U.S. computer maker Hewlett-Packard said Tuesday that it has completed the 13.9-billion-dollar purchase of Electronic Data Systems, the company's biggest acquisition since it took over Compaq for nearly 20 billion dollars in 2002.

The acquisition of the IT service company would help HP expand its business in the lucrative field of technology consulting and outsourcing services, said the Silicon Valley giant.

Industry analysts have suggested it will be a major task for HP to absorb a company as big as the Texas-based EDS, which has some 140,000 employees.

However, HP chief executive Mark Hurd has a good track record of managing the successful integration of Compaq and overseeing the company's acquisition of more than two dozens of other companies in recent years.

HP, which has an annul revenue of over 100 billion dollars, employed about 172,000 people itself before the EDS deal. The two companies had more than 38 billion dollars in revenue from IT services collectively last year, while industry leader IBM had 54.1 billion dollars.