Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to break in two, separating its personal-computer and printer businesses from its corporate hardware and services operations, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company plans to announce the move as early as Monday, the people said. It is expected to be effected as a tax-free distribution of shares to the company’s stockholders next year, one of the people said.

The move is one H-P HPQ, -0.99% and its investors and analysts have long contemplated. It would come amid a wave of breakups and spinoffs at technology companies and in the wider corporate world, underpinned by the idea that companies with a narrower focus perform better. The moves in many cases have been well-received by shareholders—if not actively sought by them.

Last Tuesday, online-auction pioneer eBay Inc. announced a plan to spin off its PayPal payments-processing unit. Shareholders rewarded eBay’s decision, pushing the company’s shares up about 7.5% that day.

This isn’t the first time H-P has come close to a decision to hive off its sprawling PC operation. In 2011, when it announced the ill-fated acquisition of U.K. software company Autonomy Corp., H-P said it was exploring a separation of its PC business. Under pressure from shareholders that led to the departure of then-Chief Executive Léo Apotheker, H-P reversed course two months later and said it would hold on to the business.

In 2012, under current H-P CEO Meg Whitman, H-P reorganized itself to combine the PC business with its more profitable printer operation.

Whitman will be chairman of the PC and printer business and CEO of the separate, so-called enterprise company, one of the people said. Current lead independent director Patricia Russo will be chairman of the enterprise company, while Dion Weisler, an executive in the PC and printer operation, is to be CEO of that business, this person said.

An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com