Hewlett Packard's Australian boss has said the historic split of the company will leave two stronger independent businesses, as he moves to take control of the newly created Hewlett Packard Enterprise company locally.
HP global chief executive Meg Whitman??? will ring the bell to open trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) listing as a $U53 billion revenue player, which will incorporate its enterprise tech services, such as servers, storage, networking and cloud-computing platform. 
The company's PC and printer business, which some analysts had flagged as weighing the combined company down, will now operate separately as HP Inc.     
HPE's South Pacific boss Nick Wilson previously ran the combined HP in the region, but from Monday morning, his former head of PCs and Printers Robert Mesaros??? will take the reins of HP Inc locally. Mr Wilson said the company had effectively been running separately in a trial run since the start of   August, and that despite the massive scale of the split, it had been relatively seamless.

Making the changes
He said it was obvious in 90 per cent to 95 per cent of cases which employees should go to which company, and that a huge logistical mission had been completed in order to ensure the businesses were housed in a truly separate fashion. No local jobs have been lost as a result of the changes he said.
"In Australia we have physically separated all of our employees into separate locations ... Some buildings we have nominated floors as HP Inc and floors as HPE, and we have separate security access, separate carparking, separate bank accounts and payroll," Mr Wilson said.
"We are splitting to become more nimble, more agile and more focused on a customer set that is relevant to the business. I think both companies have a really good future."
Mr Wilson said the company had kept its key customers and partners up to date with its plans during the preparations for the split, and that most would not notice any change on a day of enormous significance internally at the 76-year-old company. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable will be the superficial change in corporate branding, with HP's synonymous blue being replaced by green in the HPE logo.

Industry shake-up
HPs move to decouple its business to achieve greater flexibility in a competitive market comes as the industry is figuring out the implications of Dell's recent move to do the opposite and bulk up with the largest ever tech-industry buyout of EMC.
Mr Wilson said the Dell move went against HP's view that the pace of change in the market meant it was better to seek the agility associated with being smaller and more nimble.
"I think in terms of the [Dell] changes we view that as a big opportunity for us as two big companies coming together taking on a lot of debt could distract them in the short term, while they try and put the companies together," Mr Wilson said. 
"So it is a huge opportunity for us to focus on acquiring market share, and be aggressive in our growth plans." 
Despite describing the experience of separating HP in the South Pacific as adrenaline-charged, enormous fun and a great honour, Mr Wilson conceded there would be some sadness within the two companies once the split became official and final.
He said he would have some thoughts to the company's history as Ms Whitman rang the stock exchange bell.
"For a lot of people there will be plenty of mixed emotions. People . . . have been at the company for 20 years, even for me it is a bit strange and I have been with the company for six years."
As for any rivalry with former colleagues at HP Inc, he said the time before the split had allowed them to come to trading arrangements, for when they needed to go to market together to win customers. He said HP Inc and HPE would now be akin to very close partners.
"There might be some friendly banter between me and Rob but I would really like to see them do well," Mr Wilson said. 
"We have got 75 years of legacy between the two companies, and about 50 years in Australia, so I do hope that HP Inc do just as well as HPE."