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Hewlett-Packard has announced the official shareholder vote totals for its acquisition of Compaq, reaching one of the final milestones in the troubled deal and clearing the way for the merged company to officially launch next week.

While a preliminary vote count had already shown that HP had secured shareholder approval for its bid to buy Compaq, an independent vote tabulation company on Wednesday released the final numbers. It found that 838 million votes were cast in favor of the acquisition and 793 million against, according to a statement. HP said it expects to close the deal on May 3 and to launch the new company a few days later on May 7.

HP and Compaq have already made extensive internal plans involving consolidation of product teams and lines, according to Carly Fiorina, chair and chief executive. She noted at recent HP shareholder meetings that the two companies have 900 employees working full-time on transition strategy, so the companies can act quickly upon approval.

Opposition Dropped

HP also received good news for its merger plan on Tuesday, when a Delaware court rejected a bid to dismiss the shareholder vote. Walter Hewlett, a former HP board member and son of one of the company's founders, had asked the court to review HP's lobbying for votes, and some financial projections. In particular, he questioned tactics used to secure votes from a Deutsche Bank AG division.

After the court denied his challenge, Hewlett issued a statement saying he will drop opposition to the acquisition.

In mid-April, two federal overseers requested information from HP relating to the charges levied by Hewlett. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York subpoenaed information about the voting of Deutsche Bank and Northern Trust and their affiliates on the acquisition. Also, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's San Francisco office "informally" requested documents from HP about its communications with Deutsche Bank. With HP cleared of wrongdoing by a Delaware judge, however, neither federal office seems likely to take further action.

Too Distracted?

In separate action, HP pulled the plug on its worldwide developer conference, scheduled to take place in Las Vegas at the end of May.

The company decided to postpone its Invent 2002 conference after hearing from customers that they couldn't afford to attend because of the tough economic times, according to information at the conference's Web site.

Delaying the four-day conference also gives HP more time to prepare future product plans in light of its planned merger with Compaq. The company has said it will kill off some overlapping products if the merger goes ahead, but it hasn't yet said which ones will get the ax.

One concern raised about HP's planned acquisition of Compaq is that the deal would distract HP from its business, noted Dwight Davis, an analyst at Summit Stategies. The company has continued to launch new products since announcing the merger, but canceling its developer conference isn't good news, Davis said.

"To the degree that it has to be heads-down and working on the particulars of the merger, it does run the risk of losing the close connection with its customer base," Davis said.

While HP said it has postponed the conference, the company hasn't provided a new start date. Instead, the company plans to "modify the format" of the conference to offer "Web-based and regional events," including Webcasts of seminars. HP officials weren't immediately available to offer further comment.

The company had been pitching the event as one that developers couldn't afford to miss.

James Niccolai of the IDG News Service contributed to this report.

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