HP Smelt It -- Time for the Tech Industry to Deal With It

A worker checks a sheet of electrolytic copper in a tankhouse at the Onahama Smelting & Refining Co. plant in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
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Hewlett-Packard peeled another layer off the supply-chain onion last week. Don't be surprised if its competitors are shedding a tear in private.

HP published a list of the 195 smelters that supply materials used in the production of its computers and other electronics, the first such disclosure in the 74-year-old company's history. HP said it's the only information-technology company to do so, a claim that analysts do not dispute.