Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Shareholders Approve Board Slate

A slate of new board members presented to Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) shareholders were approved, bringing the total directors to 13, and apparently giving support to the direction the company is being taken.

The new board members approved are Meg Whitman, former chief executive of eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), Shumeet Banerji, chief executive of consulting firm Booz & Co.; Gary Reiner, former chief information officer of General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE); Patricia Russo, former chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU); and Dominique Senequier, chief executive of AXA SA’s AXA Private Equity.

Analysts believe the new directors will aid the technology leader as it expands its software offerings and tries to build its own suite of Internet applications and services to compete with rivals such as International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE:CRM)

It also appears this is significant in moving the company forward in regard to the board itself, which has been criticized heavily since the resignation of former CEO Mark Hurd.

Hewlett-Packard closed Wednesday at $42.07, gaining $0.33, or 0.79 percent.