Reports suggest the OEM will split its PC and printer business from its corporate hardware and services.
BBC News reported on the Wall Street Journal’s scoop that HP “plans to split itself into two companies”, with the “better-performing” computer and printer business moving away from the corporate hardware and services business, with the WSJ stating that the move “could be announced as early as Monday”.
The news site noted in turn that HP “had been looking to focus on its faster-growing businesses” in the midst of a “restructuring plan” alongside tens of thousands of job cuts worldwide, and its last quarterly results saw a “sharp fall in profit despite a rise in revenue”. CEO Meg Whitman is set to head the spin-off company, and will reportedly be “chairman of HP’s printing and PC business”.
Whitman had noted in August that demand for PCs was “coming back” but that the sector was a “declining business”, and BBC News noted that Lenovo overtook HP as the world’s largest PC manufacturer in 2012, putting the OEM “under pressure” in a market it used to dominate. The Recycler reported last month on rumours that the OEM was in talks to sell the PC and printing business to technology company EMC, before breaking off discussions over price.
The OEM is still involved in legal battles concerning its acquisition of UK software company Autonomy; with the two year battle beginning after the OEM wrote down its valuation of the company and claimed it had been misled on finances.