial position to consider this deal. (The day before that included another merger, though, so perhaps they were simply trimming the fluff.) Looks like they're continuing into the now-standard trend of growing by acquisition instead of the old-fashioned (and much slower) way.

I think the expressions on the CEOs' faces sum up this deal.