Palo Alton, Calif.—Hewlett-Packard today announced it will separate its handheld from its notebook PC business in order to intensify its focus on the multi-billion dollar converged handheld market.
The handheld business will be a separate unit within the company’s Personal Systems Group (PSG), which now also includes notebook computing, desktops and workstations, HP said. The change is also part of HP’s recent efforts to streamline its organization, it said.
“The converged device market [including smartphones] is growing at more than 60 percent a year,” said Bradley. “This realignment positions the handheld team to more clearly focus on navigating this fast-paced market …”
HP appointed Dave Rothschild, formerly of Sun Microsystems, as VP of the handheld unit. The Notebook Computing business unit will continue to be led by Ted Clark, senior VP and general manager, HP said.
HP also announced the release of a new smartphone today, the iPAQ hw6900 Mobile Messenger, with push e-mail, mobile phone capability, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, and compatibility with Skype mobile software as well as a built-in digital 1.3 megapixel camera in select models.
A recent report by In-Stat, Scottsdale, Ariz, found that year-to-year growth in smartphones exceeded 70 percent in 2005 and will continue to grow “robustly” for the next several years.
