Mostly though, Gupta spends millions of company dollars to give away HP software.

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Unless, Mr. Lane and the rest of the HP Board of Directors decide to keep their new CEO far, far away from HP Headquarters until that trial is over.

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"You'll still have customers who want Sun, and I don't think HP and EDS will turn them away, but there's also an opportunity to get HP gear in there wherever they can, " Hanson says.

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To diversify further away, earlier this year HP acquired Palm, the proprietary PDA-smartphone maker, to launch its own-branded smartphones, effectively competing directly against Nokia, Apple, Motorola, Samsung and Dell.

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The ensuing soap opera between company scion Walter Hewlett and HP Chief Executive Carleton Fiorina kept the spotlight far away from Indigo.

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Danaher, who had been overseeing 5, 300 employees as head of Hewlett-Packard's medical products group, walked away last October after 15 years at HP.

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Dell has consciously backed away from the consumer market, ceding its number one market share to HP and also behind Acer in terms of unit sales.

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