As former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina pursues her US presidential hopes, current incumbent Meg Whitman has opted to run the HP Enterprise services company as the tech giant splits into two.

Shareholders in HP - which has become HP Inc - were given a share in HP Enterprise for every one they held, and the two companies made their US stockmarket appearance on Monday.

Most of the bits of interest to the newspaper and print markets - including PCs, printers and the PageWide inkjet web series - stay in HP Inc, while HP Enterprise will provide cloud-enabled, mobile-ready IT solutions to enterprises.

On its opening day on Wall Street, the latter business proved volatile, while the easier-to-understand HP Inc gained in trading.

Whitman says the separation will accelerate the turnaround begun four years ago: "As two ... companies, we can drive more focused business strategies, innovation roadmaps, and go-to-market models."

Dion Weisler, who becomes president and chief executive officer of HP Inc, promised on Monday that HP would "keep reinventing itself, its technologies and what tomorrow holds", so industries, communities and individuals could do the same. "We approach this challenge with the heart and energy of a startup coupled with the brain, muscle and determination of a Fortune 100 corporation," he said.

In addition to making printing and PCs "more enjoyable" HP Inc will pursue growth in adjacent markets including graphics printing and commercial mobility, and "define future market categories" through its 3D printing and immersive computing platforms: "We intend to amaze through the people we hire, the technology we create, the experiences we enable and the way we treat our customers and each other."

HP's inkjet web systems lead the digital book printing market and are a major player in high-volume digital newspaper printing. With this, its focus on wideformat printing and its partnership with KBA on packaging print, it will be the biggest exhibitor at the DRUPA printing trade show in May/June next year. As yet, industrial-scale sheetfed inkjet is not part of the offering, although there is speculation that this could change, possibly through further cooperation with German press maker KBA, which brings experience in web (and sheet) handling to the table.

Pictured: Weisler's Facebook post - "We've come so far in the past 76 years, but in truth, we're just getting started"