Meg Whitman, CEO of PC maker Hewlett-Packard, says that the company is back in the market for acquisitions of up to $1.5 billion.

In an interview Thursday, Whitman said the company is specifically seeking smaller deals, as reported by Reuters. Instead of focusing on large-scale acquisitions reaching figures in the billions, the Palo Alto, California-based firm is in the market for deals potentially worth between $100 million to $300 million — or as high as $1.5 billion.

While not elaborating on particular targets, the HP executive said that as the firm “can go from devices to infrastructure to services to software” easily, valuable acquisitions could help the PC maker stay competitive in today’s marketplace.

Hewlett-Packard has spent vast amounts in acquisition deals over the past few years. However, not all of HP’s ventures have been successful, as proved by the acquisition of big-data analytics firm Autonomy in 2011. The deal quickly went sour when HP was required to write down $8.8 billion in its software unit, and accused Autonomy of “serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations.”

Read more : http://www.zdnet.com/hp-explores-acquisition-market-targets-smaller-deals-7000019782/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

Categories: TechNews