As PCs Wane, Companies Look to Tablets

By VERNE G. KOPYTOFF and IAN AUSTEN
NYT

Although the world is dependent on personal computers, making them has not been a great business for most American companies for almost a decade.

The announcement on Thursday by Hewlett-Packard that it was considering offloading its PC business, even though it is the undisputed worldwide market leader, was a clear sign of the difficulties.

If H.P. goes through with the idea, it would follow I.B.M., an early PC maker, which was one of the first to recognize the long-term problems and, in 2005, sold its business to Lenovo, a Chinese company. Other American makers like Compaq (acquired by H.P.), Gateway and Packard Bell were absorbed by others or just faded away. Depending on how H.P. sheds the unit — it could sell or spin it off as a separate company — only two American PC makers would remain.

One of them, Dell, struggles for every percentage point of market share.

(More here.)