Computerworld Philippines Staff
March 3, 2010

HP has announced that after eight years with company, Bernadette Nacario is leaving her post as country general manager of the personal systems group (PSG) effective April 8, 2010. “Ms. Nacario has decided to pursue an exciting opportunity outside HP,” said HP in a statement.

Nacario rejoined HP in 2004 as country general manager for both personal systems group (PSG) and imaging and printing group (IPG). In the middle of 2006, she requested to focus on PSG to drive the business unit to the next level of growth.

Over the past few years, she has strengthened partner and customer engagement and gained their confidence. During her 6-year stint, HP PSG won key strategic accounts to gain strong market share for PSG’s business. She also led the team in developing industry-leading & innovative programs such as the “HP My Backyard” & “HP Island.”

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By Jeff Jedras and Paolo Del Nibletto
ITBusiness.ca
February 22, 2010

TORONTO - In a move that perhaps seemed inevitable as the one-time strong partners began to butt competitive heads more and more in the data centre, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) have ended the last vestiges of their partnership.

In a video blog, Keith Goodwin, senior vice-president of Cisco’s worldwide partner organization, confirmed Cisco was ending its system integrator contract with HP when it expires on April 30th, ending HP’s role as a both a Cisco Certified channel partner and a Global Service Alliance partner. HP also made a move to back away from Cisco, disclosing an agreement to resell QLogic Corp.-developed 8Gbit/sec Fibre Channel switches, an offering HP formerly sourced from Cisco.

In his video, Goodwin said that in recent years, Cisco and HP have begun to develop differing visions of how to deliver value in the data centre, leading to increased competition between the companies that led to the decision to end the partner relationship.

“Being a Cisco Certified Channel Partner has numerous benefits including access to proprietary information (such as product roadmaps) and partner profitability initiatives,” said Goodwin. “Given the evolution of our relationship it simply no longer makes sense to provide these benefits to HP.”

Cisco declined to comment on the move beyond Goodwin’s statement. HP Canada declined a request for interview, but did provide CDN with a statement saying history has proven that customers and the market demand both co-opetition and collaboration between IT vendors and that most major players compete in one deal and partner in others to best serve clients’ needs, adding HP doesn’t believe it’s in the customer’s best interest to take a proprietary stance.

“We will provide clients with consulting, integration, management and support services for their heterogeneous environments and ensure that our hardware and software platforms are optimized for all leading networking platforms,” said HP. “Our strategy and platforms will continue to be market driven to create advantage today and into the future for our clients.”

Competition between the two companies, once erstwhile partners, has become heated in recent years. HP’s expansion of its ProCurve networking portfolio, and its acquisition of networking equipment vendor 3Com late last year have seen the vendor take direct aim at Cisco’s market. And with moves such as its Unified Computing System (UCS) and its expanding data centre vision, Cisco has also been moving into HP’s bread and butter. Executives from the two vendors have also been waging an increasingly pointed war of words.

Still, the ties between the two companies run deep, particularly on the services side. In Canada, HP is Cisco’s largest partner. And particularly with the former EDS business within HP, HP has a lot of Cisco customers to support. Goodwin said Cisco will honour those service contracts for their duration, and has reached-out to HP to work on a “new agreement that ensures business continuity for existing customers and better reflects the current state of our relationship,” but the future remains unclear.

If there’s a big winner from Cisco’s move, it could be partner Dimension Data. Adam Jura, a senior analyst with Ovum, said it’s clear that HP needs Cisco more than Cisco needs HP, and with Cisco’s 3com acquisition and QLogic partnership likely to take time to bear fruit, there’s an opportunity for Cisco’s other partners, such as Dimension Data, to capitalize on the void.

“Cisco will need to be able to have better business value conversations with clients, as HP has been clearly superior in this area. With this change in direction, Cisco will still require someone to implement its products going forward,” said Jura. “Hence, the major winners out of this will be the remaining partners, in particular Dimension Data, which is continuing to impress in its performance in the Cisco products and solutions implementation space. In light of Cisco’s strategy of enabling versus competing against partner services offerings, expect, in particular, DiData to be blessed with more attention from Cisco going forward.”

