HP Inc. in the context of USB C

The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard (/ˈhjuːlɪt ˈpækərd/ HEW-lit PAK-ərd) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California. Growing to become an influential high-tech powerhouse at the heart of Silicon Valley, the company was known for its progressive business philosophy known as the HP Way. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components, as well as software and related services, to consumers, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and fairly large companies, including customers in government sectors. At its peak in 2011, HP employed 350,000 people around the globe. The company officially split into Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. in 2015.

HP initially produced a line of electronic test and measurement equipment. It won its first big contract in 1938 to provide the HP 200B, a variation of its first product, the HP 200A low-distortion frequency oscillator, for Walt Disney's production of the 1940 animated film Fantasia, which allowed Hewlett and Packard to formally establish the Hewlett-Packard Company on July 2, 1939. The company grew into a multinational corporation widely respected for its products. HP was the world's leading PC manufacturer from 2007 until the second quarter of 2013 when Lenovo moved ahead of HP. HP specialized in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software, and delivering services. Major product lines included personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software, and a range of printers and other imaging products. The company directly marketed its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses, and enterprises, as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics, and office-supply retailers, software partners, and major technology vendors. It also offered services and a consulting business for its products and partner products.

A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to a network, but the most common form refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Apollo Computer, DEC, HP, NeXT, and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s.

Workstations formerly offered higher performance specifications than mainstream personal computers, especially in terms of processing, graphics, memory, and multitasking. Workstations are optimized for the visualization and manipulation of different types of complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulations like computational fluid dynamics, animation, video editing, image editing, medical imaging, image rendering, computational science, generating mathematical plots, and software development. Typically, the form factor is that of a desktop computer, which consists of a high-resolution display, a keyboard, and a mouse at a minimum, but also offers multiple displays, graphics tablets, and 3D mice for manipulating objects and navigating scenes. Workstations were the first segment of the computer market to present advanced accessories, and collaboration tools like videoconferencing.

USB‑C, or USB Type‑C, is a 24-pin reversible connector (not a protocol) that supersedes all previous USB connectors, which were designated legacy in 2014. This connector also supersedes Mini DisplayPort and Lightning connectors. USB-C is used for a variety of purposes: exchanging data with peripheral devices, such as external drives, mobile phones, keyboards, track-pads, and mice, or between hosts, or transferring A/V-data to displays and speakers, or also powering peripheral devices and getting powered by power adapters; either through directly wired connectors, or indirectly via hubs and docking stations. This connector type can be used for other data transfer protocols besides USB, such as Thunderbolt, PCIe, DisplayPort, and HDMI. It is considered extensible, allowing the support of future protocols.

The design for the USB‑C connector was initially developed in 2012 by Intel, Apple Inc., HP Inc., Microsoft, and the USB Implementers Forum. The Type‑C Specification 1.0 was published by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) on August 11, 2014. In 2016 it was adopted by the IEC as "IEC 62680-1-3".

A pointing stick (or trackpoint, also referred to generically as a nub, clit mouse, or nipple mouse) is a small analog stick used as a pointing device typically mounted centrally in a computer keyboard. Like other pointing devices such as mice, touchpads or trackballs, operating system software translates manipulation of the device into movements of the pointer on the computer screen. Unlike other pointing devices, it reacts to sustained force or strain rather than to gross movement, so it is called an "isometric" pointing device. IBM introduced it commercially in 1992 on the ThinkPad 700 series under the name "TrackPoint", and patented an improved version of it in 1997 (but the patent expired in 2017). It has been used for business laptops, such as Acer's TravelMate, Dell's Latitude, HP's EliteBook and Lenovo's ThinkPad.

The pointing stick senses applied force by using two pairs of resistive strain gauges. A pointing stick can be used by pushing with the fingers in the general direction the user wants the pointer to move. The velocity of the pointer depends on the applied force so increasing pressure causes faster movement. The relation between pressure and pointer speed can be adjusted, just as mouse speed is adjusted.

Stanford Research Park (SRP) is a technology park established in 1951 as a joint initiative between Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto. It was the world's first university research park. It has more than 150 companies, including Rivian, HP, Tesla, SAP and Broadcom; previous high-profile tenants include Steve Jobs's NeXT Computer, Xerox PARC, and Facebook. It has been called "an engine for Silicon Valley" and "the epicenter of Silicon Valley".

The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas. It is a business-focused organization which works in servers, storage, networking, containerization software and consulting and support. HPE was ranked No. 107 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Jo Bhasin received the PQA at HPE for 2025.

HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the Hewlett-Packard company. The split was structured so that the former Hewlett-Packard Company would change its name to HP Inc. and spin off Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a newly created company. HP Inc. retained the old HP's personal computer and printing business, as well as its stock-price history and original NYSE ticker symbol for Hewlett-Packard; Enterprise trades under its own ticker symbol: HPE. At the time of the spin-off, HPE's revenue was slightly less than that of HP Inc. The company relocated to Texas in 2020.

