Hewlett Packard (HP) earlier this year announced its intention to sell its consumer electronics division. It killed off products like its tablets (see here). It was a bit of a surprise, because HP is the largest manufacturer in the world. It made one ask, if they can’t do it, who could?
It also made them look at their CEO, who was fired in the aftermath of the announcement. A new CEO took over. And then they announced they had figured out that if they sell the very large PC division, they would lose economies of scale (and quantities and pricing power) that affected other divisions (like servers) which use many of the same parts.
The new CEO, Meg Whitman, has just finished her review and announced “HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees”
One can only ask, what were they thinking? In a perfect world, or even a good world, shouldn’t they have done that before they announced the sale. Makes you wonder what’s next…