Proving again that it leaks like a sieve press reports have Hewlett-Packard folding its printer division, whose ink used to be the source of all of the company's profits, into its margins-cramped PC division and putting the combined operation under PC chief Todd Bradley, who wanted to run the PC unit if it was spun out.

Bradley will now get to run what will be HP's singularly largest business, since the units last year represented $65 billion in sales or 51% of the company's overall sales returning $6.3 billion to its bottom line.

Printer chief Vyomesh "VJ" Joshi, who has been with HP for 31 years and who has run the division the last 10 years, is supposed to leave the company.

Bradley used to be CEO of Palm a few years before HP bought and thrashed the place.

Current HP CEO Meg Whitman shelved the PC spin-off designs of her ousted predecessor Léo Apotheker in the name of bargaining clout it afforded the company although as a board member before her apotheosis she approved the move.

The story was first reported by the Dow Jones blog All Things Digital around midday Tuesday and substantiated an hour later by Reuters.

The blog said the cost-cutting and streamlining move could be announced later Tuesday.

The conjoined operation is supposed to approach its business and consumer customers with a more unified product line. The printer unit is not the gold mine it once was and in HP's last quarter its earnings plunged a whopping 32% on sales down 7% to $6.3 billion. PC sales were down 15% in the quarter.

Staff losses are still unclear.