Here's the video, in case you've never seen it...

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/ videos/demetri_martin/index.jhtml

The clip is "Trendspotting: Social Networking"...

People, such as myself, who have an insulin pump carry around thousands of dollars worth of digital devices with circuitry that is more complicated than cell phones. I'm sure others with medical devices carry around devices with similar values.

As I understand it, HP recognizes that the PC market is no longer growing, but they also recognize that they have way too much capital invested in that portion of their business to justify jumping ship. Consequently, they are in need of a way to compete with the likes of Dell to prevent that part of their business from being devoured. Realistically, the only way for them to compete is on price, and the only way to reduce prices is to cut costs because they can't increase volume in a market that is no longer growing. I think HP believes that acquiring Compaq will allow it to reach that scale at which it can start effectively cutting costs in its PC production operations. I hope that I'm not bastardizing the concept of Economies of Scale, but I think that is bascially the economic factor at play here.