It was announced by Hewlett Packard on Sunday that it has finally made up its mind to retain its PC business, which happens to be the largest in the world in its category, after having considered spinning off its personal services section. This was first proposed by the previous HP CEO, Leo Apotheker, who was replaced last September by Meg Whitman.
However there is still a lot of confusion in the mobile industry regarding the future of the company’s WebOS mobile platform and its future in the tablet market. These questions were addressed by Whitman this Thursday in a meeting with analysts after the announcement that the PC unit of the company will be continued. The CEO said that HP has decided to pursue the tablet market with new devices up for a release next year which will run on Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 OS.
Windows 8 will be a common platform for both, tablets and PCs. Whitman said that HP is currently in a new stage in the development of a new personal computing segment, when talking about tablets during the statement. She later added that the company is of the opinion that it is not yet too late for it to achieve success in the tablet market, saying that the work that is being done along with Microsoft is quite extraordinary.
The CEO said that the new Windows 8 based tablets are expected to launch sometime next year, and that the focus of HP is being narrowed in order to extend its success to the upcoming years. She said that rather than trying its hands at a lot of things at the same time, HP should try doing a smaller number of things with a more focused mindset.
It was however stated by Whitman that HP will not be announcing any of its plans for the upcoming new products before the end of this November when it announces its next earnings report. The executive vice president of the personal systems group of the company said that HP never thought about giving up on its tablet business or not producing Windows based tablets. HP has manufactured Windows based tablet devices before as well, the Slate 500 being one which was only available to businesses for a cost of $800 when it was released.
