Hewlett Packard has hinted that it is considering dumping its PC division, on a dramatic day of developments at the company.
The world's largest manufacturer of PCs is planning to sell that division of the business or at least spin it off into a separate company.
The company admitted it is "exploring strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group," following slowing sales and single digit profit margins on each PC it sells.
The company also admitted that it has felt the impact of tablets like the Apple iPad (although evidently not the HP TouchPad)
Reshuffling
On an epic day of reshuffling, HP also announced that it is killing-off the HP TouchPad tablet and the Pre line of smartphones and that webOS will be put out to pasture for the time being.
The company has also splashed out a whopping $10.2 billion dollars in cash for British enterprise software company Autonomy in a bid to capitalise on more profitable markets.
The deal will be completed by the end of the year.
Writing on the wall
As for selling-off its PC business Dan Olds, analyst at The Gabriel Consulting Group reckons HP can see that the end is nigh.
"Right now, we're just speculating about HP's motives, but, to me, I think that they see the writing on the wall with PCs," said Olds.
"It's a low-growth and very low-margin business these days and that's not likely to change in the future."
Link: Computer World
