The HP drama is gets more interesting. Its last CEO killed webOS hardware development, sold the touchpad in a fire sale (hey we got one), decided to spin-off the PC business and visioned to become a enterprise player. But hey, the strong response from the ones who supported consumer business and webOS enthusiasts lead to Leo Apotheker’s ouster and in came Meg Whitman. Previously heading eBay, Meg sure knows the B2C market well and here is another twist in HP’s tale. It may or may not please the angered shareholders but HP today announced that they would keep the PC business.
PSG (Personal System Group) is a $40 billion business for HP and is profitable. It is also the largest manufacturer of PC’s in the world. When announcing the spin-off, Apotheker had mentioned that the ‘tablets effect is real’ and as we had countered before, a $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm without full backing of HP’s scale couldn’t deliver magic with a tablet in less than a year and certainly didn’t do enough to kill off a $40 billion business unit. HP today announces that their decision comes after studying the ‘strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG.’
WebOS and Future?
You may read the complete statement here, but the question on our mind is what happens to webOS? We have had enough rumors of a new buyer for Palm’s asset lying with HP, but we need to wait longer to see if Amazon is really acquiring webOS. HP has announced no plans for webOS.
For now, we know that HP is making Windows 8 tablets. Meg Whitman in her call with analysts made it clear that she wanted to focus on a small number of things and she is excited about the work they are doing with Microsoft. Her talk sure hinted that webOS doesn’t fit in the strategy but thats only my translation. A couple of months and we would know how HP completes the webOS puzzle. Come 2012 look forward to lots of Microsoft love from HP to continue, Ballmer is surely smiling.
