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HP Businesses

HP Is Planning To Split Into Two Separate Businesses, Sources Say 118

Posted by samzenpus from the breaking-things-up dept.
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.
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HP Is Planning To Split Into Two Separate Businesses, Sources Say More

HP Is Planning To Split Into Two Separate Businesses, Sources Say

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  • Next up (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:09PM (#48069883)

    The brand-new USD$100 HP 3D printer*.

    * requires spools (embedded with a security chip) of "standard" PLA (with a non-standard diameter and melting point) which will be available for only USD$99 each.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Plammox ( 717738 )
      That would be much better than the current offering from Stratasys, where the Mojo 3D printer is 10.000 EUR and the ABS/Support cartridges are 200 EUR each.

    • Still cheaper than a replicator if you end up printing less than 19 spools' worth of stuff over the life of the printer.

    • I'll take 3.

      Should be doable to salvage enough material to build 2 normal 3D printers that I can actually use, and it's cheaper than the parts themselves...

  • Let me guess... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:10PM (#48069893)

    They'll call the spinoff Compaq!

  • PERFECT! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:12PM (#48069903) Homepage

    The part that makes shitty consumer hardware is splitting up from the part that makes rock solid server hardware. This is an absolute dream come true!

    • Itanic based Integrities (Score:4, Informative)

      by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:53PM (#48070077)
      Would the Integrity line a.k.a. Itanic be a part of the latter?

    • Yes! My thoughts exactly.

      HP's ProLiant servers are built to withstand a nuclear blast. Their consumer printers probably break down in a clean room.

    • You can't be serious. The division of HP that actually makes lots of money is the consumer electronics printers and PCs. The enterprise portion of the company has been mismanaged for ages, and there were call to split off the profitable consumer part of the company for more than a decade..

    • Rock solid? One of my customers is seeing a 1 in 4 failure rate on the new gen8 blades. Rock solid and HP Server Hardware are two things that don't belong in the same sentence together.

  • Name ideas: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:22PM (#48069951)

    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!)

    • Corporate hardware & services I suspect would become EDS, while the printers & computers could be Compaq. I doubt there'll be any DEC. Both Alpha & PA-RISC are dead, and the writing is pretty much on the wall for the Itanic as well.
    • And they should spin off their mobile division too...and called it Palm ;)

  • HoPeless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebusinessmedia1 ( 561777 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:25PM (#48069973)
    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.

    • Re:HoPeless (Score:5, Informative)

      by lurcher ( 88082 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @07:09PM (#48070143) Homepage

      The company that Bill and Dave started is still doing just fine, Its now Agilent (Life Sciences) and Keysight (Test and measurement).

      http://www.agilent.com/home
      http://www.keysight.com

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        +1.

        HP is only a name (run by empty suits) these days.
      • Thanks for the info on Keysight. I don't use test equipment, but I know that it is an oft-overlooked portion of HP that closely resembles the original company. What they call HP now seems to be more of a brand sticker.

    • Re:HoPeless (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @07:34PM (#48070217)

      This is pretty typical of modern corporate America, unfortunately. Wall Street often rewards layoffs with a stock price bump, because it's an easy way to cut costs and boost short-term profits, as well as a way for a company to rid itself of any potential deadwood (in theory) that's dragging it's performance down. It's pretty likely this is also a move that will generate a short term boost as well, which means high-fives all around the boardroom.

      Well, it would be foolish to get sentimental over the withering of a corporation, except for the fact that the low folks on the totem pole are the ones who get laid off first. Business tends to be Darwinian in nature, and if HP can't get it's shit together, then it simply leaves room for a competitor that will, and hopeful those new competitors are hiring. It's aggravating that CEOs continue to profit while they suck the life from a business, but I suppose it's quite literally none of my business how they want to run and ruin theirs.

      • The problem is those competitors are hiring in China and India. While being a capitalist at heart, I recognize this as a flaw with capitialism.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Its not a flaw. Its a feature.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You mean capitalism is only O.K. as long as it benefits Americans ? I always suspected that.

    • What about 'The Machine'?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      It seems this happens a lot to many companies. :(

    • A diverse company like HP was bound not to have a consistent leadership and direction. This is why activist stockholders were calling for company's split up for decades.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      To be fair, 3rd-world manufacturing has been eating into consumer and high-volume manufacturing for a lot of companies. Figuring out the future is not easy, especially for a hardware company.

