Hewlett-Packard has named Meg Whitman, former eBay Inc CEO and California candidate for governor as its new CEO replacing former chief Lee Apotheker after just 11 months in the position.

Whitman addressed investors shortly after being named CEO. She told investors that she supported Apotheker's decisions during his time as CEO including the acquisition of Autonomy Corp., discontinuing the Pre, TouchPad and Veer and a spin-off of HP's Personal Systems Group computer business.

She also announced what she plans to do as CEO. HP would continue to invest in the webOS platform and there will be a decision by the end of the year about how to spin off or sell PSG based on value to investors and the customers.

"The best thing we can do is get to a decision on PSG as fast as possible," she said. "This decision -- it's not like fine wine. It won't get better with age."

The HP board also saw some changes as Chairman Ray Lane moved to become the executive chairman of the board of directors and the board will appoint a new lead independent director. Lane defended the changes to HP's executive board and assured investors that HP doesn't need to be "transformed".

"We think we can build a hell of a business out of it," Lane said, referring to HP hardware, "but it has nothing to do with transforming. We'll see more software and more value-added services, but we have $120 billion of hardware business that we care deeply about."

The shakeup comes after Apotheker's tumultuous time as CEO. HP's stock fell nearly 50 percent under his leadership and many of his decisions were controversial including the choice to discontinue the TouchPad.

Whitman and Lane assured investors that HP still matters and that they will continue with HP's PC business. Given the uncertainty about its PC strategy, this assurance is HP's best course of action for now.