Many unanswered questions

Paul Edwards, director of SMB and channels research with IDC Canada, said he was surprised by Cisco’s decision to drop HP. While the two companies have been butting heads more and more, he noted such “co-opition” is far from uncommon in the IT industry.

“We need more details,” said Edwards. “What does it mean when they’ve basically taken away their partner status, yet they’re talking about continuing to work with HP within accounts?”

However, Edwards said the move shouldn’t impact the VAR channel relationships for either companies. Cisco partners will likely continue to lead with Cisco, and HP partners with HP, but those partners with feet in both camps could face some pressure from the two vendor.

“It’s up to each of those vendors to take those partners and try to get them as the lead networking equipment provider,” said Edwards. “It might get tricky.”

The decision to drop HP was seen as largely inevitable by James Alexander, senior vice-president, Info-Tech Research Group, calling it a bit of a proverbial closing the barn door after the horse has left, given the increasingly fierce competition between the two companies.

“I think for both sides it signals a growing recognition in the IT community that data centres are being re-engineered and that the transport layer of the data centre is an integral part of how next-generation data centres will be designed,” said Alexander. “Both companies clearly have a strategy to implement that, and HP is moving into the networking space as quickly as Cisco is moving into servers and storage.”

It remains to be seen how it will play-out on the services side. Noting, however, that 10-years post-Y2K there is a massive infrastructure renewal opportunity looming, it is an opportunity for HP to gain market share for its own infrastructure offerings via its enlarged services business. However, he notes HP should also be leary, as it’s an opportunity as well as for competitors such as IBM to fill that void with Cisco offerings.

“There is a tipping-point, and the data centre is up for grabs,” said Alexander. “It’s game on.”

Partner reaction is mixed

The reaction from Canadian VAR partners of the two vendors to the news is mixed. Ottawa-based PureLogic IT Solutions is both an HP and a Cisco partner, and president Coreen Bouchard would like more information from both vendors on what this all means.

“PureLogic IT resold HP Blade Centre, which has many Cisco networking modules. We procured it from HP and it worked really well for us and our customers,” said Bouchard. “This decision will have an effect on our customers. I would like to know what happens next in terms of an exit strategy and support strategy. I really need to know.

For David Chow, president Ottawa-based Stoneworks Technologies and also both an HP and Cisco partner, the parting of Cisco and HP comes at a bad time as his company moves into unified communications.

“While I understand this move because it creates competition, I also believe that it was creating brand loyalty in the channel. What they are doing is creating some bad feelings towards those who rep both sides,” said Chow. “They’re forcing us to choose one or the other and quietly putting pressure on the reseller to go with us or them. I do not think it’s fair to ask those who make sales for these companies to do that.”

It’s seen as a good move though by Pierre Salbaing, owner of Montreal-based Services Avance Reseaux, a Cisco gold partner, who calls it a courageous decision for Cisco to drop a company that may be its largest worldwide UC reseller.

“What it means is that HP has real competitive solutions to Cisco and it may signal to partners that there’s another networking and services player up against Cisco. It could be a good plan B,” said Salbaing. “This is a rare decision for a company like Cisco who embraces partners like no other. To make a change to its partner base like this one it says that HP has maybe the best option against Cisco.

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By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (New York Bureau)
February 15, 2010

NEW YORK - Hewlett-Packard’s first smartbook, the Compaq AirLife 100, announced on Friday, could be a rival to Apple’s iPad as the two companies aim to attract buyers looking for netbook alternatives, analysts said.

AirLife is a hybrid laptop that combines the hardware and software usually found in a smartphone with the design of a netbook. It is as portable as a netbook but offers longer battery life of up to 12 hours. Apple will soon start shipping the iPad tablet, a handheld device designed to let users browse the Internet, play games, read e-books and view video content.

