When Lenovo took the reins of IBM's PC business, IBM stuck around to offer technical support customers who suddenly found themselves owners of a Lenovo IBM PC. I can't speak to the fates of the relative handful of hopeful consumers who grabbed an HP TouchPad or WebOS smartphone. But HP's PCs are in millions of households around the world -- there would be a lot of angry consumers if HP didn't follow suit and offer warranty and technical support, in addition to driver updates so that folks don't find themselves holding an orphaned PC.

TouchSmart, Envy, Elitebook, Pavilion -- from All-in-Ones to desktop replacement laptops, HP has its fingers in quite a few PC pies. If HP's PC business is spun off, will it be able to survive without the extensive resources of the HP mothership? Truth be told, an HP PC business that was left to its own devices (pun intended) might do a lot of good, by cutting the crust and focusing on polished, premium wares .

HP had a lot of great ideas on the table that they'd yet to implement. Remember "Synergy?" Actually, you probably don't -- back in March, HP announced that they were drafting plans to bring WebOS to all of their devices. In other words, desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets would all share a single ecosystem. Shared contacts and calendars, tapping devices together to share webpages and information -- while you'd have to be invested in the WebOS platform (and HP's ecosystem) to take full advantage of the project, it was an exciting prospect.