HP NYSE HPQ earnings now on May 20th printers on front burner

Originally, today (May 15th) was the scheduled announcement day for HPs (NYSE HPQ) second-quarter earnings. But a preliminary announcement was made on the 13th, along with the official clarification of the EDS (NYSE EDS) deal, and now the official numbers day has been pushed out until Tuesday the 20th.

So whats changed since the beginning of this week, when I posted in this blog, virtually crowing about the fact that printer results, could be front and center this time, even if in a potentially negative way? (See "A little pressure on HP (NYSE HPQ) printer results".) Well, later that same day (Monday the 12th), the word came that HP was considered an 11-figure deal to acquire Ross Perots old company, EDS, and ever since, no one has been thinking about printers at all, it would seem.

Thats not quite true, actually (i.e. the no one thinking about printers point). In a quick search of the Web this morning, PC World has a provocatively title piece, "Surprise! What HPs Multibillion Dollar Bid to Buy EDS Means for You" by Stephanie Overby of CIO. The piece contains this paragraph (my italics added) thats surely toungue-and-cheek, given IPGs profit margins, but still, what a difference a few days and a nearly $14 Billion deal makes!

Bulking up the services side would better HPs position against its bigger IT services brethren like IBM and Accenture . It could even enable HP to shed that darn printer business once and for all.

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