HP Splits into Two amongst Heavy Competition

In a bid to counter-act four years of declining sales amongst heavy competition, HP decides to divide itself into two parts, one offering software and business services, while the other offering products such as PCs and printers.

HP was founded 77 years ago (in 1939) by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, two Stanford graduates, in a garage in Palo Alto, the same place where Apple made its humble beginnings. Effectively initiating the Silicon Valley startup culture, HP is most appraised for excellent engineering skills combined with an extremely interactive corporate culture tailored to suit the employee. HP sells a wide range of computing equipment and tech services. Currently, HP employees number more than 300,000 – a number comparable to the population of a whole city if viewed in totality.

HP will split into HP Enterprise, dealing with software and business services such as computer servers, networking services, data storage services, consulting services; and HP Inc., dealing with PCs and printers. CEO of HP, Meg Whitman, will run HP Enterprise, while Dion Weisler will run HP Inc. starting Monday, November 2, 2015.

Whitman had this to say, "We're leaving behind a company that was very large, running two businesses that were very different. We're creating two new big companies, not bite-sized morsels, with real capabilities to change things. With less to focus on, each company will do core things better".

In recent times, like other companies of the same nature, HP has been struggling to maintain sales and revenue. In 2002, HP made a bid in Compaq, hoping to strengthen the PC market. However, the mobile and tablet has been the most influential technology in today’s time, and HP has still to catch up to other competitors in this field. Apple and Google were the fastest in adopting these technologies, and their sales and revenue show this fact clearly. Apart from declining business, HP has endured controversy in its internal business structure, with many top level executives being victims of scandals.

Truth is, the IT industry hasn’t been kind to older tech companies. Emerging technologies are changing the way businesses operate. For example, Microsoft has changed the way it sells Windows PCs after widespread criticism regarding Windows 10. Michael Dell was forced to take his company private and focus on corporate data centers, after acquiring EMC Corporation for more than $67 Billion. IBM has invested in cloud computing, cybersecurity and data analytics, after selling off most of its hardware business units.