Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) said last week that it won't get rid of its PC unit after all, but the fate of its webOS division remains unknown. The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported a rumor that the company planned to shut down webOS, but HP officials were swift in denying it. 

One of main reasons HP decided to hold on to the PC division (a.k.a. Personal Systems Group), which analysts put a value of about $8 billion on, is that it would have been too expensive to spin it off, reports Agam Shah of IDG News Service. Customer opinions also played into the decision, the company said. A number of enterprises had voiced complaints about the spin-off plans because it would have left them without the option of buying both hardware and software from the vendor. 

The fallout from the deluge of changes announced by former HP CEO Leo Apotheker on Aug. 18 remains unsettled, writes Arik Hesseldahl at the Wall Street Journal. Newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman told analysts last week that the company needs to stay in the tablet business and plans to use Windows 8 to do so. In the next couple months, the company will decide what it is going to do about webOS software, she said.

There is also the question of the software unit Autonomy, which HP bought for $11.7 billion in August. It was a high price tag, Hesseldahl writes, and it remains to be seen how the company is going to get a return on the investment. The company can't afford any negative surprises going into its next earnings report. "Once a tech company known for the stability it has given investors, HP has had nothing but unpleasant surprises for the last 14 months," he writes.

For more, see:
- Agam Shah's article at Computerworld
- Arik Hesseldahl's post at the Wall Street Journal

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