Technology giant Hewlett-Packard—currently the top PC manufacturer in the world—announced today that it plans to cut about 9,000 job positions and invest $1 billion to restructure and consolidate its enterprise services. The company plans to use the money to consolidate and develop commercial data centers for use by its enterprise customers; the company expects the increased efficiency from the restructuring—as well as increased automation—will enable it to shed about 9,000 employees over the next few years.
“Over the past 20 months, we focused on integrating EDS and improving profitability,” said HP’s senior VP and general manager for Enterprise Services Tom Iannotti, in a statement. “Now that the integration is largely complete, we have identified significant opportunities to grow and scale the business. These next-generation services will enable our clients to benefit from the combined technology and services leadership that only HP offers.”
The move comes about two years after HP acquired Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for nearly $14 billion; HP later renamed the services HP Enterprise Services. EDS was originally founded by former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot in the early 1960s; it was a subsidiary of General Motors for many years before going independent again in 1996.
HP estimates that once the restructuring is complete, the company will save about $500 to 700 million per year, after taxes.
