Apple buys former HP campus in Cupertino

In the latest sign of a trend that has been ongoing in the tech industry for more than a decade, Apple has gobbled up another big chunk of land in Cupertino, CA that is being vacated by Hewlett-Packard. Apple recently closed on a deal to buy HP's 98 acre Cupertino campus for an undisclosed price. The former HP property is north of a 50 acre site that Apple bought in 2006 and east of the main Infinite Loop campus that has been home to Apple since the early 1990s.

Apple has been on a steady growth path, with a stream of new products, since the return of Steve Jobs in the late 1990s; HP has been heading in the opposite direction, having shed numerous traditional businesses in that same time. Apple had $65 billion in sales in its last fiscal year and added 12,300 employees, bringing its total headcount to 46,600. The 57 buildings currently occupied by Apple are reportedly "bursting at the seams," but the company has not yet provided a timetable or plan for revamping its new campus. Several thousand HP employees that currently work in Cupertino will be consolidated in Palo Alto over the next two years.

This latest move brings the Apple-HP relationship full circle. When Apple was founded in 1976, Steve Wozniak was an engineer working in HP's calculator division. As with most large companies, HP had a policy that anything invented by employees belonged to the company, even if it was created on personal time. Wozniak offered the Apple I and Apple II designs to HP, but the company didn't want to get into the personal computer business at the time, which paved the way for Woz to eventually leave and join his partner Jobs at their startup on a full-time basis. If HP had made different choices in the late 1970s, the many innovative products created by Apple over the years might never have been built, and today's technology landscape would probably be a very different place.

[via Mac.Blorge]

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Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16706216?nclick_check…

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In the latest sign of a trend that has been ongoing in the tech industry for more than a decade, Apple has gobbled up another big chunk...

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brian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP#Early_years
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP#The_1990s

HP did acquire some other companies during the 90s but HP originally made well-regarded calculators, scientific instruments, etc. THAT is what he is referring to.

"From the 1940s until well into the 1990s the company concentrated on making electronic test equipment: signal generators, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, frequency counters, thermometers, time standards, wave analyzers, and many other instruments."

"In 1999, all of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and imaging were spun off from HP to form Agilent... manufacturing scientific instruments, semiconductors, optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless R&D and production."

November 30 2010 at 10:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

resumesales1

This purchase is directly related to warehouse fulfillment Once again demand for the products outstripped supply and they need larger facilities to meet the demands of its dealer and consumer base. Apple ran out of space in the USA years ago, and the former HP complex should resolve the issue. This facility was crucial to HPâ€™s success and boom period in the 90â€™s. Although HP has been taken out of the consumer spotlight and overshadowed by Apple over the past decade, they are far from out. Their business shifted over the years and they grew tremendously in B2B services, Government, Corporate and Medical sales field. They will be making a huge comeback with their new laptop and portable consumer products. Like Microsoft, HPâ€™s devices and technology is embedded into millions of corporations. Change for these companies would be difficult and in some cases impossible. Needless to say they have contracts with companies that go as far out as 2016. According to William Callahan from Consumer Priority Service www.cpscentral.com Apple and HP compete on multiple fronts, however they do collaborate and team up with each other on select projects as well. Apple needs internal and external assistance in order to maintain its dominant position. Itâ€™s common for fortune 500â€™s to share and license its technology in order to produce an overall superior product.

November 30 2010 at 10:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply