HP's printer division faces changes

During a Webcast to employees yesterday, Hewlett-Packard's print division chief Vyomesh Joshi announced that the division will soon undergo restructuring to consolidate five business units into three.

The parts of the company which will will feel these "disruptive" changes, according to spokespeople, will include the LaserJet and Commercial Printer units, and the inkjet (DeskJet) and consumer supplies units, which will become two new units of the company.

HP CEO Mark Hurd was ushered into the company with a bang in 2005, when he presided over the layoff of one-tenth of its employees. The following year, the company saw an across-the-board revenue drop, including an almost 20% decline in Enterprise Solutions in the last quarter alone. And Robert Wayman, HP's CFO for 22 years, retired.

Aware of the changing landscape of printing, which some groups have been observing since 2005 and earlier, Hurd was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying he wished that "some numbers" (referring to the printer unit's profit figures) were better.

The realignment and streamlining of the printing division will take place later this summer, according to reports, and are not anticipated to include any "large layoffs."