Stephen Foley: HP's bizarre decision may yet turn out to have been a masterstroke

US Outlook: Hewlett-Packard's decision to appoint Meg Whitman as chief executive is bizarre bordering on the laughable.

It might also be a masterstroke.

The computer manufacturer's board, which vies with Yahoo's to be the most dysfunctional in Silicon Valley, reached for one of its own to replace the disastrous Leo Apotheker, regardless of the fact that Ms Whitman had been a non-executive for less than a year and has precisely no experience in hardware or in a company that sells to business customers.

The best she could offer is that eBay, where she really made her name, was all about "unstructured data", qualifying her to lead Autonomy, the UK software company that is expert in sifting that data and which HP is buying in the hope of bolstering its own software and services operations.

Don't underestimate, though, the value of Ms Whitman's business smarts, personal charm and communication skills – the "additional attributes" that the board was looking for that Mr Apotheker lacked.

Investors' jaws dropped on the idea of her appointment when it was mooted mid-week, but her performance in the 36 hours since it was confirmed suggests she should be given the benefit of the doubt. She seems much more likely than her predecessor to galvanise the demoralised executive team beneath her and to build trust from employees and from the investor community over time.

Best of all, though, she promised to decide before the end of this year what to do about the personal computer division, which Mr Apotheker put up for sale or for a spin-off. His review was scheduled to last up to 18 months, despite the entirely predictable disruption to sales that the uncertainty is already causing. Yesterday, Ms Whitman suggested a decision could come within weeks.

HP is the largest PC manufacturer in the world, selling two machines per second, and the division contributes around $2bn of annual operating profit. It is not a growth business, and yes, HP has not yet cracked the nascent market for tablet computers, without which its sales could be hit further.

But selling it always seemed premature while HP is yet to fully establish its emerging identity as a full-service provider of hardware, software and consulting, and could do with the steady cashflows that the PC business provides for reinvestment in these other areas.

Ms Whitman may be tempted to take the PC business sale off the table quickly, the better to concentrate on the pile of other things in her in-tray. It would also be the right thing to do.