“The board has looked at this analytically and dispassionately three times”, says Fiorina. “The membership of the board was different on every occasion and the board came to the same conclusion”.

Though Fiorina did not say when the possible spin-off was considered, HP chief financial officer, Bob Wayman, says the move was mooted at the time the company spun off Agilent Technologies, its test and measurement division, in 1999.

Performance was the theme of HP’s twice-yearly analyst meeting and Fiorina told the analysts present that the main point of all the presentations from the company’s top executives was to show investors that HP is focused on consistent performance.

“In the last two years, we missed two out of nine quarters”, Fiorina says. “We mis-executed. Despite that, we still reached 15 per cent earnings growth in 2004. Our focus now is consistently executing. We have the right portfolio and we have the right products. Our destiny is in our own hands”.

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