Though some features differ, the iPad and AirLife share several characteristics, including simplified software interfaces, similarly sized touch-screen displays, and an emphasis on making it quick and easy to access online content. Both devices also have Arm processors, while most netbooks use Intel processors.

The AirLife includes a 10.1-inch touch screen and comes with Wi-Fi b/g or optional 3G wireless broadband connectivity. The device weighs around 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at 1GHz. It includes 16GB of internal storage, 512MB of RAM and 512MB of flash storage. It also includes an SD card slot for external storage.

By comparison, the iPad is powered by an Apple A4 chip (based on an Arm design) running at 1GHz. It comes with storage capacities of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB. It is about half-an-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and has a 9.7-inch touch-screen display. The device comes with a software-based, on-screen keyboard. Wireless features include 802.11n Wi-Fi, optional 3G mobile broadband and Bluetooth.

Hewlett-Packard plans to initially distribute the AirLife through Telefonica, which is in Europe and Latin America, said Mike Hockey, an HP spokesman. Hockey said there were no plans to distribute the product in the U.S. and declined comment on distribution in other regions including Asia-Pacific and Japan. HP did not provide a specific date for when the AirLife will become available, saying only that it will be out in the spring.

The lack of distribution in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific could give the advantage to Apple, which will make its product available worldwide in roughly 50 days. Despite being the world’s largest PC maker, HP is being cautious with the AirLife, said Jay Chou, a research analyst at IDC. The limited availability through one carrier means it is testing the product before rolling it out worldwide.

“Western Europe is the biggest market for [telecom] operators to bundle netbooks through. It seems like a likely place to test out the waters with regards to smartbooks,” Chou said. Netbook shipments have grown in Europe as more telecom operators bundle low-cost laptops with wireless contracts, Chou said.

Apple also has an advantage with the familiar iPhone software interface in the iPad that users may find easier to adapt to, said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research.

Smartbooks have a folding design, like netbooks, and use the Linux operating system. Linux has seen slower adoption rates on netbooks compared to Windows, partly because fewer applications are available and because of hardware compatibility issues.

However, HP’s AirLife will use Google’s Linux-based Android OS, which has some cache and has found wider acceptance in the mobile-phone community. Android’s growing popularity could help lift the smartbook segment, Chou said.

Some multimedia capabilities and hardware features could also drive buying decisions, Gottheil said. Each device offers its own multimedia advantages — the iPad supports 720p high-definition video, but smartbooks support Flash content, which the iPad does not.

“We don’t know how much that will handicap the iPad in the market,” Gottheil said.

The lack of a keyboard could affect purchasing decisions for the iPad, but it may be an advantage if the device is used as a multimedia device, for example as a video device on airplanes, Gottheil said.

Price is also a determining factor. The iPad starts at US$499. It can be bought as a standalone product, though users are likely to want a data plan as well. HP did not provide pricing information for the AirLife, which is tied to mobile contracts that will also add to the purchase price.

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By James Niccolai
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
February 4, 2010

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA - Hewlett-Packard has released a smaller version of its portable data center, this time based on a standard 20-foot shipping container, half the size of its first model.

HP hopes the lower entry price of the smaller system will help it to attract more customers. It will also be easier to ship, since roads in some parts of the world can’t handle the 100,000-pound weight of a fully loaded 40-foot container, said Jean Brandau, an HP product manager.

HP calls its product the Performance Optimized Datacenter, or POD. It released the first one in mid-2008, following other vendors including Sun Microsystems, now part of Oracle. Other vendors also sell them, including IBM and Rackable Systems, and Dell has built a few on a custom basis.

Containerized data centers provide a way for companies to add more storage and compute power quickly, without needing to invest in a new data center or expand an existing facility. HP’s 20-foot POD can house 10 racks of compute gear, compared with 22 for the 40-foot model.

Other companies, including Microsoft, have been using them as a standard building block in data centers, because they allow them to add new capacity quickly, and because their enclosed design makes them highly energy efficient.

