"Most of the media... is positioning the merger with Compaq and the recent actions by Walter Hewlett and David Packard as a fight between the past and the future"

This quote by Carly Fiorina is referring to the merger in between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq in 2002. Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard at the time and favored the merger. The quote suggests that the media was portraying the merger as a fight between the past and the future. Walter Hewlett and David Packard were the children of the creators of Hewlett-Packard and were against the merger. They were viewed as representing the past, while Fiorina and the merger were seen as representing the future. The quote recommends that the media was representing the merger as a battle between the old and the brand-new, between the standard and the contemporary. It indicates that the media was trying to make the merger seem like a fight between the past and the future, when in reality it was an organization decision.