    • You know what? I won't be sad to see them go. After the garbage that they loaded on to the consumer market, and they way that they have mismanaged their company why should they deserve to slog on with reputation alone?

      It makes me happy to see that even a behemoth like HP is mortal, and producing lousy products can result in the brow beating of a company no matter how long it takes and how much money they make. .

    • It's just sad to see these once respected companies turn into such failures. Many companies just become victims of their own legacy. Too much bloat, too many distractions, too hard to affect change from the bottom. Big tech companies with long legacies are generally pathetic when it comes to efficiency; they end up with too much baggage and it takes to much effort to overcome the inertia to actually change anything. HP has some good products, it's unfortunate to see them flailing when they could dominate.

  • Some advice to the CEOs... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter AT tedata DOT net DOT eg> on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:29PM (#48069993) Journal

    If you can't figure out how to make one company successful, why double your workload?

  • boat anchor (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @06:36PM (#48070025)
    So they're dropping their company's boat anchor (the lowest quality PCs, laptops, and printers in existence) and expecting it to float? Good luck with that.

    • Re:boat anchor (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MikeKD ( 549924 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @07:59PM (#48070295) Homepage
      No, but it will help with their parachutes.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Bigby ( 659157 )

      There is a reason why IBM sold their PC business, Dell went private, and HP is selling theirs off. PC production shrinking and too competitive. The need will always be there, but the margin is like running a convenience store. They are sending it off to "die". But only die in the wall street sense.

  • Buy back the name (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wiredlogic ( 135348 ) on Sunday October 05, 2014 @07:03PM (#48070113)

    Good. It's only a matter of time now until the PC unit fails and the HP name can be bought back by its proper owner Keysight.

  • Last CEO (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Didn't the last CEO of HP pitch this? The stock fell 40%, the CEO was fired, and the board said "No, No, No, we're not going to do that."

    HP consumer PC segment must be hurting bad for Whitman to revise that decision.

    • Yes he (Leo Apotheker) did. And he was right. Also, he might have overpaid (granted) for Autonomy, but the whole so-called "fraud" that neither Whitman's board, nor their lawyers and accountants doing the due diligence spotted (because it wasn't), is the basis for a massive write-down that Whitman needed as a backdrop to make it appear as if her efforts generated any revenue whatsoever. Whitman's HP's devious avoidance of legal discovery is entirely congruous with a strategy of sweeping her crap under th

  • ... each other. The printers are well known, they have an impact in small business and medium business. When those businesses get larger they feel more comfortable contacting with HP because it is a company they know.

    Take that away and they will will see other options as equally attractive.

    • It doesn't work this way. I worked as sysadmin for near decade in academia, where HP had a near monopoly grip on the network printing. Users were mostly happy with the HP printers, but that never really made anything think: "HP's printers are good.. why don't I buy some PCs or servers from them.." HPs desktop machines always had a pretty weak reputation among sysadmins and users. Dell and Apple were always number one when it came to desktop systems, while the data centers had all kinds of computers, startin

      • The HP computers have a bad rep because the consumer grade HP computers are probably the most crapware bloated pieces of shit you can buy. I have never seen machines from any other company with as much shit on them as an HP system. The first thing I do with most of those machines is wipe the harddrive. But with the HP machines it is an absolute requirement.

        I personally hate their computers and would never buy from them at this point. Even their printers don't impress me much these days.

        That said... there is

  • ...Merge, downsize, split the stock and/or split the business, rinse, lather, repeat. Corporations are in constant motion and adjustment of their books in order to manage the market, the labor costs, the tax laws, SEC, and the international equities market. All is a hedge on a future that is profitable to a select few, but it impacts all of us. It seems that the interests of these large corporations cause a great deal of uncertainty for their employees and the market in order to be competitive. It was

  • I got an email ad from HP saying it was my 'last chance'' to get a Win 7 PC

  • Will people be buying an H Printer, or a P Printer?
  • I've lost count of how many times HP split off/spun off parts of the company in the last 20 years ...
  • They will probably keep the consumer side as HP and name the business side something else. Now what could this new company be called. Oh hey! Let's call it Compaq!

  • Out of the slppery depths of Hell the Leviathan rises once more. DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION has returned. Say it with me Brothers and sisters: all hail the PDP- 16894. Hoozaah. Hoozaaah. Is that a tear of joy or despair. We will never know.

  • I think they will sell-off one of them

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