It's the right decision. Let's hope PSG wins back confidence in the maket after the chaos caused by Apotheker.
HP flip-flops on sale of Personal Systems Group
Meg Whitman, who in September replaced the deposed Leo Apotheker as president and CEO of HP, has decided that “exploring options” for the company’s PC business will not, after all, involve selling the division. Whether in response to indifference to the opportunity to buy its Personal Systems Group, or because it’s decided …
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Friday 28th October 2011 02:50 GMT A. Coatsworth
Not only PSG, but the company as a whole can, and should win some confidence with this announcement.
So far Withman is doing a decent job tranquilizing the people inside the company, which is the first step for HP to try and recover after this horrible year.
Many of us were scared sh*tless every time Leo was near a microphone...
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Friday 28th October 2011 18:52 GMT Tom 13
Not just the Apothakare, you've got Fiorna in there too.
Back when I had just gotten out of college, if it was scientific equipment, HP was THE brand to have: printers, pcs, detectors, lasers, chromatography equipment, or any of a large varieties of 'scopes. They've had a long run of bad management and hope they can turn things around.
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Friday 28th October 2011 00:15 GMT Eddy Ito
From an ex-insider
Leo was only "thinking aloud" about spinning off the PC division and didn't really have plans or specifics or anything like that.
I guess one of the (many) problems with Leo was that he didn't understand that a CEO doesn't think aloud, spitball, ad lib, or otherwise make "what if" sound bites in a press conference. For that matter, a the guy who is supposed to set the direction and call the shots shouldn't do such things in public period. Granted saying it in public doesn't imply 5 nines or better reliability as a press conference does but it's still 2 sigma.
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Friday 28th October 2011 09:50 GMT Mage
They really only have two businesses left
They were never good at Software or Services.
Their servers are not good value and not as good as they once where.
They made a mistake with the details of the Tablet, they should have tried again rather than burn it.
Their PCs and Printers is what is left. But they need to do their own design and improve quality. They need to fix any problems with their PSG, not dispose it and be on a downward spiral to nothing. They'll never emulate IBM's shift of ditching PCs to Lenovo because IBM was major in SW & services before the PC and never left that. HP spun of the the Testgear that was their origin as Agilent and lost the heart of their R&D culture. They have never been good as a SW and Services company. Their origin was HW. Since they are world leader in Printers and PCs that's what they need to concentrate on.
If they just re-badge other's netbooks and laptops though they are doomed. Nor can they afford to be Apple and concentrate on just Aesthetics and GUIs.
Mine's the one with an HP calculator in the pocket.
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Friday 28th October 2011 12:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Nope: this was a no-brainer. Stunt-CEO Apotheker was deranged in thinking that there was no value in the PC business - even that Cisco guy was able to score some cheap and easy points by pointing out the tangential benefits of getting kit into enterprises and retail - and reverting his decision conveniently closes the door on that crazy era, lets everyone breathe a sigh of relief, and makes Meg look like a steady hand at the wheel.
Pressing on with a sale, meanwhile, particularly if they hadn't really followed through - everyone was probably still looking at each other in puzzlement at HP HQ - is just so much more work than business as usual that the endgame would quite probably have been the break-up of HP.
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Wednesday 2nd November 2011 14:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
No real surprise
HP absolutely should have continues with the sell of the PSG group.
In a string of bad decisions by Meg and the current HP Board this will be first of many.
The revenue from PSG was big number however the profit never was. As each quarter went by, the margin keeps shrinking.
Selling it while the group is still strong similar to what IBM did with Thinkpad would have maximized the value for the HP share holders.