Hewlett Packard has now announced that it will be keeping its PC and tablet arm and not be spinning it off as had been proposed by recently ousted CEO Léo Apotheker. It appears Meg Whitman has spent her first few weeks running the show pretty much undoing everything Apotheker had done during his time in charge.
Keeping its Personal Systems Group (PSG) that makes its popular laptops and tablets under the HP umbrella will make HP “stronger” according to Whitman. HP are currently the worlds biggest PC manufacturer, and whilst that is a low-margin business – it helps the company provide end-to-end solutions to enterprise customers as well increase the brand awareness on a consumer level. Shares in HP rose 4.8% on the announcement showing the market’s support for this reconsideration.
Whether this decision will mean that HP will now get back into the tablet business after pulling out of that market after only a couple of months and offering their TouchPads in £75 firesales is now a question worth considering. TouchPads never caught on originally because whilst they were similarly specced to the iPad, they certainly were not better, and ther was no reason a consumer would choose them over Apple‘s already successful tablets that already had an app ecosystem. If they had priced them around the £250-£300 mark and cut their margins then they would likely have sold a lot better. They certainly sold like hotcakes at the £75 price-point.