Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced recently that he cost-cutting measures they put into effect helped them to a profit increase of 14% in the latest quarter. This was at the same time the company was suffering an 8% decline in revenue.

HP had purchased Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for $13.9 billion which helped them achieve higher profits, and compete on a better level with computing giant IBM.

HP, the top seller of computers in the world, got a bit of assistance from the sense of recovery in the computing marketplace.

The financial results support what a research firm calls a much stronger than anticipated third quarter for PC sales figures. The research firm Gartner is now forecasting that shipments of PCs will rise in the coming year. previously they had been predicting that sales would decline.

HP announced a net profit of $2.4 billion for the third quarter. Shares earned about 99 cents. Actual revenue dropped 8% to $30 billion.