HP accuses IT leaders of orchestrating 'mass departure' to GM
Dec 28, 2012 (Menafn - Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Hewlett-Packard has accused two former employees in Austin, Texas of conspiring to resign simultaneously and recruit 16 colleagues in their information technology department to take jobs with General Motors.
The tech giant filed documents with a Texas court saying that former IT directors Gregg Hansen and Todd MacKenzie had led a "seemingly orchestrated departure" to GM in an abrupt move Nov. 30.
The company is seeking to interview the two former employees before deciding if it can file a lawsuit to prevent them from recruiting more workers and leveraging information they learned at HP to benefit GM.
GM announced earlier this year that it would hire 500 employees to staff a new software technology operation in Austin. It was not immediately clear whether Hansen and MacKenzie are working for that specific operation.
"HP strongly suspects that something other than mere coincidence will explain the en mass departure, on the same day and to the same place, of eighteen employees working within the same organization," HP attorneys said in a lawsuit first reported today by BusinessWeek.
A GM spokeswoman declined to comment.
The tension between HP and GM comes as the longstanding relationship between the corporate giants has been changing.
GM announced in October that it would hire 3,000 HP employees who previously performed information technology work for the automaker as part of GM's plan to bring 90% of its IT work in-house from outside contractors. GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott, who previously held the same position with HP, has been frustrated by the automaker's outdated IT systems since joining the company in February and wants the former HP workers to help streamline those systems.
HP, meanwhile, is cutting 29,000 jobs by October 2014 as it struggles with slower demand for printers, services and data-center equipment.
HP was GM's main IT vendor with a 2-billion contract awarded in 2010. Ironically, some HP employees who are being transferred back to GM once worked for the automaker's Electronic Data Systems unit until it was spun off in 1996 and acquired by HP in 2008.
Contact: Nathan Bomey at 313-223-4743 or nbomey@freepress.com. On Twitter, follow @NathanBomey or @freepautos.
___ (c)2012 the Detroit Free Press Visit the Detroit Free Press at
www.freep.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
Copyright (C) 2012, Detroit Free Press
