Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has confirmed long-held rumors that it would separate its PC and printer business from its enterprise operations. Announced at the beginning of October, the plan is to split HP into a consumer-facing company called HP Inc. and a business-focused company known as Hewlett-Packard Enterprises.

Shareholders will be given a stake in both after the HP split.

Click to Enlarge Right now, both segments of Hewlett-Packard appear to be pretty similar in size — and both will enjoy revenue north of $50 billion a year. Check out the accompanying chart from HP earnings a few months ago and you’ll see brisk business on both the enterprise side and the “personal systems” and printing groups.

But the million-dollar question is what the HP split means for investors going forward. Should shareholders hang on to both sides of the company after the spinoff? Only one? Neither?

If you hold HPQ stock, here’s what you need to know about the upcoming split and what to do with your shares.

Is HP Split Offensive, or Defensive?

First, let’s acknowledge that Hewlett-Packard has seen better days. Shares hit their all-time highs back in the dot-com days of 2000, and haven’t managed to stick above $50 a share (split-adjusted) for long since then.

And right now, while shares have admittedly almost tripled from their lows in late 2012, HPQ stock still is down 30% from highs at the end of 2009 while the S&P 500 is up almost 80% in the same five-year period.

Many shareholders have been clamoring for the HP split in recent years as a way to unlock value and offset some of these losses. In the words of Wharton professor Emilie Feldman:

“Divestitures and spinoffs are the ugly stepchild of corporate strategy. They are viewed as acknowledgements of failures, bowing to pressure from investors and competitors. In reality, spinoffs can be used very proactively, as we are seeing in the HP case, to create value for shareholders and separate businesses that don’t belong together anymore.”

Former Hewlett-Packard chairman Ralph Whitworth was even more optimistic, and bristled at the notion among some that the move is simply to satiate stockholders and the latest move to fend off irrelevancy in a “post-PC age.” Whitworth contended the HP split was “totally out of offense” in a recent CNBC interview, and a way to stay focused on new opportunities.

Of course, Whitworth is talking his own book; he now runs a hedge fund that bought about a 1.5% stake of Hewlett-Packard back in 2011 … and HPQ stock has struggled to get back to 2011 levels.

And it’s also worth noting that one of the biggest names in tech is “only” a $60 billion company combined, half the market capitalization of Cisco (CSCO) and a third of the size of IBM (IBM) — and that’s before the split creates two even smaller companies.

What to Buy and What to Sell After HP Split

Companies that split like this frequently do so because, when combined, the operations lack the agility and independent strategy necessary to succeed. That’s the line out of eBay (EBAY), for instance, where Carl Icahn seems to have won his battle to divide the e-commerce company from its mobile payments arm, PayPal.

However, spinoffs also can simply be a way to harvest cash and slim down — as Sears (SHLD) has been doing with Sears Hometown (SHOS) and Lands’ End (LE).

Personally, I think there’s a lot of the former thinking and only a hint of the latter. The bottom line is that enterprise revenue is rising at HP, as evidenced by a 2% jump in revenue year-over-year last quarter for Hewlett-Packard’s Enterprise Group segment. And with the technology sector evolving fast, including a host of recent cloud computing and data-related IPOs, an HP split will help keep the business nimble.

I like the idea of an enterprise-only Hewlett-Packard, and depending on earnings trends and valuation after the split, that could be a decent buy.

Of course, it’s also worth noting that the latest earnings showed another decline in printer revenue — and with no significant mobile hardware of its own, the consumer-facing HP Inc. arm is going to be very challenged. There might be better dividends here, but without much growth potential I don’t see the wisdom in owning this part of the business.

So my advice right now: If you own HP, I would hang on to the enterprise arm only after the split. I also would consider taking some money off the table after the recent outperformance of shares, because you can always buy some back after the split — and invest directly in Hewlett-Packard without the PC and printer biz weighing you down.

Jeff Reeves is the editor of InvestorPlace.com and the author of The Frugal Investor’s Guide to Finding Great Stocks. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. Write him at editor@investorplace.com or follow him on Twitter via @JeffReevesIP.