HP flip-flops on sale of Personal Systems Group
We love PCs, after all
Meg Whitman, who in September replaced the deposed Leo Apotheker as president and CEO of HP, has decided that “exploring options” for the company’s PC business will not, after all, involve selling the division.
Whether in response to indifference to the opportunity to buy its Personal Systems Group, or because it’s decided there are a few strategies it hasn’t tried yet, HP has just announced that it’s keeping PSG after all.
“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG," Whitman said in the announcement. "It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees. HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger”.
It’s quite a change of tune for HP, which in September saw the PSG as something of an orphan in the business. Back then, PSG boss Todd Bradley said: "For PSG to compete for capital with everything from software to routers to printers, it makes enormous amounts of sense for the company to spin out, raise its own capital, invest in the PC priorities and the channel priorities around personal computing."
Now, Bradley says: “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.” ®
COMMENTS
Not only PSG, but the company as a whole can, and should win some confidence with this announcement.
So far Withman is doing a decent job tranquilizing the people inside the company, which is the first step for HP to try and recover after this horrible year.
Many of us were scared sh*tless every time Leo was near a microphone...
It's the right decision. Let's hope PSG wins back confidence in the maket after the chaos caused by Apotheker.
Nope: this was a no-brainer. Stunt-CEO Apotheker was deranged in thinking that there was no value in the PC business - even that Cisco guy was able to score some cheap and easy points by pointing out the tangential benefits of getting kit into enterprises and retail - and reverting his decision conveniently closes the door on that crazy era, lets everyone breathe a sigh of relief, and makes Meg look like a steady hand at the wheel.
Pressing on with a sale, meanwhile, particularly if they hadn't really followed through - everyone was probably still looking at each other in puzzlement at HP HQ - is just so much more work than business as usual that the endgame would quite probably have been the break-up of HP.
Headline
"HP Flip-Flops on sale." I immediately wondered if they were J-K or D-type.
From an ex-insider
Leo was only "thinking aloud" about spinning off the PC division and didn't really have plans or specifics or anything like that.
I guess one of the (many) problems with Leo was that he didn't understand that a CEO doesn't think aloud, spitball, ad lib, or otherwise make "what if" sound bites in a press conference. For that matter, a the guy who is supposed to set the direction and call the shots shouldn't do such things in public period. Granted saying it in public doesn't imply 5 nines or better reliability as a press conference does but it's still 2 sigma.