The annual worldwide market share of personal computer vendors includes desktop computers, laptop computers, and netbooks but excludes mobile devices, such as tablet computers that do not fall under the category of 2-in-1 PCs. The global market leader has been Lenovo in every year since 2013, followed by HP and Dell. Previously, Compaq was the global market leader in the late 1990s until the year 2000, while HP and Dell shared market leadership in the 2000s.

For data about PC vendors' market shares in laptop computers specifically, see Laptop#Historic market share.

HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for HP Inc. HP Labs' headquarters is in Palo Alto, California and the group has research and development facilities in Bristol, UK. The development of programmable desktop calculators, inkjet printing, and 3D graphics are credited to HP Labs researchers.

HP Labs was established on March 3, 1966, by Hewlett-Packard founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard, seeking to create an organization not bound by day-to-day business concerns.

LaserJet is a line of laser printers sold by HP Inc. (originally Hewlett-Packard) since 1984. The LaserJet was the world's first commercially successful laser printer. Canon supplies both mechanisms and cartridges for most HP laser printers; some larger A3 models use Samsung print engines.

These printers (and later on all-in-one units, including scanning and faxing) have, as of 2025, a four decade plus history of serving both in offices and at home for personal/at home use.

USB Implementers Forum, Inc. (USB-IF) is a nonprofit organization created to promote and maintain USB (Universal Serial Bus), a set of specifications and transmission procedures for a type of cable connection that has since become used widely for electronic equipment. Its main activities are currently the promotion and marketing of USB, Wireless USB, USB On-The-Go, and the maintenance of standards and specifications for the related devices, as well as a compliance program.

The USB-IF was initiated on December 5, 1995, by the group of companies that was developing USB, which was made available first during 1996. The founding companies of USB-IF were Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel. Notable current members include HP, NEC, Microsoft, Apple Inc., Intel, and Broadcom.

Mini-VGA connectors are proprietary and non-standard alternative video connectors that were used on some laptops and other computer systems in place of a standard VGA connector. Apple, HP, and Asus each introduced separate connectors using the same moniker of "mini-VGA", but which are otherwise physically incompatible with each other (though all of them are compatible with standard VGA using the correct adapter).

Apple's mini-VGA ports may be found on some older Apple computers, including iBooks, eMacs, certain PowerBooks (e.g., early G4 12-inch), and some iMacs (e.g., iMac G4, G5). In addition to a more compact form-factor, Apple's mini-VGA ports also have the added ability to output composite as well as S-Video, in addition to VGA signals, through the use of EDID. When used for S-Video, S-Video's chrominance (C) and luminance (Y) signals replace VGA's red (R) and green (G) channels, while for composite video, the signal is output through VGA's blue (B) channel. (The horizontal and vertical sync pins of VGA are left unused.)

TravelMate is a line of business-oriented laptop computers manufactured by Acer. Of the various notebook series Acer has offered, the TravelMate is designated as a lightweight business and professional computer built to withstand day-to-day activities. TravelMate laptops are well received by reviewers, often, however, they are faulted for a lack of visual appeal. The TravelMate name was previously used by Texas Instruments, which sold its mobile computing division to Acer in 1997. The TravelMate mainly competes against business computers such as Asus's ExpertBook, Dell's Latitude and Vostro, Fujitsu's LifeBook, HP's EliteBook and ProBook, Lenovo's ThinkPad and ThinkBook, and Toshiba's Portégé and Tecra.

HP EliteBook is a line of business-oriented laptop computers made by Hewlett-Packard (HP Inc.), marketed as a high-end line positioned above the ProBook series. The line was introduced in August 2008 as a replacement to the HP Compaq line of business laptops, and initially included mobile workstations until September 2013, when they were rebranded as HP ZBook. The EliteBook mainly competes against laptop computers such as Acer's Extensa and TravelMate, Asus's ExpertBook, Dell's Latitude and Vostro, Fujitsu's LifeBook, Lenovo's ThinkPad and ThinkBook and Toshiba's Portégé and Tecra.

Microsoft Store was a chain of retail stores and is an online shopping site, owned and operated by Microsoft and dealing in computers, computer software, and consumer electronics.

The Microsoft Store offered Signature PCs and tablets like the Microsoft Surface, and offerings from third parties such as Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and VAIO without demos nor trialware (pre-installed free trials of certain third-party software that expire after a limited time). It also offered Windows (most retail versions), Microsoft Office, and Xbox One game consoles, games, and services including on-site Xbox diagnostics. The Answers Desk helped to answer questions related to Office, Windows, and other Microsoft products; the stores also offered class sessions as well as individual appointments.