Hewlett-Packard is divided into two companies

Legendary Hewlett-Packard comes to the last stage of its existence as a single organization. Today, the company officially announced the division in two. The first company called HP Inc. will deal with PCs, printers, 3D printers and other personal systems. The second Hewlett-Packard Enterprise - corporate solutions (servers, storage systems and other hardware, software and services). During the “divorce” process, 5,000 of the current 317,500 employees will be cut.

In 2004, IBM sold its PC and laptop business to Lenovo, eliminating the burden. Hewlett-Packard has matured to a similar decision after a decade.

However, Hewlett-Packard was more difficult to decide on such a step than IBM, because its printer business was extremely successful and still remains profitable. It is understandable: ink for the printer is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet . But you can’t call it promising.
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Analysts believe that in our time, large companies are quite accustomed to be divided into more parts, so HP could choose this option. In any case, the separation of business is usually considered a health step. For example, eBay recently announced the allocation of PayPal to a separate company - and after that eBay shares rose by 8%.

HP wanted to separate the PC business from itself back in 2011, but CEO Meg Whitman blocked the plan.

If the division has a beneficial effect on the spirit of innovation, then HP can find its outstanding engineers a use in such areas as 3D printing and 3D printers. She has all the opportunities to become a world leader in this direction. And HP Inc. management has already announced that it will work on 3D printing technologies.

The Story of Hewlett and Packard

Hewlett-Packard owes everything, including the name, to its two founders: the late William Hewlett (William R. Hewlett, 1913-2001) and David Packard (David Packard, 1912-1996). The biography of two students of Stanford University after their acquaintance quietly turned into a biography of the company, to which these people gave their entire lives.

William and David studied together and at the same time received bachelor's degrees, and then masters in the field of electrical engineering. It was back in 1939. Packard found time to work on a specialty in the company General Electric Co., and Hewlett gave all his strength to study, having achieved, apart from Stanford education, also a diploma from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then Packard discussed future life plans with his friend and fellow student. 26-year-old young people decided to test their strength and start their own business. Their partnership was named Hewlett-Packard, forever perpetuating the names of ambitious youths in history.

Since Packard had been working for a large General Electric corporation for two years before, he apparently didn’t have much doubts about his organizational skills. Moreover, despite the fact that the parents of both boys lived in small towns in Michigan and Colorado, they were quite wealthy people (not every American is able to send his son to study at Stanford). Therefore, cash in the pocket of young businessmen was enough to think about more promising plans than the cost of the next dinner.

History has preserved the fact that Hewlett-Packard's start-up capital was only $ 538, and a small garage in Palo Alto, California was used as production capacity.



It was in Palo Alto that the building of the central office and headquarters of the Hewlett-Packard Corporation was later built.

The first product of the company was uncomplicated, judging by the scheme, the device - oscillator, which was developed by William Hewlett while studying at the university. This oscillator has now become an honorable relic of Hewlett-Packard, and its photograph and diagram occupy a prominent place in the history section of the corporation's website .



During the Second World War, Hewlett was taken to the army. He headed the electronics department in the Military Department for special projects, and then worked in the “special brigade”, which followed Japan’s industrial development immediately after the war.

Packard all this time remained at home and led the affairs of the company. In 1947, when Hewlett-Packard grew to the level of a corporation, it was he who became the first president, and Hewlett the vice-president. Then, up to 1987, with rare interruptions, these two gentlemen alternately occupied the posts of president, chairman of the board of directors and executive director. Since there were three positions for two, sometimes it was necessary for someone to take one double load. They successfully coped with this difficult task and were rewarded according to merit: Hewlett in 1987 was named director of emeritus corporation (which means “for life”), and Packard in 1993 received the same honorary prefix to his title of chairman of the board of directors.

During their lives, both of the founding fathers of Hewlett-Packard managed to accomplish and deserve so much that only a list of different awards and positions in various scientific, public and commercial organizations for each of them takes several pages.

The founding fathers did not live to see the time when the company had to be divided into parts.