If you want to know how HP’s split into two companies will affect the PC and consumer business, don’t ask HP.
The company has offered only vague statements, promising more “focus, financial resources and flexibility” for each entity, and “a strong roadmap into the most exciting new technologies like 3D printing and new computing experiences.”
So for now, here’s a proposal: Let’s see HP walk the talk with fewer dead-end experiments, and more products that actually matter.
In the last five years, the boldest thing HP did was acquire Palm and its WebOS operating system. The attempt to entwine hardware and software better was a good idea in theory, but the plan failed miserably as HP struggled with identity crises and management foibles. When current CEO Meg Whitman took over, she turned WebOS into an open-source project and eventually sold it to LG.
Since then, HP’s personal computing division has been floating with the breeze. In addition to pumping out the usual laptops and desktops, the company—like most other hardware makers—has dabbled in 2-in-1 Windows PCs, Chromebooks, Android tablets, and Android laptops, and is now part of the first wave of dirt-cheap Windows PCs.
But none of those efforts have produced anything that HP’s PC-making rivals have been eager to follow. HP has simply ridden the wave of the broader PC market, which declined in recent years but is now starting to stabilize.
