Malcom Gladwell’s forthcoming examination of how mega-success is achieved will not be out until November, but judging by the buzz already surrounding it, “Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don’t” promises to be this winter’s “it” book

Perhaps the most prolific Gladwell watcher has been the blogger Jason Kottke, who has written several anticipatory posts about the book since last fall (kottke.org). “I’ve learned,” he wrote in November, “that the subject of this book is the future of the workplace with subtopics of education and genius.”

Well, sort of. As Mr. Kottke noted in May, the book’s Amazon page is up, and preorders are being taken (amazon.com). The publisher’s description there says that Mr. Gladwell takes on the question, “What makes high achievers different?” The answer is that “we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from.”

Why did it take Fleetwood Mac so long before achieving superstardom with “Rumors?” What makes a great soccer player great, rather than merely very good? What about Bill Gates’s “peculiar childhood” set him apart from all the other computer buffs who were around at the dawn of personal computers?

In a short excerpt (800ceoread.com) Mr. Gladwell writes that “I want to convince you that the way we think about success is all wrong.”

It is hard to know what, exactly, he means by this, or to know what common thread there may be between Bill Gates and Mick Fleetwood. But some hints can be gleaned from recent works by Mr. Gladwell in The New Yorker, and in his recent speeches, video of which can be found on the magazine’s Web site (newyorker.com).

In May, Mr. Gladwell wrote that scientific discoveries are not necessarily the product of singular genius. He ticked off example after example of discoveries and ideas that occurred at the same time, independently. “Newton and Leibniz both discovered calculus,” he wrote. “Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both discovered evolution.”

In other words, great ideas are often, as the title of the article put it, “in the air,” and true genius often lies with the people — whether mathematicians or musicians — who are able to snatch them down at the right time.

Hewlett-Packard agrees to buy IT services and pioneering outsource firm Electronic Data Systems, Mark Hurd’s biggest acquisition since taking the helm of Hewlett-Packard in 2005. The deal could spark more consolidation in the technology outsourcing sector.

The companies said Tuesday their boards had unanimously approved the deal, in which EDS  shareholders would get $25 per share. That is a premium of almost 25 percent over what EDS  had been trading on Friday. Word of the talks emerged Monday. 

It would be HP’s biggest deal in six years. 

HP is the world’s largest maker of personal computers, while Texas-based EDS provides technology services to the governments and companies around the world. 

The sale is expected to close in the second half of this year and more than double HP’s revenue from services, which was $16.6 billion in 2007. EDS had $22.13 billion in revenue last year. 

Their combined services business would have 210,000 employees - although some analysts expect HP would trim jobs - and operations in more than 80 countries. 

HP said the business would be based at EDS’ headquarters in Plano, Texas, and led by EDS chairman and Chief Executive Ronald A. Rittenmeyer. 

HP said it expects the deal would produce “significant” cost savings and add to earnings by next year. 

Palo Alto-based HP and EDS had said Monday that they were in “advanced discussions” about a possible combination without providing additional details. 

In Tuesday’s announcement, the companies said the deal would have an enterprise value of $13.9 billion without defining what that included. But based on 502.6 million EDS shares outstanding as of April 25, the acquisition would be worth $12.57 billion. 

HP ended January with nearly $10 billion in cash and has a market value of about $115 billion. 

If the deal is completed, it would be HP’s biggest acquisition since it bought Compaq Computer Corp. for $19 billion in 2002. That acquisition paved the way for HP to supplant Dell  Inc. as the world’s largest PC maker. 

Buying EDS would give HP more tools to challenge IBM  Corp. in the lucrative technology services field. HP already has replaced IBM as the world’s largest technology company, based on revenue. 

The demand for data management and technology consulting services has steadily grown during the past two decades as the automation of corporate America and the rise of the Internet prompted more businesses to hire contractors to help run their computer software and hardware. 

IBM’s technology services division brought in $54 billion in revenue last year, accounting for half of the company’s total sales. Combined, EDS and HP’s technology services division had about $39 billion in revenue last year. 

In one of its biggest previous attempts to expand its technology services, HP attempted to buy PricewaterhouseCoopers’ consulting division in 2000. IBM wound up buying the unit instead. 

HP has been on a roll since it hired Mark Hurd as chief executive three years ago. Propelled by earnings growth that has consistently exceeded analyst expectations, the company’s stock price has more than doubled since Hurd’s arrival. 

Acquiring EDS could yield more government work for HP, which had about $500 million in prime federal contracts in fiscal 2007. EDS is far better connected, with deals worth about $2.5 billion - putting it among the top 10 among government technology contractors. 

Combined, HP and EDS still would lag significantly behind government contractors like Lockheed Martin  Corp. and Boeing  Co. 

As in many corporate marriages, cultural clashes between HP and EDS could ruin the union, said AMR  Research analyst Dana  Stiffler. “Palo Alto versus Plano wrangling will destroy any short-medium term benefit unless there’s a strong integration roadmap,” she predicted. 

HP earned $7.3 billion on $104 billion in revenue last year while EDS made $716 million on $22.1 billion in revenue. 

EDS has been linked with possible deals previously, including a reported interest by Deutsche Telekom late last year and Dell before that. No suitors ever confirmed reports that they were talking. 

Former IBM salesman H. Ross Perot started EDS in 1962 to help run other companies’ computer systems - a specialty generally known as information-technology or IT services. 

Perot sold EDS to General Motors  Corp. for $2.5 billion in 1984 and eventually became so disillusioned with how that deal worked out that he sold his remaining EDS shares to the automaker so he could start a new rival service bearing his name. 

An outspoken billionaire, Perot became even more famous for running for U.S. president in 1992 and 1996. GM spun off EDS as an independent company in 1996 and remained its largest customer. 

EDS was riding high at the start of the decade, despite the dot-com bubble’s bursting. But in late 2002, earnings shortfalls led to investor lawsuits, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, the ouster of the chief executive, and a sharp drop in the stock price.  The company lost $1.7 billion in 2003 but gradually righted itself under CEO Michael Jordan , a retired CBS  and Westinghouse CEO. He fixed some money-losing contracts, including a multibillion-dollar deal to build a communications network for the Navy and Marine Corps, and began cutting costs by sending thousands of jobs to low-cost countries such as India. 

Although he has not seen any signs to suggest EDS has been looking for a buyer, Jefferies & Co. analyst Joseph Vafi said the company’s board might have decided a sale would create a quicker payoff for shareholders than continuing to try to grow the company in the highly competitive technology services industry. 

Under Hurd’s leadership, HP bought business software maker Mercury Interactive Corp. for $4.9 billion in 2006 and last year paid $1.7 billion for data management service Opsware Inc., which had sold a large chunk of its operations to EDS in 2002. 

AP Business Writers Jennifer Malloy in New York, David Koenig in Dallas and Dibya Sarkar in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report. 

Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard says the deal has been unanimously approved by both companies’ boards. 

It is expected to close in the second half of this year.