But behind the deal is another Hewlett-Packard ambition: to extend the reach of its dominant printing and imaging division, which registered $ 20 billion in sales this year, 43 percent of the companys revenue. In the last two decades, Hewlett-Packard built itself into the worlds largest vendor of desktop printers. It had done so under th6 command of Richard A. Hackbom, now a Hewlett-Packard board member and a leading advocate of the merger. (47)Today, the company tests so many printers, inks and papers that if one could stack up all the test sheets printed during an average month, the pile would reach 6,000 feet. (48)The printer division is widely regarded as the companys crown jewel, but how Hewlett car best exploit it is a matter of dispute. Walter Hewlett, the oldest son of the companys co-founder, and other critics of the Compaq acquisition argue that the deal will dilute the printing business by burying it in an even larger, slower-moving computer company. The divisions, $2 billion in operating profits this year propped up Hewlett-Packards sagging computer business, which lost $450 million. (49)Some analysts have advocated that instead of merging to become a larger company, Hewlett-Packard should sell off its other businesses and focus on selling more printers and imaging devices like digital cameras and scanners, which increase sales of ink cartridges and paper. The company, however, says it has no intention of narrowing its scope. Instead, proponents of the merger say the acquisition will fix Hewletts computing business, freeing up more research and development money for the printing division to tackle new markets, like the $400-billion-a-year commercial printing business. Hewlett-Packard wants to drive this transition to digital publishing, much as IBM, through a combination of products and services, helped businesses push into online sales in the late 1990s. (50)If the strategy is successful, it would result in a surge in digital files that would stimulate sales of the powerful computing systems needed to create, store and move the files. To do that, Hewlett-Packard argues, it must become larger and stronger. The bigger it is, the more influence it will have on corporate technology managers.