It is being reported that Hewlett-Packard could be getting ready to spin off its PC side of the business. Bloomberg reported today that the company could announce its decision to get rid of its PC division as early as today as part of its quarterly financial announcement. It was also reported that HP is planning to acquire the UK based company Autonomy Corp. for $10 billion. The company creates software for database search efforts.
This is still a rumor but if true could be a real shocker. HP leads in PC sales followed closely by Dell so a move away from the PC business could not be good. HP actually created what is considered the first personal computer, the Hewlett-Packard 9100A, way back in 1968 for $5,000. Later, Steve Wozniak offered HP the chance to purchase his design for what turned out to be the Apple 1 PC (he worked at HP at the time) but HP turned him down.
HP released PCs as well as a successful series of printers for much of the rest of the 20th century and in 2001 it acquired another large PC maker, Compaq. It later acquired the gaming PC maker Voodoo, but that move turned out to be unsuccessful. Most recently, HP acquired the Palm smartphone maker and its WebOS operating system. The company has been heavily pushing its HP TouchPad tablet since launching it in July, but there are reports that sales of the tablet have been poor so far
[Neowin]