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HP to Spin Off PC Business as Sales Stagnate

Exiting the tablet business already? And they wonder why nobody bought the TouchPad? They seemed so committed. :p

They were waaaay too late to the tablet party to expect instant success.
 
and now they might be stopping hardware for webos and just license it. imo Apple should see if it could buy the webos portfolio from HP. give HP some cash and Apple gets some really nice patents and very good software to further iOS. lets be honest, webos is not going anywhere it seems with HP. the touchpad hasn't sold well and the store is not gaining many apps. RIM is going down the tubes so the 3 major players are Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Apple expressed interest in webos so i think this would be nice. It sold for 1.2 billion so maybe buy it 2 or 3 billion. A very very small dent for Apple.
 
HP literally just started selling the Pre 3 in Europe yesterday and now they've announced their abandoning their hardware. They're going to have a very very hard time convincing users they aren't abandoning the software too.

What a COLOSSAL failure on HP's part. This is one of the worst marketing/product release decisions I've ever seen.
 
Update: According to The Wall Street Journal, HP will be exiting the tablet and smartphone hardware business, although it will continue work on webOS and presumably license it out to third-party manufacturers.
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This news could further slow the slow sales of the TouchPad.
 
cvaldes said:
We'll have to wait for the announcement.

It is likely that the people and assets of the PC business unit will be separated from the main company, so the people who were designing, building, marketing, selling, and servicing PCs yesterday, will do so tomorrow.

Whether or not they will do so under the HP name is something we'll see. HP spun off their testing instruments division in 1999, but did not let them take the HP name. The company is Agilent and it still a publicly traded company (NYSE:A).

If they just got someone to build the PCs, it really wouldn't be a spinoff. It would be HP shutting down their PC business and selling the brand. But that doesn't appear to be HP's intent.
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I for one like HP. My family got one back in 2001 from Tesco, and having a PC with a modem built-in blew my 9 year old mind :p My mum wanted a blue iMac G3, but I think someone advised her against Macs because they "didn't run anything". I think their laptops are good if you get the higher-end stuff.

Bet Dr. Dre is gutted ;)
 
No PC biz and now no more WebOS hardware?? Wow, they just basically conceded the entire smartphone/tablet line to Apple, Google and Microsoft. Who the hell is in charge over there??:confused:
 
rdowns said:
HP is finally free of Carly Fiorina. She forced that merger on them.
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I wondered how long it would be before the Carly haters came out. ;) As a matter of fact, she has been gone for six and a half years . . .

At least she DID something and shook up a company that desperately needed it at the time.
 
on the server side, Compaq was a great buy

maflynn said:
I guess the billions they spent buying compaq was money well invested then :rolleyes:
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Naimfan said:
LOL on Compaq . . .
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Actually, if you look under the surface the HP server business is the Compaq ProLiant business, and is still based in Houston, not Palo Alto.

HP killed all of the HP Intel servers, and the Compaq ProLiants became HP ProLiants.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I love 'Mac'Rumors :p
 
maflynn said:
I guess the billions they spent buying compaq was money well invested then :rolleyes:

IBM was very successful in spinning of their pc business and focusing on services, so I guess why not HP.
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My guess is that HP will retain the high-end of the business (much of which can be attributed to Compaq, particularly the ProLiant product line). Compaq started in the desktop PC world, then moved into the high-end with their acquisitions of Tandem and DEC (the latter was admittedly a disaster).
 
As was said Apple really wanted Palm before HP bought them. I wonder if Apple could swing a deal for it now? I think it could make for some interesting improvements in iOS. And some of the original iOS designers started WebOS. I wonder if they'd like to be "back in the fold" with Apple now? Could be good for everyone in iOS land.
 
Another one bites the dust. This marks the end of 2 acquisitions (Compaq and Palm).

I wonder who will buy HP's PC division? ASUS and Lenovo are potential buyers. The latter doesn't have an announced "Ultrabook" yet, and if it's going to be 40% of the market like Intel thinks, that would be a quick way in since HP already has one under development.

WebOS sounds like it's history to me. I guess even Manny Pacquiao couldn't save it. Microsoft Windows Phone looks to be the only alternative to Android and iOS right now.
 
This seems out of left field and sudden!

I guess sales are not even coming close on the hardware side for phone and tablets to what they expected?

Interesting. But hey... now Samsung, HTC, LG and others have another OS alternative to Android since Google is going to compete on the hardware and software side with Moogle phones and tablets. :p
 
AidenShaw said:
Actually, if you look under the surface the HP server business is the Compaq ProLiant business, and is still based in Houston, not Palo Alto.

HP killed all of the HP Intel servers, and the Compaq ProLiants became HP ProLiants.
Click to expand...

..and very good kit it is. Much like IBM did, HP know that there is no money in being a high volume, razor margin box shifter. Services and server room is where the money is.
 
cvaldes said:
My guess is that HP will retain the high-end of the business (much of which can be attributed to Compaq, particularly the ProLiant product line). Compaq started in the desktop PC world, then moved into the high-end with their acquisitions of Tandem and DEC (the latter was admittedly a disaster).
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Compaq's were one of the worst Laptops I have ever owned.

I agree with the option of Apple buying HP's WebOS business though. It would help Apples iCloud/Devices a lot.
 
That was short lived. I would've thought HP would be like Microsoft and establish themselves with webOS and the touchpad. Seems to me like they're throwing the in the towel prematurely (although this could be seen as a smart move in the long run).
 
Didn't they JUST started shipping the Pre 3? And the TouchPas wasn't that old. It seems a lot of companies try to make their own iPad competitor, but fail. Just doesn't offer the same experience as an iPad. They are slow and sluggish, or look cheap. HP needs to just stick with making computers and printers. Samsung needs to stick with TV.
 
It makes sense to spin off the PC business. IBM was ahead of the curve there.

Giving up on WebOS hardware though so early is a huge surprise. I thought they would be in it for the long haul and had the patients to let it develop. I guess not.
 
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