HP's announcement yesterday that it will examine "strategic alternatives"--specifically the sale or spin off its personal computer business--in many ways evokes memories of IBM's 2005 decision to sell its own PC business to Lenovo. But unlike that deal, which was at least clear, so much uncertainty surrounds the future of HP's PC business that I worry it will inevitably force the company to make only conservative decisions about its PCs, at a time when the business could use some more innovative thinking.

I'm sure a lot of people are thinking that HP only makes boring, standard PCs, and it's true that the bulk of the HP Pavilion line for consumers and ProBook and EliteBook lines for business were safe, reliable choices. I know a lot of consumers who have been very happy with these machines and a lot of businesses that appreciated being able to get desktops, laptops, and servers all from a single vendor. (Assuming HP keeps its server business, this will leave Dell as the only big supplier left in the U.S. that makes both desktops and servers.)

Considering how Lenovo handled the ThinkPad line after acquiring it from IBM, it's quite likely that the basic attributes of Pavilion, Compaq, and ProBook will remain the same going forward, whether the PC business is acquired by another firm or is spun off to become a separate company. (Since HP acquired Compaq for $25 billion ten years ago, it would be interesting if that's the name of a separate PC company.)

But what I'll miss more are the ways that HP tried to innovate personal computers. With its TouchSmart line, it tried to bring touch screens to PCs and to truly change how people used computers. Even though it only acquired WebOS fairly recently, its plans to use it in the TouchPad tablet and across its entire line intrigued me, at the least.

In both cases, I think these have failed mainly because of the lack of applications support, a tricky obstacle since developers go after markets they see growing, but the markets don't grow without developers. I would have liked to have seen HP develop or encourage a lot more TouchSmart applications; after years in the market I'd still describe it as a neat technology looking for more uses. And I'm shocked that after just rolling out the TouchPad, HP would kill it only a few weeks later without ever doing a big applications push.

Writing about it earlier this week,  I said that webOS had a lot of potential but that "buying a TouchPad is pretty much a bet that HP will stay committed to the webOS platform and will be able to convince more people to write for it." But I never expected they would kill it this quickly. It sets a really bad precedent for early adopters of technology.

HP missed another opportunity with the Voodoo PC line, which it acquired a few years ago,  but seemed unsure how to handle. Today most of what remains is the Envy line of notebook PCs, which are nice but hardly revolutionary. More than just about any other company, HP even tried combining TVs and PCs, though that too flopped.

In part, HP survived because as a company it had more resources than most of its PC competitors, including HP Labs. In all these cases, its solid and interesting concepts have floundered, unable to transform the market as Apple's have. Instead, HP succeeded with more standard PCs that offered good features and good values. That's certainly important, but it's these other opportunities that often made HP's Personal Systems Group so interesting to watch.