HP plans to keep its PC division

By Tom Warren, on 27th Oct 11 8:28 pm with 40 Comments

HP announced on Thursday that it plans to keep its PC division.

HP originally announced that it was on the brink of spinning off its Personal Systems Group (PSG). The group is responsible for consumer and business PCs and accessories along with digital entertainment devices. HP CEO Meg Whitman announced on Thursday that the company has no plans to scrap its PC division. “HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger.”

HP undertook a strategic review and concluded that its PSG unit contributes a “significant extent” to HP’s solutions portfolio and overall brand value. “As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

A sell off would have followed a similar approach to IBM who sold its PC division to China-based Lenovo Group in late 2004. HP ships the largest amount of PCs worldwide and will play a big role in Microsoft’s roll-out of Windows 8 PCs. HP looks set to introduce a Windows 8 tablet. HP unveiled a Windows 7 based Slate in October. Priced at $799, the device is powered by a 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z540, 2GB of RAM, 64GB SSD and will handle 1080p video. There’s also a front facing camera and a rear one. The 8.9-inch device runs Windows 7 Professional and HP targeted the enterprise and business market. HP hasn’t ruled out further Windows 8 based tablets though. HP’s Phil McKinney, president and CTO of HP’s personal systems group, revealed that the company is working closely with Microsoft for Windows 8 in an interview earlier this year.

  • Guest

    Good news for both HP and MS. Now hopefully HP will stop screwing around with WebOS and double down on W8.

    • Test1ngi23

      C’mon now HP. None of this “thinking for yourself” or “trying to do things differently” crap. Do as you’re told!

    • Guest

      Instead of showing us how stupid you are, which is redundant, why not attempt to make a case for why HP is better off without a PC division?

    • Test1ngi23

      I don’t think they’ll be better off without their PC business. I didn’t take issue with that. I took issue with Guest’s disparaging of HP for trying to diversify a little bit.

    • Guest

      @   Test1ngi23

      Okay, let’s hear your “why WebOS was a wise diversification move” pitch.

    • user

      FYI: It is already a leader in server and print business 

    • Anonymous

      Wow, you really are a very reliable troll.  When you become CEO of the largest PC OEM, then sure, proudly “Think Different” and destroy your company.

    • Guest

      He’s been trolling MS for a decade. Lives on the Yahoo message board and is a regular on Mini-Microsoft and others MS-related forums. Total whack job.

    • Test1ngi23

      @Guest

      Wow! Didn’t know I had such a following!

    • Anonymous

      @e150a27e646961d5594b4ac9b6bd58f3:disqus 

      Maybe you should rethink your trolling.  I’m sure you have your reasons for hating MS, but they are probably based on the company MS was back in the 90′s and early 2000.  This is a different company now and you can see it in their products.  IE9, Kinect, WP7, Windows 8, just to name a few.  Crawl out of your walled garden and check out our great ecosystem.  You may like it.

    • Guest

      @e150a27e646961d5594b4ac9b6bd58f3:disqus 

      You don’t have a following. That’s why you have to seek out others who do.

    • Guest

      @AaronDotNET:disqus 

      “I’m sure you have your reasons for hating MS”

      Fired, would be my guess.

  • Anonymous

    I’m one of those people that actually had a really good experience with HP.  My laptop lasted for years, was fixed for free and quickly at every step of warranty repair and even when they did repairs they went over and beyond what was expected to include new bezels, new touchpads, cleanup keyboard and all that.

    I would be happy to MS and HP really align their businesses.  HP had some nice slates / tablets that could really fit well with Windows 8.   Where HP royally screwed up was trying to become a Microsoft by pushing webOS without anywhere near the capacity to do so, nor the guts to see it happen.  MS on the other hand isn’t shy about blowing billions to make something happen and if i was a large company who wants to sell products to the masses, you bet i’d be more than happy to align with a company that puts money on the table.

    So yeah, i’d love to see the HP i knew. the HP that made a 1,000 dollar laptop worth every penny in design, performance and function.  Don’t compete against Dell for the ugliest system or cheapest pc, don’t compete against lenovo for diminishing support and value. People are willing to pay for something they like and they enjoy – HP has been able to do that before, they can do it again.

    • Anonymous

      I’m with you.  I personally love my HP laptop.  It’s powerful, stylish (IMHO), and it was a very good price.  It had a quad core i7 CPU for around $800 before Apple fans even know what that processor was.  I honestly don’t understand why I read so much hate for HP hardware from comments on Engadget or other places.  Then again, they hate Dell, Gateway, eMachines, and every other non-Apple OEM.

