Slashdot Mirror
HP Is Planning To Split Into Two Separate Businesses, Sources Say
mrspoonsi writes Hewlett-Packard is planning to split itself into two separate businesses, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Sources tell the WSJ that HP will split its personal-computer and printer segments from its corporate hardware and services business. The announcement could come as early as Monday, the sources said. The company reorganized itself in 2012 under CEO Meg Whitman. That move combined its computer and printer businesses. The PC and computer segment is massive for HP. For the first six months this year, it reported $27.8 billion in revenue. That's about three times the size of HP's next biggest unit, the Enterprise Group, which makes servers, storage, and network hardware. Under the new split, Whitman would be chairman of the computer and printer business, and CEO of a separate Enterprise Group, according to one of the sources. Patricia Russo, who sits on HP's board, would be chairman of the enterprise company. The printer and PC operation would be led by Dion Weisler, a current exec in that division.
They'll call the spinoff Compaq!
The Server Hardware company could be called Digital.
And the consumer company could be called Compaq.
If there were to have a third company for printers - that should be called HP!
(I'm still bitter about Alpha being killed!)
From Carly Fiorina, on, hp has been lacking in leadership, and vision. Hewlett and Packard built a great company, only to have it destroyed by poseurs. Meg Whitman is the latest one - using smoke and mirrors to drive bumps in the stock price. We all know how this is going to end - eventual parting out to companies like Lenovo, Samsung - you name it. Whitman and other insiders will walk away with millions. hp's last 10 years is perfect representation of executive and Board incompetence.
Question is - which one does 'HP' have more faith in? The PC/printer division, or the services - isn't it the EDS/MPhasis part of the company?
Worth remembering that both the "halves" of the current HP are just the remainder of the original company after its previous split/spin-off of Agilent anyway. Agilent was arguably closer to HP's original business (i.e. test equipment and the like) than what remained of "HP" (nominally the former parent) after that.
In short, the current HP is already the result of a split, and the "new" HP will be whatever bit keeps the name, but will it have any meaning beyond a badge?
It's a similar case to Motorola, which had already split or spun-off parts of its business more than once into On Semiconductor, and a few years later into Freescale before the remaining "Motorola" split into two distinct companies with that name (one of which was later bought by Google).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).