HP May Stop Making PCs; Acquires Autonomy Corporation plc

By DE Editors

In a move spurred by the popularity of mobile computing, HP, the leading manufacturer of PCs, may separate its PC business—known as its Personal Systems Group (PSG)—into a separate company through a spin-off or other transaction. The PSG does include the engineering workstations manufactured by HP.

The company is implementing a plan to fundamentally transform the company. One component of the plan is focusing its investments, resources and management attention to “drive higher value solutions to enterprise, small and midsize business and public sector customers,” the company says.

The 2010 HP annual report shows HP’s PSG had annual revenues of approximately $41 billion in fiscal year 2010.  Net revenue from notebook PCs increased 12% while desktop PCs revenue increased 20%. Workstations revenue increased 42% while handhelds revenue declined 49%. In 2010 revenues, PSG accounted for $40,741 million (or 32%) of HP’s net $126,033 million.

According to a press statement, a post-transaction HP would include printing, software, services, servers, storage and networking.

“The exploration of alternatives for PSG demonstrates our commitment to enhancing shareholder value and sharpening our strategic and financial focus,” said L ©o Apotheker, HP president and chief executive officer in a press statement. “In March we outlined a strategy for HP, built on cloud, solutions and software to address the changing requirements of our customers, shaped heavily by secular market trends that are redefining how technology is consumed and deployed. Since then, we have observed the acceleration of these market trends, which has led us to evaluate additional steps to transform HP to meet emerging opportunities. We believe the acquisition of Autonomy, combined with the exploration of alternatives for PSG, would allow HP to more effectively compete and better execute its focused strategy.”

Founded in 1996, Autonomy is an infrastructure software for the enterprise with a customer base of more than 25,000 global companies, law firms and public sector agencies, and approximately 2,700 employees worldwide. Autonomy’s Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) platform allows computers to harness information, forming a conceptual and contextual understanding of electronic data, including unstructured information, such as text, email, web pages, voice and video. Autonomy’s software powers a spectrum of enterprise applications, including pan-enterprise search, customer interaction solutions, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery, records management, archiving, business process management, web content management, web optimization, rich media management and video and audio analysis.

Lynch will continue to lead Autonomy and will report to Apotheker. Following the acquisition, Autonomy will operate separately.

For more information, visit HP and Autonomy.