Four HP Research Projects Are Halted

SAN JOSE, Calif. – As part of a massive restructuring that includes 14,500 job cuts companywide, Hewlett-Packard Co. is discontinuing four research projects at HP Labs, including one headed by pioneering technologist Alan Kay.

About 10 percent , or 70, of HP Labs’ 700 employees worldwide will receive layoff notices but some may find work elsewhere in the company.

On Tuesday, HP Chief Executive Mark Hurd said a similar percentage of HP’s total work force of 151,000 would be cut over 18 months.

Details of the research cuts were first reported in Thursday’s editions of the San Jose Mercury News, which obtained an internal e-mail sent to employees by HP Labs Director Dick Lampman.

On Tuesday, Hurd said the restructuring’s impact on research would be minimal.

Discontinued research projects include Kay’s Advanced Software Research team, which was looking into a new operating system for the Internet. Kay, who is leaving HP, is best known for his work in graphical user interfaces while working at Xerox’s research lab in the 1970s. He also pioneered modern programming languages.

Kay, who joined HP as a senior fellow in 2002, did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment Thursday.

The other cut projects include HP’s Cambridge Research Lab, which studied health-related technology in Cambridge, Mass.; the Consumer Applications and Systems Laboratory, the Emerging Technologies Laboratory and Kay’s Advanced Software Research team. With the exception of the Cambridge lab, all the cut projects were based in Palo Alto.

HP Labs spokesman Dave Berman said the company is refocusing research and development on areas where it can have the greatest medium to long-term impact.

“It doesn’t mean that some of the projects that were discontinued were not worthwhile, but when you have to prioritize your resources, you want to put them where you think they’re going to have the greatest impact on the company,” Berman said Thursday.

Other HP projects will continue, including its well-known research in nanotechnology and quantum computing. The company also will continue to study enterprise computing technologies, imaging and printing, and information technology services.

“All of those things are going forward and are continuing,” Berman said. “We’ll be able to use resources in a more focused way now.”