The ElectronicSystemsbusiness of Northrop Grumman coalesced from a series transactions that acquired parts of Westinghouse, Teledyne, L ITTon Industries and TRW. Raytheon grew to its current prominence by acquiring the old Hughes Electronics and parts of Texas Instruments.
In a statement released Monday, Hewlett-Packard acknowledged it is in "advanced discussions" with Electronic Data Systems about a possible business combination.
People familiar with the matter say IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) was also bidding on the business, as was Electronic Data Systems (nyse: EDS - news - people ).