HP Will Keep Its PC Division, Make Windows 8 Tablets

October 27th, 2011 by Davey Alba, LAPTOP Staff Writer

Hewlett-Packard is staying in the PC business, the company confirmed this afternoon. The number one PC maker announced this past August that it might possibly spin off the Personal Systems Group, but now it has decided not to do so.

The report comes from a newly minted press release where CEO Meg Whitman says she expects the move will be best for consumers, businesses, and enterprise customers, as well as employees.

“As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” HP Executive VP Todd Bradley said in the release. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

In HP’s conference call, Whitman and colleagues reinforced the same point: HP and PSG are simply “better together.” After conducting a thorough review of the situation, her team came to the conclusion that there is more economic value in keeping the companies together. The HP reps cited 2.3 billion dollars in operating profit that PSG provides in financial value, and how the two companies inevitably create more shareholder value together than separately.

All in all, HP remains “committed” to the PC business, which Executive VP Bradley says will continue the tradition of quality and innovation that HP stands for.

Another interesting bit of news came from Whitman’s remark that the company intends to “make another run of tablets.” She says the company will “be there with Windows 8,” which ties in with earlier reports of HP testing Windows 8 on their tablets. Finally, she said that a holistic review of WebOS would be needed before they made any clear-cut decisions with the mobile OS moving forward.