“This is clearly not a high-volume product, but for certain use cases it is a good fit,” said IDC analyst Jean Bozman. Other possibilities include using a container for a disaster recovery site separate from a company’s main data center, or for use in the field by the military or oil and gas companies, she said.

The 20-foot box has a list price of US$600,000 without the IT equipment inside, half the price of the 40-foot container. Fully loaded, the containers can easily run to several million dollars.

They can also accommodate a lot of very dense compute gear. HP says its 20-foot container provides an average of 29 kilowatts per rack, and a maximum of 34 kilowatts. That compares to around 12 kilowatts per rack in a state-of-the-art data center, Brandau said.

Part of the reason is the efficient cooling system. Each rack is served by four variable-speed fans in the ceiling of the container, and the speed is adjusted for each rack depending on the temperature, measured by sensors on each rack.

“One of the main issues we thought about is blade adoption, because of the very high power and cooling densities required for those systems,” Brandau said.

HP says it can deliver a container loaded with equipment in six weeks for U.S. customers, or within 12 weeks elsewhere in the world.

The PODs have a PUE ratio of 1.25, compared with 2.1 for the average data center, Brandau said. PUE, or power unit efficiency, is a ratio that measures the total power supplied to a facility to the amount of power actually serving the IT equipment. Most of the remainder is lost to inefficient power supplies and cooling.

Containerized data centers are more efficient because the hot and cold aisles are kept entirely separate, unlike many data centers where hot and cold air mix above the racks. HP’s also has a highly efficient power distribution system, with power converted only once before it reaches the racks.

HP’s PODs use standard racks throughout, and it will configure its containers with a mix of HP and non-HP gear. The racks are deep enough to accommodate HP’s deepest server, which is 37 inches, Brandau said.

When it designed the 40-foot container, HP had large Internet companies in mind, such as Google and Microsoft, but many customers don’t need that much capacity.

“Some customers are never going to need 22 racks of high-density equipment,” Brandau said.

To make the containers easier to deliver, HP put a metal shell over the controls on the outside of the 20-foot model, while on the 40-foot model they are exposed.

None of the vendors selling containerized data centers are prepared to discuss how many they have sold. In a survey of data center operators last year conducted by Afcom, 11 percent of respondents said they expected to use a containerized data center in the next five years.

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MSI-ECS, a distributor of technology products in the Philippines starts the year with another major triumph. During the HP Partners’ Night event, MSI-ECS hauled a total of five major awards for FY2009, proving once again that they do excellent business year on year.

MSI-ECS bagged a total of four product-related awards: HP Wholesaler of the Year, HP IWS (Inkjet) Wholesaler of the Year, HP PSG (PC & Notebook) Wholesaler of the Year, and HP ISS (Server) Wholesaler of the Year, as well the HP Product Manager of the Year.

To date, MSI-ECS is distributing a wide range of HP products–consumer and commercial desktops, consumer and commercial notebooks, servers, printers, and supplies headed by Princess Ong Chua and Celso Ravina.

Photo shows (from left): Ryan Guadalquiver, managing director, HP Philippines; Jimmy D. Go, president and CEO, MSI-ECS Phils., Inc.; and Celine Conti, Solution Partners Organization (SPO) manager, HP Philippines.

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In just four months, HP’s “Power to Change” campaign has rallied thousands of people willing to switch off their PC monitors during idle time in support of HP’s challenge for “green” PC use. Spread across different continents, each registrant has to date helped contribute to energy savings of 70,400 kilowatt hours and 42 tons of carbon emissions — which equal almost 2,815 cars being taken off the road. At the heart of HP’s “Power to Change” campaign is a downloadable application which tracks energy and carbon emission savings each time a user switches off his idle PC monitor. With the application, HP hopes to highlight how individual contributions to the environment’s betterment can make a difference in creating lasting, sweeping change. HP also hopes to bring to light practical tips individual PC users and enterprises can follow in order to observe green IT in their respective operations. Supplementing the “Power to Change” campaign is a “Green IT for Dummies” guide book also released by HP. The book, available for free download at http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/environment/productdesign/greenit-4dummies.html lists green IT initiatives that can be employed at the workplace for those who want to further their move towards green and sustainable computing.

