Tablets become epitaphs for PCs

Although the world is dependent on personal computers, making them has not been a great business for most US companies for almost a decade. The announcement 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 HP goes through with the idea, it would follow IBM, an early PC maker, which was one of the first to recognise the long-term problems and, in 2005, sold its business to Lenovo, a Chinese company. Other US manufacturers like Compaq (acquired by HP), Gateway and Packard Bell were absorbed by others or just faded away. Depending on how HP 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.