I was doing my routine scout for news articles for eGOVasia when I happen to notice that when you type http://www.eds.com you will be redirected to h10134.www1.hp.com or HP Enterprise Services.

I’m not sure if you noticed it but HP did acquire EDS in 2008 for US$13.4B – that’s a lot of dough for a business (eds) that has had its day in the sun years ago. At the height of its fame, EDS was a force to reckon with when it came to government IT contracts, particularly outsourcing and massive integration projects. But lately the company has had a string of misfortunes. One of the most infamous one was with the US Navy.

HP is pinning its hopes on IT services as a business that would keep revenue and margins up particularly as other areas like PC hardware suffer from the relentless march of commoditization. Afterall, if IBM can do it, HP can just as well.

Dell is trying to do the same with the recent acquisition of Perot Systems. Perot Systems and EDS have something in common – they were both founded by Ross Perot – two time US presidential hopeful. According to a Bloomberg interview, Dell and Perot started talking about the potential of a combined organizations as early as 2007.

It would be interesting to know what Mr. Perot will do next after Perot Systems. He is still young (78). My mom is 81 and she still travels between the US, Canada, Hong Kong and the Philippines to see her children and grand children.