Whitman aims for October decision on HP's PC unit

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman gives her concession speech during her election night rally in Los Angeles, California November 2, 2010.

LAGUNA NIGUEL, California (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co's new chief executive, Meg Whitman, is aiming to make a decision on the future of the company's PC business by the end of this month.

Former CEO Leo Apotheker in August said the company was weighing whether to spin off the PC unit into a separate business. On Tuesday, Whitman said she wanted to determine the fate of the division "much faster" than Apotheker had planned "because uncertainty is not our friend here."

"That's a decision I'd like to make ... certainly by the end of October," Whitman told an audience at Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday.

Whitman was named CEO of HP last week and is now faced with the task of restoring confidence in the Silicon Valley company.

Speaking to Reuters after her remarks, Whitman said the October timeline for a decision on the PC business "may slip a little bit" but the evaluation process was "certainly much more accelerated" than it had been under Apotheker.

Whitman said she was "open-minded" about which direction to take with the PC business.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)