[tw]

I just got out of the HP merger meeting. Carly Fiorina took only 17 questions. Question 15 apparently unruffled her. In response to an HP long time Network Integraton employee with 8 patents, she claimed that most HP employees were in favor of the merger. The response was loud Nos and Nays. She repeated her assertion and was confronted by so much noise that is was not possible for her to be correct. I believe that response so unnerved her that she terminated all questions and adjurned the meeting. During Question 16, she was clearly distracted.

Voting results will probably take 3 weeks because of how confused the voting procedures are. One could keep submitting proxy votes so that only his last dated vote made any sense. They will require much verification of the results.

Walter Hewlett got a 20 second, loud, standing ovation both when he stepped up to and stepped away from the microphone. When another said he would vote in favor of the merger, it was clear that less than 5% applauded his comment. Clearly 80+% of the meeting participants were against the HP/Compaq merger. Does Castro even see that kind of one sided voting?

Unfortunately, in eavesdropping on conversations, many suits were heard to vote for the merger. Most stockholders didn't wear ties. But I suspect that the suits may have been the pension funds.

This is your reporter, tw, in the fields of Sunnyvale (where we had snow and rain). Back to you.....