Hewlett-Packard said Thursday that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for the personal systems group responsible for the company's personal-computer 
sales. Possible options include a full or partial separation from HP through a spin-off or other transaction, the company said.
HP also plans to discontinue operations for its webOS-based TouchPad media tablet and webOS phones. The company said it will continue to explore options to optimize the value of the webOS software it inherited when the technology giant bought Palm last year for $1.2 billion.
Additionally, Autonomy and HP said Thursday that the companies are holding talks about HP acquiring the British provider of enterprise infrastructure software. The goal for HP is to further bolster the robust profitability of its enterprise software division.
The iPad Factor
During HP's prior business quarter ending in April, the company's enterprise software business grew 17 percent year over year due to strong growth in licenses and services, and the division achieved a 20.2 percent operating margin. By contrast, the operating margin at HP's personal-computing business only amounted to 5.7 percent, with strong PC sales to businesses failing to compensate for a decline in sales to consumers.
Slowing consumer demand has had a negative impact on the PC market worldwide in recent quarters. "The slow overall growth indicates that the PC market is still in a period of adjustment, which began in the second half of 2010," said Mika Kitagawa, a principal analyst at Gartner .
HP remained the global PC market leader in this year's second quarter as the technology giant accounted for 17.5 percent of all PC shipments worldwide. Though HP performed better than average in most regions, Kitagawa noted that HP was pulled down by its performance in Asia/Pacific, where HP's shipment growth was flat even as the market overall grew 8.4 percent.
On the consumer side of the North America PC market, HP's negative growth of 14.1 percent in the second quarter was slightly worse than the market average of negative 13.8 percent. However, HP did well in the North America professional market, where "HP shipments grew 15.3 percent," whereas the overall "average was only 1.8 percent," Kitagawa said in an e-mail. (continued...)
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