The maker of expensive printer ink, HP, says that it will cut 24,600 jobs, or about 7.5 percent of its work force, over the next three years.

HP had a bit of a problem when it acquired the outsourcing outfit EDS. There were a lot of things that EDS did that were the same as HP.  Clearly, HP thinks it did those things better than EDS. Most of the job cuts will come from EDS, rather than HP, and more than half of the job losses will be in the United States.

HP had a grand idea of buying EDS for $13.9 billion in a bid to challenge IBM for more of the lucrative, long-term business of helping companies manage their computing infrastructure.