Around the Net
HP Keeping PC Business In-House
- Reuters, Friday, October 28, 2011 12:54 PM
We don’t imagine Apple, or other PC makers, loosing sleep over the news, but Hewlett-Packard has decided not to spin off its personal computers unit. The idea, credited to recently ousted CEO Leo Apotheker, apparently would have cost the company billions in expenses and lost business. Indeed, separating the PC unit would have cost the company $1.5 billion in one-time expenses and another $1 billion annually, according to HP’s newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman.
“The retention of the PC business marks the latest flip-flop in strategy as the company had said earlier that its preferred option was to spin out the business,” writes Reuters. Still, according to Gartner analyst Mark Fabi, "This is the most pragmatic decision and allows them to continue to leverage the end-to-end supply chain benefits.
What’s more, the decision also shows Whitman's decisiveness as CEO, Fabi added. "Clearly, this was missing over the past year.” Next up for HP, as Whitman tells Reuters, is deciding what to do with its WebOS software.
