HP Tipped To Split PCs, Printers From Corporate Business

HP might have a bombshell to drop this Monday if this insider tip pans out. The company is said to be spinning off its personal computer and printer units as a separate entity from its corporate hardware and services business, though its exact reasons for doing so remain unclear.

The usual reasons, or excuses if you will, that are given are one of growth and expansion. Or in other words, HP might no longer see its PC and printers as lucrative sources of profit compared to its more stable enterprise-facing products.

It definitely wouldn't be the first major PC maker to do so. Sony actually sold off its own PC VAIO business rather than spinning it off into a different entity. And it also isn't the first time HP has tried to shed that business. In 2011, HP already hinted at separating its PC business from what it considers its core operations.

What has finally triggered this rumored divorce is that HP was said to have been unsuccessful at selling its PC units to other makers like Dell and Lenovo. In addition, HP supposedly now sees its more home-oriented business as excess baggage that is weighing it down and preventing it from making mergers on the corporate side, like the previously speculated merger with data-storage equipment manufacturer EMC.

Whether shedding off its PCs and printers will indeed free up HP to make partnerships that will boost its other hardware and services to the top of the foodchain and whether this move will again trigger speculation about the fate of the PC industry is something we'll have to wait and see if HP does make that fated announcement later today.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal

VIA: Re/code