HP purchase of EDS gets government clearance

BOSTON (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co's (HPQ.N) planned $12.6 billion purchase of Electronic Data Systems Corp EDS.N cleared U.S. government antitrust review, the companies said on Monday.

They are still waiting for approval from European regulators. EDS will hold a shareholder meeting July 31 to get clearance from its investors to seal the deal.

Buying EDS, one of the pioneers of the outsourcing of managed computer services, would vault HP to second place in the technology services industry behind International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N).

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; editing by John Wallace)