HP shareholders are out of luck! 6 cents/share is all they will get for this fiscal year, said Cathie Lesjak, the company's chief financial officer, which is "in the middle of the pack" compare to what other comparable companies are paying their shareholders. At this point investing in the business (organically or throught acquisition) and repurchasing shares are more important than giving away cash. To what an old-time stockholder responded,

We all like an increase in stock value, obviously that's true. But repurchasing stocks has a slightly better advantage to stock-options holders than for stockholders.

On the contrary said HP's CFO,

We actually see that share repurchase is slightly more advantageous from a shareholders' perspective looking at an after tax basis. We also favor share repurchase, because we like the flexibility that it gives us, in terms of being able to increase or decrease the amount of cash we spend