Michael Dell launches Twitter grenade at HP

Dell founder shows his fiery side as investors give PSG spin-off plans the thumbs down

The normally placid Michael Dell took to Twitter over the weekend to heap more misery on HP.

HP's share price has plunged by more than 25 per cent since it launched its bid for software outfit Autonomy on Thursday and announced plans to spin off its PC business and exit the tablet and smartphone market.

Michael Dell, not known for his fiery side, did his bit to stick the boot in through a series of tweets.

HP responded to the Texan billionaire's initial provocation by tweeting that it is "still the number-one PC manufacturer in the world" and that its team "remains 100 per cent committed".

On a roll, Dell lobbed back a pointedly barbed tweet: "HP PC business 100 per cent committed to ownership change to new unknown owner(s) w/unknown strategy, on an unknown time frame."

HP has seen $16bn (£9.7bn) wiped off its market value since Thursday as investors gave HP's strategy the thumbs down.

HP chief executive Léo Apotheker told the Financial Times yesterday that he expected the firm to regain the $40bn in revenue lost through plans to spin off its Personal Systems Group.

"My assumption is that in the long term we will have better margin profile and a better growth profile," he told the newspaper.

HP non-executive chairman Ray Lane added: "What I will tell investors is that I fully appreciate that changes of this magnitude are hard to comprehend and swallow at the current share price."

Meanwhile, the TouchPad finally appears to be flying off the shelves in the US, with some stores offering HP's doomed tablet device for as little as $99, according to reports.