Hewlett-Packard's Verifone subsidiary, which sells electronic payment services, performed worse than expected, costing $48 million in losses and restructuring costs in the quarter. Hewlett-Packard has been unsuccessfully looking for a way to sell the unit. And, like many other multinational technology giants, Hewlett-Packard also suffered from the unexpected trends in exchange rates during the quarter. Profits from sales in Europe were reduced and the costs of laser printer components in Japan were higher than projected. But a substantial part of the shortfall came from developments that might be seen more as accounting surprises than bad news. Selling expenses were unexpectedly high because the sales force responded more enthusiastically than anticipated to incentive packages. The fired-up sales force pushed revenue for October higher than Hewlett-Packard had expected and created a strong order backlog for the current quarter, which is the first of fiscal 2001 for the company. Ms.