Ever since the ousting of CEO Leo Apotheker took place at Hewlett-Packard, installing Meg Whitman as the new company head, we’ve been hearing some news with a positive spin from the company.  The latest is that Whitman has turned down the proposal to spin off the company’s personal-computer unit, as she has split up operational duties with Executive Chairman Ray Lane.  According to Whitman, she will take care of computer hardware and corporate functions, and Lane will focus on software and technology services.

This spinoff of PC unit was proposed by Leo Apotheker, but Meg Whitman straightforwardly denied it.

“If you try to hive a division off, it’s really hard because you almost have to recreate the whole thing. Offloading the division also would have rung up $1.5 billion in one-time expenses and $1 billion a year in ongoing costs because Hewlett-Packard would have had to replicate functions.The spun-off company also would have potentially competed with its parent in servers and other markets.” Whitman said in the interview.

The news that HP is keeping the PC division was announced earlier this week in a released statement:

“As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

Moreover, the new CEO is also quite optimistic about tablet division. Here’s what Whitman has to say on this:

“Hewlett-Packard hasn’t given up on tablets, despite the dominance of Apple Inc.’s iPad. The company is working with Microsoft Corp. to use the pending Windows 8 operating system on tablet computers, and Hewlett-Packard may come back to market with a tablet running its own WebOS software.The market was created by Apple. That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a strong No. 2 player.”

The move leads many to say that CEO Meg Whitman is taking Hewlett-Packard in the right direction. And the technology giant is all set to realize its full potential and address the challenges of the emerging environment.  There’s a balance Whitman must reach as HP traverses into new territory.  Many companies, including HP’s competitors, are struggling to find the best way to shift focus onto software, especially when hardware has been such an important aspect of business, and remains a large and impactful market.

The challenges ahead will require a good deal of collaboration between Whitman and Lane, because surviving this market will take more than swift decisions and crossed fingers for the future.