Hewlett-Packard Co will sail past Digital Equipment Corp in overall size this year on the evidence of its third quarter figures, which saw profits flat on sales up 15% (see page five) but chief executive John Young says he is disappointed that it was unable to sustain the strong earnings growth of our first half: Although this quarter’s revenue and order growth were reasonably good in today’s difficult environment, an increase in cost of sales affected earnings, he said; orders for the third quarter totalled $4,000m, an increase of 12%, with US orders up 15% and the rest of the world up 10%; order growth in the computer business was mixed with laser and inkjet printers showing strong order growth during the quarter, as did multiuser Unix computers; however HP 9000 Series 700 workstation orders also rose, but more slowly than in recent quarters; it also saw excellent growth in demand for X terminals.
