Hewlett-Packard to sell photo sharing service Snapfish to District Photo

Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) yesterday struck a deal to sell its web-based photo sharing service Snapfish to digital imaging company District Photo for an undisclosed sum.

Snapfish, which allows users to store and print their photos, was acquired by HP in 2005 for $300 million and made it a part of its printing and personal systems division.

The sale comes a month after HP agreed to buy wireless-networking company Aruba Networks for around $2.4 billion. (See: HP to buy Wi-Fi equipment maker Aruba Networks in $2.4-bn deal)

Snapfish was launched in 1999 by Rajil Kapoor, Bala Parthasarathy, Suneet Wadhwa, and Shripati Acharya and had 13 million members when it sold itself to HP in 2005.

Snapfish made sense for HP when users printed photos, but is of little relevance now since users have the option of sharing them online.

HP had for years been trying to sell Snapfish, but no company was interested in buying something that had become outdated.

HP's recent record of acquisitions had been less than encouraging with its 2008 acquisition of services company EDS for $13.9 billion coming just as the global financial market collapse started to weigh on outsourcing and software implementation budgets, followed by the rise of cloud computing, which had made trading difficult for all IT services companies.

Its $11.7-billion acquisition of Autonomy turned out to be a huge embarrassment, with HP accusing Autonomy's former management of engaging in accounting fraud and the company writing off $8.8 billion in value as a result in 2012.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison had earlier shrugged off a takeover of Autonomy for half the price that HP paid, claiming that it was over-valued.