HP

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is an American multinational IT corporation founded in 1939 by William Hewlett and Dave Packard, and is one of the world's largest technology companies. 

Their product portfolio spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure and the products are marketed to consumers, small and medium sized businesses and large enterprises (including government, healthcare and education sectors).

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, HP has approximately 331,800 employees and serves more than 1 billion customers worldwide.  The President and CEO is Meg Whitman (Sept 22, 2011-present) and Executive Chairman Raymond J Lane (Sept 22, 2011-present).  HP is ranked No. 10 in the 2012 Fortune 500 and their revenue for the four fiscal quarters ended Oct, 31, 2012 was $120.4 billion.   

Major events in HP's history include the spin off of part of its business (measurement, chemical and medical businesses) into an independent company called Agilent Technologies in 2000, a merger with Compaq in 2002, acquisition of 3Com, buyout of Palm and winning a bidding war against Dell for 3PAR for its cloud technology in 2010.

Did you know:  HP ship more than 1 million printers per week