The workforce reduction is intended to “streamline the combined company’s services businesses”, and once complete is expected to “result in annual cost savings of approximately $US1.8 billion ($A2.2 billion),” Hewlett-Packard said in a statement. About 7.5 per cent of the combined workforce would be affected, HP said.

A staggering 88 percent of IT administrators admitted they would take corporate secrets, if they were suddenly made redundant. The target information included CEO passwords, customer databases, research and development plans, financial reports, M&A plans and the company’s list of privileged passwords.

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