HP said to be combining PC and printing divisions

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The decades-old corporation, often mentioned in accounts of the founding of Silicon Valley, has been through its share of turmoil in past years.

HP considered for months last year a proposal to sell or spin off its PC arm, known as the personal systems group. That emerged as the company announced it would get out of the business of making tablets with the failure of its TouchPad.

But after Whitman’s predecessor and former CEO Leo Apotheker was himself ousted in September for failing to revive a moribund stock, the company abandoned the idea and deemed personal computers core to its overall strategy.

HP’s moves evoked a mixed response from analysts. While they felt Whitman was moving at an impressive speed to fix issues at the company and jump-start growth, the advantages of the integration were unclear.

“It’s too early to tell what this is going to do,” Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said. “The risk I think is that both (divisions) have very different business models.”

A MOBILE WORLD

Earnings plummeted 44% in the fiscal first quarter and revenue slid 7% as the once-storied institution — which has changed CEOs twice in recent years — struggled to galvanize computer sales.

The most recent move is intended to reap the synergies of two divisions whose hardware products are often sold side-by-side, said the second source familiar with the plan.

The company feels it makes more operational sense to integrate the two with combined product offers, the source said.

This article was originally posted here