Let’s see … what’s the difference between comparing the 6-month changes in the market caps of AAPL and NOK and the one day changes in HPQ and EDS on the day after HPQ announces that it is buying out EDS? Must be some difference…
HP has swallowed a whole pigeon before. check this out, in case you haven’t seen it already: youtube.com/watch?v=PO5ifLzLYiU
I think HP strategy in general is solid - they make frontend machines and servers and they run operations of IT data centres, so consulting in technology is a natural way of selling that technology expertise through yet another channel. IBM shows that it definitely is lucrative. Whether buying EDS is the right way to develop that may be up to discussion. Just remaining a box vendor is doomed to failure - look at Sun.