Walter Hewlett Says He Never Really Objected to Compaq Merger

Walter Hewlett, the son of one of the original founders of Hewlett Packard, has backtracked on his stance against the merger between HP and Compaq, saying that most of the objections credited to him were only rumor.

Hewlett did say that he still believed the merger would be "the end of HP as we know it," and that the company's forecasts had been "overly optimistic."

He has retracted, though, earlier accusations that HP had fudged numbers and bribed shareholders to support the merger.