In late August 1938, William Hewlett informed David Packard that “I have been very busy.” Hewlett had found a “small house” to rent in Palo Alto beginning in September. The house came with a garage that could be used as a shop, with a concrete floor and work table.
1939 January 1, Bill Hewlett and David Packard formalize their partnership. They decide the company’s name with a coin toss.
Each man brought something special to the partnership. Both were engineers but Mr. Hewlett was trained in circuit technology and Mr. Packard was better trained and experienced in manufacturing processes. Their first product was an audio oscillator, which they made by hand and painted themselves. When orders started coming in after they had sent out a small mailing, they were surprised. What's more, they could not believe that some customers had actually sent checks with their orders.
HP’s first big customer was Walt Disney, who purchased 8 oscillators used in the making of the movie Fantasia (HP Labs).
In 1951, Hewlett-Packard's sales were $5.5 million, and the company had 215 employees. By 1965, sales were $165 million with 9,000 employees; the company had gone public and had acquired several smaller entities and was in the process of building one of the world's largest electronic research centers.
By the 1980‘s, Hewlett-Packard had become a business phenomenon. The company's external success and its internal workings had caught the fancy of the nation‘s business press, as well as the popular Bay Area press.
Hewlett Packard: International Information Technology Company
