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HP to spin off PC business, discontinues TouchPad

by Chris Rawson Aug 18th 2011 at 4:00PM

Huge news from one of Apple's biggest competitors today: Hewlett Packard (HP) and its board of directors have "authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group." In plain English, this means HP may be planning to spinning off its personal computer division into a separate company, while parent corporation HP will concentrate more fully on enterprise sales and deployment.

If this move sounds familiar, it's because that's almost exactly what IBM did in 2005 when it sold its PC business to Lenovo. IBM has since focused on enterprise applications and often stunning R&D projects, and the company has arguably been better off for it.

Perhaps more pertinent to those following the ongoing smartphone "wars," HP is also discontinuing its entire tablet and smartphone business. Sales of the TouchPad were reportedly extremely disappointing to both HP and its retail partners, so while unfortunate, the move is not particularly surprising. HP will continue development on webOS despite discontinuing sales and production of webOS devices, which brings to mind the possibility of HP licensing webOS to other smartphone manufacturers.

From the sounds of things, HP's chief competitor going forward will be IBM instead of Apple. Good luck to them.



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Huge news from one of Apple's biggest competitors today: Hewlett Packard (HP) and its board of directors have "authorized the...
 

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Kelmon

Boy, am I glad that I didn't decide to buy a TouchPad at launch (I was on the fence about it). Given the reviews of the device it was clear that it was unlikely to do very well unless it was fixed and effectively relaunched, but I wasn't expecting HP to throw in the towel after little more than a month. I definitely didn't see this one coming…

Now I'm wondering what Dell's plan is going to be.

August 19 2011 at 3:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael Long

HP also said they were going to concentrate on printing, but...

People, including business people, are buying iPads.

They're carrying around iPhones and iPads stuffed to the gills with ebooks, textbooks, manuals, and reams of PDF documents. They're walking around with constant 3G access to the Internet and to corporate intranets. There have apps specifically designed for accessing corporate dashboards and information systems (Roambi). There are Wyse and Citrix apps.

So, given the above, does it strike ANYONE as being a particularly good time to concentrate on PRINTERS???

August 19 2011 at 3:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
sunbeach7

Maybe they could call the new company, oh, I don't know, Compaq?

August 18 2011 at 8:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
timl2k11

Apple needs to scoop webOS up. There are things my Palm devices did that iOS still doesn't do, like simply linking a contact and/or location et. al to an appointment. Don't see appointments and recent emails, calls, etc. when I look at a contact.

August 18 2011 at 7:01 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
boyboston617

anything HP makes now sucks big time. they have totally lost their ability to make good products. sad to say i think the whole company should just close and be done with it.

August 18 2011 at 6:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Wheat Williams

In recent years I have developed a poor opinion of the quality of HP products, but I never expected such an epic fail. Poor Palm WebOS. We hardly knew ye.

August 18 2011 at 5:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lecayen

I would pick up a TocuhPad for $100. It might be worth seven times that on eBay in a couple of years.

August 18 2011 at 4:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Shannon Doherty

webOS will definitely be licensed. HTC, Asus, will have webOS devices out and better than current HP/Palm offerings like the Pre, etc. I don't believe webOS is dead but it's a major shift from the homegrown strategy (like Apple's where the hardware and software are by the same company) to third-party.

August 18 2011 at 4:25 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Shannon Doherty's comment
BTBlomberg

I would have to agree. That may be what part of their focus on "Software" will be and WebOS will be licensed out to others. The again, they just may sell that off at a loss or write it off.

August 19 2011 at 12:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lolhipster

HP barely makes a profit on selling PCs, so this isn't a bad idea.

Sad to hear about webOS though, maybe HTC or RIM could grab it from HP.

August 18 2011 at 4:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ericdano

Doesn't help that they had a huge failure in their ads for the TouchPad. Russell Brand? Some fighter guy? And some broadway dancer girl? What?

August 18 2011 at 4:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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