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Hewlett-Packard sheds PC business

Marketplace Staff Aug 19, 2011
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Hewlett-Packard sheds PC business

Marketplace Staff Aug 19, 2011
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Jeremy Hobson: The global market sell-off continues overseas this morning. And one stock that’s been dropping more than the rest of the pack is Hewlett-Packard. The world’s largest computer maker said yesterday it’s considering spinning off its personal computer business, and buying a British software company.

For more, we turn to John Moe, the host of Marketplace Tech Report, who is with us live. Good morning.

John Moe: Hey Jeremy.

Hobson: So John, I know that personal computers are passe at this point, but with HP potentially getting out of the business all together, it seems kind of sudden.

Moe: Yeah, sure does. But HP is moving toward the cloud philosophy, which a lot of people are. And that means people demanding less from their home PC in the long run. And at the same time its turning toward the cloud, they’re going to start putting a lot of focus on business computers so you might see HP products at work but they just might not follow you home.

Hobson: And is this something that all of the big computer makers are going to be doing soon?

Moe: Well everyone’s moving to the cloud lately — obviously Google, Apple, Amazon all have huge new products there. As for shifting to business computing, I mean, IBM did that a while ago and there weren’t a lot of copy-cats, so we don’t quite know for sure yet.

Hobson: So John, what’s the future for Hewlett-Packard at this point?

Moe: Murky. HP just announced that it’s killing its tablets and phones, including the touch pad tablet they’ve just launched which has been kind of a stinker in terms of sales. Remember, HP bought Palm last year, in part to expand its mobile offerings, and now it’s saying, well, that didn’t work, we’re going to shut mobile down. So all we know at the moment is that HP is taking radical action — they’re taking big steps, we’ll just see where those steps take them.

Hobson: Marketplace Tech Report host John Moe. Thanks John.

Moe: Thanks, Jeremy.

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