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By Computerworld Philippines Staff
January 7, 2010

Local players in the Philippine ICT industry recently took the stage in December during the 2nd CyberPress ICT Choice Awards given out by the country’s association of IT journalists.

Three persons and entities were honored in the event as they made their mark despite the financial crisis that hit 2009 affecting individuals and companies alike.

The awarding ceremony, which was conducted alongside the group’s Christmas party, picked this year’s achievers in five categories, namely: IT Story of the Year, IT Product of the Year, IT Startup of the Year, IT Executive of the Year, and IT Company of the Year.

It was also the start of the Lifetime Achievement Award by CyberPress meant to honor personalities who contributed immensely to the development of the local IT industry. The first recipient of the award is Dr. William “Bill” Torres, hailed as the “Father of Philippine Internet.”

As cofounder and former CEO of Mozcom, the country’s first commercial ISP, Torres spearheaded the negotiations with the US government in the 1990s to bring Internet to the Philippines. He also holds the distinction as the first Filipino to acquire a PhD degree in computer science in the US.

In his acceptance speech, Torres said it is important for the country to take advantage of the benefits offered by technology. He cited, in particular, the cloud computing model, which he said is ideal for a developing nation like the Philippines.

Voted as IT Story of the Year was “Smartmatic-TIM undertakes 2010 election automation project.” It won over four nominated IT-related stories such as the IBM-GSIS feud, Cloud Computing, Unlimited Mobile Services, and the Explosion of Social Networking particularly during the Ondoy typhoon calamity.

Windows 7, Microsoft’s newest operating system bagged the award for IT Product of the Year. It outvoted the iPhone 3GS, iPod Nano, Globe Tattoo and Canon 500D products. The IT press acclaimed it as light and efficient, saying the OS was a big improvement by Vista. Microsoft Philippines country manager John Bessey accepted the trophy.

The IT Startup of the Year was Inovent Inc., a new Filipino tech company that unveiled in 2009 a prototype of an LCD interactive television (iTV) set, claiming to be the first of its kind to be produced in the Philippines. The categories other nominees were Sulit.com.ph and ANTS.

Chosen as IT Executive of the Year was Ricky Banaag, who has become a virtual institution in the local tech industry by leading Intel Microelectronics Philippines for the 12th straight year. He has also provided a steady hand to Intel despite the closure of the company’s manufacturing arm in 2009.

Banaag outvoted three IT executives, namely Ramon Arteficio, president and CEO, Canon Marketing (Philippines) Inc.; Manuel Wong, general manager, Acer Philippines; Vicky Agorrilla, country manager, Lenovo Philippines; and Ryan Guadalquiver, managing director, HP Philippines.

Finally, the IT Company of the Year award was given to Acer Philippines as it exceeded expectations in 2009 by becoming the top PC vendor in the country. Globally, it now threatens HP after knocking out Dell at number two, the IT press said.

The list of nominees for the awards was drawn up during the CyberPress leadership seminar last December 5 to 6 in Baras, Rizal. CyberPress members, composed of journalists from the print, online and broadcast media then voted for their choices via an online poll.

The CyberPress ICT Choice Awards follows the lead of other press groups which have been bestowing awards over the years in their respective sectors. Examples include the “Athlete of the Year” award of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) and the “Car of the Year” award of the motoring press corps. 

Officially named as IT Journalist Association of the Philippines (ITJAP), CyberPress is the first IT press club established in South East Asia (SEA) in mid-1996 and remains to be the only IT media organization in the Philippines. – Tom S. Noda

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By Denise Dubie
Network World (US)
December 23, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Enterprise IT management technologies underwent an image makeover in 2009. No longer just the mandatory tools discussed by engineers troubleshooting problems, IT management capabilities such as automation and service delivery became central to discussions around adopting virtualization, cloud computing and other emerging technologies that high-tech executives want.

