The Hewlett-Packard Company is an American global information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It develops and provides a wide variety of hardware components as well as software and related services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors. The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by William "Bill" Redington Hewlett and David "Dave" Packard starting with a line of electronic test equipment. HP was the world's leading PC manufacturer from 2007 to Q2 2013, after which Lenovo remained ranked ahead of HP. It specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a diverse range of printers and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises directly as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors. HP also has services and consulting business around its products and partner products.
Verizon Communications Inc., branded as Verizon, is an American broadband and telecommunications company, the largest U.S. wireless communications service provider as of September 2014, but is incorporated in Delaware. What eventually became Verizon was founded as Bell Atlantic, which was one of the seven Baby Bells that were formed after AT&T Corporation was forced to relinquish its control of the Bell System by order of the Justice Department of the United States. Bell Atlantic came into existence in 1984 with a footprint from New Jersey to Virginia, with each area having a separate operating company.
