Yeah, the Comcrap purchase real good.....NOT. It was the start of the decline of Hp. It's when Hp lost focus on it's Enterprise Server offering and went down the tubes. The "goal" of being the number one PC manufacturer didn't pan out as expected. It also left Hp with a lot of DEC and Tandem deadwood. Hp would have been far smarter to let Compaq go bankrupt and only buy the pieces it needed.
Palm was another bust. As is Autonomy.
EDS was another one Hp should waited on. They would have been a lot cheaper later on. And Hp should have gotten rid of almost all EDS management immediately.
Had they done so the stock would be sitting pretty right now instead of in the toilet.