SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday said it will invest $1 billion to consolidate and automate its data centers, a move that will lead to the elimination of 9,000 jobs over a "multiyear" period.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printing giant HPQ, +0.37% said annual savings in its enterprise-services division would range from $500 million to $700 million once the transformation is complete. H-P plans to halve the number of data centers its operates to around 50.

Data centers are used to store computerized information of businesses, government agencies and other organizations.

In a conference call, Hewlett-Packard executives said they will rely heavily on "attrition" -- not replacing workers who leave because of retirement or other personal reasons -- to eliminate positions in its data centers.

Shares of H-P rose more than 1% to $46.56 by midday Tuesday following the news.

At the same time, H-P said it would hire more than 6,000 workers in sales and other areas of its enterprise-services unit.

The shift toward automation will allow H-P to better deploy assets obtained via the acquisition of EDS in mid-2008, according to the company.

"We see the possibility of taking enterprise services to an entirely new level based on applying H-P industry-leading technology to the services business," said Cathie Lesjak, H-P's chief financial officer.

In a report, analyst Louis Miscioscia of equity-research firm Collin Stewart said H-P was taking a sound approach. EDS failed to invest sufficiently in automation and its data centers were more expensive to operate, he added, giving rivals such as International Business Machines Corp. IBM, +0.60% a competitive advantage.

"Going back to when H-P acquired EDS in 2008, we had been very supportive of the tactical and strategic importance of this move from day one," Miscioscia commented.

Needham analyst Richard Kugele wrote in a note: "Despite its massive scale, H-P continues to impress with its relentless focus on efficiency and improvement.

"Since first announcing the EDS deal in 2008, H-P has indentified $4.5 billion in gross savings from the division," he said. "With only $3 billion in savings realized to date, we expect further operating margin expansion in the model over the next two to three years, independent of the macro-environment."

Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes also said the "potential savings are a positive over the long term" and cited Chief Executive Mark Hurd's "proven ability to overdeliver on cost-cutting targets."

Nevertheless, he wrote that "the investor reaction will likely be muted given restructuring charges do little to help H-P's multiple and clearly widen the delta between GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share."

H-P plans to deduct $1 billion from reported income over the "multiyear" period required to complete the move toward fully automated data centers. About half of the amount will be charged against third-quarter earnings, the company said.

In a Tuesday note, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, said the move could be "highly accretive to profitability" but also asked: "Are the charges really one-time?"

Sacconaghi wrote that H-P has "projected a very positive tone about the health of its services business."

But he pointed out that "the company has still not provided the dollar amount of services signings like other large services vendors, which makes it more challenging for investors to monitor the health of the services business."