Hewlett-Packard is no stranger to shearing off parts of its business, but this latest split, into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is the company's biggest by far.
Last fall, HP CEO Meg Whitman announced the impending split that would begin at the start of this year. It was a move analysts and investors have been urging for years.
Whitman projected the transition to conclude by October 2015, and it did. On Nov. 1, HP Inc. and HPE became two separate entities.
"We're leaving behind a company that was very large, running two businesses that were very different," said Whitman last week. "We're creating two new big companies, not bite-sized morsels, with real capabilities to change things."
Which HP Is Right For Me?
Consumers of personal computers and printers should only see more of the HP Inc. they've come to know, if Whitman's stays on the rails – she's now the head of HPE. Unchained from the company's enterprise and cloud aspirations, HP Inc. will be leaner and should be in a better position to keep up with industry trends.
For consumers, this means a company that could provide and more in-tune with their needs. The company tried to go mobile before, it seemed for the entire industry, new mobility is the future of computing. Unfortunately, it failed to find success with its acquisition of Palm and ended up selling the associated properties.
For enterprising individuals, and those who work for them, HPE won't have to focus on consumer electronics and can pour more of its energy into enterprise and cloud services.
The company had struggled to establish itself as a cloud service provider. But just last week, the company announced the planned shuttering of HP Helion Public Cloud service barely after the start of the new year.
"We will sunset our HP Helion Public Cloud offering on January 31, 2016," said HPE. "As we have before, we will help our customers design, build and run the best cloud environments suited to their needs – based on their workloads and their business and industry requirements."
