Hewlett Packard to Split Into 2 Companies – Dion Weisler to Become CEO of HP Inc. & Lead 3D Printing Innovations

For some time now, we have been hearing Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HPQ) CEO, Meg Whitman talk about the company’s future 3D printing plans frequently, yet vaguely. We know that HP has had something brewing as far as 3D printing goes, for well over a year now. The company has been rather secretive about the entire operation, but it appears as though they will be targeting industry, rather than building consumer-level 3D printers.

Earlier in the year, we were told that there would be an announcement coming from HP sometime in June. This announcement was then “cancelled” and we then learned that HP plans to enter into the 3D printing space, sometime before the end of October. With only a few weeks remaining, many Hewlett Packard shareholders are wondering what is going on.

Some major news has come from HP today. The company announced that they will be splitting into two separate publicly traded entities. Basically how the split will work is as follows:

– Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will become HP’s solution for networking, servers, software and services. Current HP CEO Meg Whitman will become the president and CEO of this newly formed entity. This company will be focused mostly on corporate solutions.

– HP Inc. will become HP’s new solution for PCs, printers, and most interestingly 3D printers. This company will NOT be run by Meg Whitman. While she will become chairman of the board for HP Inc., Dion Weisler will become the President and CEO of the newly formed company.

Weisler, a 47-year-old, who hails from Australia, will now become the man in charge of leading HP Inc. in their ambitions of trying to compete within the 3D printing space. With companies like 3D Systems, and Stratasys already holding the majority of the enterprise level 3D printing market, HP Inc. will have a lot of ground to make up.

Weisler has been running the PC and printer business line for HP since June of last year. Now he will be in charge of running the entire operation. He has been working for HP since January of 2012, so there is no doubt that he has already had a major role in the formation of the company’s 3D printing plans. Prior to his time at Hewlett Packard, he had worked 11 years at Acer, so computer technology is nothing new to him.

The completion of this split will take place before the end of fiscal year 2015.

It should be interesting to see if we soon hear of more details on HP’s plans for 3D printing, or if perhaps things could be delayed due to this change within the company. Most likely the change was expected to take place among the executives involved, so it shouldn’t effect the company’s plans all that much, if at all. Will Weisler continue to run things in the same way that Whitman has been doing so when it comes to their 3D printing aspirations? Only time will tell. Discuss in the HP 3D Printing forum thread on 3DPB.com.