    • http://twitter.com/hammeredpizza Louis Sandiford

      With you aswell.

      *Typed from my HP laptop.

    • Guest

      HP was trying to become an Apple, not a MS. And yeah, it was a stupid idea. What they need to do now is dramatically reduce the number of models, thereby allowing them to focus on incorporate higher end features and better design while still driving down costs.

  • Anonymous

    People were really down on Meg Whitman becoming the CEO.  But it looks like she has already made a good decision.

    • Anonymous

      i am not a fan of Whitman but she did make a good decision here. To be honest, I think they were nuts to announce the possible spinoff/sale earlier and probably would have changed their mind anyway without Whitman.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah I have no idea what HP was thinking in saying that.  It would be like Walmart announcing they will get out of the retail store business so they can focus on their higher margin Vision Centers.  If anything, they should have at least kept things private, so they don’t look like back peddling fools here.

    • Guest

      One good decision doesn’t make her a great CEO. She needs to follow through by taking back the innovation lead in PCs from Apple.

    • Anonymous

      When did HP ever have an innovation lead on Apple when it came to consumer PCs?

    • Guest

      early 1990′s to around mid 2Ks, shill.

    • Anonymous

      A better question is when did they loose it?  I bought my quad core i7, 4GB RAM, Blue-ray drive, HP laptop for $800 2 years ago.  A quick check at Apple’s store shows their 15inch Macbook with i7 starts at $1,799.  Obviously I know that a straight comparison like that isn’t completley fair, but I am wondering what you mean by innovation because it seems to me you get a lot more bang for the buck with HP, you get better specs earlier, and you get features that Apple still doesn’t have, like BlueRay, HDMI, or USB 3.0.  As for looks, I know I’m in the tiny minority here, but fuck it, I prefer the looks of my HP laptop over a Macbook pro.  Even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t spend twice the money based on looks alone.

    • Guest

      Who had a touch PC first? A subportable one? One with 10 hours of battery life? One with the OS loaded in solid state memory? Chiclet keyboards?

      It’s obvious from your comment frequency that you really really like the sound of your own voice. It’s just not clear why.

    • Anonymous

      I’m not saying we should adorn her with the “Best CEO Ever” medal right now.  But so far, reaffirming HP’s devotion to PC’s is a good step on her part.  Just pointing out that some people prejudged her.

    • Guest

      People prejudged her as having virtually no experience selling systems/software/services to the enterprise or consumers. And in fact she has none. They also didn’t like that she was already on the board that approved all the previous mistakes. 

      While I share those concerns, I’m prepared to judge her on performance. But this decision is just too obvious to give her much credit for making it.

    • Penta2100

      I would love it if she was all about quality and customer satisfaction. That way they would start making sexy computers(Envy is sexy but it still has some rough edges I have the 1st gen so I can’t say about the second). Dear Meg. If you are reading this please, please, PLEASE, make quality and customer satisfaction the top priorities

  • Anonymous

    Did you heard what I said? There was no chance HP would dump PC business. What happened was HP knocked the gates in Redmond:  look, my friend, we made a mistake, okey, the one who made the mistake was fired, now we want back. Didn’t Intel do the same?

    There are more stupid people than regular people, a lot more, trust me on this. 

    • Anonymous

      I’ve always said, by definition half the people are of below average intelligence!

  • http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

    Must have seen the Windows 8 goodness and didnt want to pass on the possibilities. They’ll probably sell a ton more of their all-in-ones. Good move.

  • Anonymous

    I bought an HP PC last year. HPE 180t, now called the 380t. Anyways what makes it special are 2 eSATA ports. Apparently HP only puts that on their highest end model. Shame on them for that.

    • Guest

      Yeah, because your average consumer wants to hook up an external eSATA device.

      What color is the sky on your planet, anyway?

    • Anonymous

      I use both eSATA ports, so eat it.

    • Guest

      You’re also have ten competing personalities, but that doesn’t answer the question posed.

  • Anonymous

    This decision was made when they fired their last CEO.

    • Guest

      Apparently not. Otelini met with Whitman as recently as a week ago to try and convince her to stay the course.

  • baggage1

    HP all the way… Innovation, quality and price. A winning combination no matter who’s at the top trying to mess it up. Meg just corrected the rudder position to ease her Co.’s jitters and secure the existing customer base. No real fan of MS or the contenders. Their memristor will shake stuff up pretty soon….

  • http://twitter.com/ama_neden ama neden

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  • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

    It’s “try our own thing that hasn’t gone well so far that no one has ever heard of and that we can only sell if its marked as clearance” vs “windows”.  Hmm, let me think! ;)

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