Sun Microsystems on Thursday announced that it purchased Hewlett and Packard for a little over $6,000.

In a crafty public relations stunt, Sun has acquired a wooden sculpture of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and decided to send the object on the road to find HP's "sense of humor." A local artist had offered the Hewlett and Packard sculpture, which is part of a larger collection, to HP corporate, but the company passed. So, Sun stepped in with $6,000 and bought the Silicon Valley legends.

The Hewlett and Packard figure is part of the Silicon Valley Hitchhiker series that we've been covering for the past couple of weeks. Local artist Julie Newdoll teamed with Jim Pallas, Mike Mosher and Mario Wolczko to create and promote five sculptures of Silicon Valley icons - Fred Terman, Bob Noyce, Hewlett and Packard, William Shockley and Lee de Forest. The figures have been "hitchhiking" around the country with GPS units strapped to their backs so people can follow their journeys online.

Yet another wonderfully funny public relations fiasco with HP. It's implied, though not explicitly stated in the article, that HP had the opportunity to buy the sculptures and turned their nose at the project. They should have seen this one coming from a mile away. If it wasn't Sun, I'm sure IBM would have been the next in line to turn this whole thing into a big joke. HP == stupidity