Hewlett-Packard Co. says it will end its tablet, phone products, may sell PC division - 680News

Hewlett-Packard Co. says it will end its tablet, phone products, may sell PC division

Jordan Robertson, The Associated Press Aug 18, 2011 18:14:00 PM

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SAN FRANCISCO - In a dramatic reshuffling, Hewlett-Packard Co. said Thursday that it will discontinue its tablet computer and smartphone products and may sell or spin off its PC division, bowing out of the consumer businesses.

It's one of the most extreme makeovers in the company's 72-year history and signals new CEO Leo Apotheker's most transparent move to date to make HP look more like longtime rival IBM Corp., which now makes most of its money from software and services.

The most apparent result for consumers will be the end of HP's TouchPad tablet, a sales dud, and HP-branded smartphones, also-rans in a booming market crowded with the Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry and devices based on Google's Android system. By the end of next year, HP computers could be sold under another company's name.

HP will continue to sell servers and other equipment to business customers, just as IBM now does.

It was not immediately known whether any jobs will be cut. HP employs more than 300,000 worldwide.

The company plans to record a one-time charge of $1 billion in the fourth quarter related to the webOS business shutdown and other restructuring costs. It said may also book a charge related to the value of the webOS business but did not say how much that would be.

HP also lowered its full-year revenue outlook. It now expects revenue of $127.2 billion to $127.6 billion, down from its previous estimate of $129 billion to $130 billion. Analysts were predicting $129.1 billion in revenue.

HP's stock fell $1.88, or 6 per cent, to close Thursday at $29.51. The stock fell further in extended trading to $28.79, a drop of 72 cents, or 2.4 per cent. The announcement came about an hour before the close of market.

A decade ago, HP emerged from a bitter fight to spend more than $24 billion on Compaq Computer, setting the stage for HP to become the world's No. 1 maker of personal computers. Now, three CEOs later, HP is changing course — hard.

The PC division is HP's biggest revenue generator but least profitable division. The move has long been rumoured, but just six months ago HP dismissed reports of the possibility as "irresponsible reporting" and that PCs are "core to HP's strategy for the connected world."

The PC industry is under pressure from hot-selling smartphones and tablet computers, which have contributed to already weak consumer demand for PCs in the U.S. and Europe.

More striking is that HP plans to shutter its fledgling smartphone and tablet business just two years after spending $1.8 billion on smartphone maker Palm, which gave HP the webOS software that has been praised by critics but largely been ignored by the marketplace. It is here that HP was the victim of the Apple and Google juggernauts, as iPads and iPhones and smartphones running Google's Android software have been hot sellers, while HP devices have languished.

HP also announced it is buying Autonomy Corp., a business software maker, for about $10 billion, ranking the deal among HP's biggest.

The decision to buy Autonomy also marks a change of course for HP, one that makes HP's trajectory look remarkably similar to rival IBM's nearly a decade ago. IBM, a key player in building the PC market in the 1980s, sold its PC business in 2004 to focus on software and services, which aren't as labour- or component-intensive as building computer hardware.

HP, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., also announced its latest quarterly results an hour earlier than planned.

HP's net income increased in the fiscal third quarter, which ended July 31, but its lower-than-expected outlook for the current period weighed on the stock.

The company earned 93 cents per share in the latest quarter. That's up from 75 cents per share a year earlier. Its adjusted earnings were $1.10 per share, a penny above analyst expectations.

Revenue climbed less than 2 per cent to $31.2 billion, matching analysts' average expectations, according to FactSet.

For the current quarter, HP forecast adjusted earnings of $1.12 to $1.16 per share, below analysts' expectation of $1.32 per share. Revenue should be $32.1 billion to $32.5 billion, short of analysts' estimate of $34 billion.

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AP Technology Writers Michael Liedtke and Rachel Metz in San Francisco and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

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