HP is in the process of cutting 24,600 EDS jobs as it absorbs the computer services giant. The company's EDS integration is ahead of schedule, Hurd said, with "roughly half" of those positions now eliminated.

Everywhere else, however, the financial numbers reflected the global slowdown: storage revenue was down 22 percent; midrange server revenue dropped 21 percent; and sales of the company's industry standard servers and business critical systems were both down 29 percent.

Sales of desktop PCs dropped 24 percent, notebooks were down 13 percent and revenue in the company's printer division was down 23 percent.

The company did see improvements in some areas. "We saw improvement in China, and it was material. We saw improvement in U.S. consumer that I wouldn't say was as material," Hurd said. "I just think we're going to need another quarter of data in order to make a meaningful statement about any upturn or anything like that."

HP posted disappointing earnings last quarter as well, as revenue dropped in all of its business units. Hurd responded by imposing wage cuts across the board at HP. He cut his own salary by 20 percent and those of HP's top executives by 15 percent. The company's remaining executives saw a 10 percent wage cut while all other salaries were slashed by 5 percent.