The usual suspects — CA, BMC, HP and IBM — responded frequently to growing demand with technology updates, partnerships and purchases, but 2009 also saw some unexpected vendors move further into the management game. With acquisitions, alliances and product advancements, Cisco, EMC, Microsoft and VMware also incorporated management capabilities into larger strategic announcements, realizing there is money to be made in providing intelligent controls for advanced environments.

“The emergence of converged infrastructure solutions such as Cisco [Unified Computing System] and HP converged infrastructure are driving a significant range of systems management functionality closer to the hardware,” says Mary Johnston Turner, research director for system management software at IDC.

Here Network World takes a look back at 10 significant moments (presented in no particular order) in the IT management market during 2009 that prove vendors across the board are prepping 2010’s next big thing in management.

Infrastructure vendors make management moves
Much of the significant management news made in 2009 didn’t involve familiar names such as BMC and CA.

Companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, EMC and VMware started gaining more attention for how their partnerships and product launches related to data center and policy-based management, typically only on the agenda for the market-leading ‘Big Four’ management vendors. That trend, according to industry watchers, could be the most notable news in the IT management market for 2009.

“All the infrastructure players are doing more in the management game, especially in the virtualization world, because for now, customers are turning to their infrastructure provider for their initial take on management capabilities. And management technology is a way to reduce total cost of ownership and obviously an opportunity for a new revenue stream,” says Cameron Haight, research vice president covering IT operations management for Gartner. “The traditional management players are trying to figure out their relationship with those infrastructure vendors that are clearly augmenting their portfolios with management technology. This continuing progression from the infrastructure providers will be interesting to watch as former partners become competitors and management software makers look for ways to differentiate themselves from the pack.”

Microsoft acquires Opalis
Microsoft in 2009 acquired the technology many industry watchers expect to be most in demand in 2010. Opalis offered customers IT process automation software, which all of the leading management software makers either developed or acquired. For instance, HP acquired Opsware, while BMC bought RealOps and BladeLogic. And CA and IBM organically developed automation technology.

“IT process automation became the mantra for all major IT operations management vendors,” says David Williams, research vice president at Gartner.

The Opalis buy gives Microsoft the technology management vendors need to manage virtual systems as well as applications and services delivery via cloud computing.

“IT process automation is a real needed technology and it becomes more important when you talk about virtual systems because virtualization requires rapid responses, it requires things be done at automation speed, not human speed,” says Andi Mann, vice president of research at Enterprise Management Associates. “Microsoft was one of the vendors in the dark on automation so this acquisition gives the vendor a chance to extend automation to Azure and other cloud environments, because cloud computing requires a level of workflow and orchestration that Microsoft could not have done well in the short-term on its own.”

BMC acquires Tideway
Industry watchers say BMC didn’t make industry-changing acquisitions in 2009, but the company did strengthen its product portfolio with the purchase of Tideway Systems. Tideway’s Foundation product helps customers build a map of application components and the underlying infrastructure supporting the applications. This technology coupled with BMC’s Atrium configuration management database (CMDB) could help the management software maker extend its business service management (BSM) efforts.

“Worth mentioning are that two vendors that have tried to stay ‘independent’ have now been snapped up as well: Tideway — application dependency mapping — into BMC, and Opalis into Microsoft,” says Evelyn Hubbert, senior analyst with Forrester Research. “BMC did have some functionality but this acquisition improves their capability across their solution platform.”

Cisco launches Unified Computing System
Cisco’s UCS not only had Cisco presenting an architecture alternative for enterprise IT executives, it also marked a recognition from the vendor that management technology is critical to larger infrastructure strategies. UCS involves Cisco-developed blade servers that would become part of an advanced architecture that incorporates network, computer, virtualization and management resources into a single system. And BM became for the UCS release the management resource provider chosen by Cisco. The partnership fueled other rumors that Cisco may make even bolder moves into the management market.

“Until recently Cisco never really appreciated that IT management is a set of complex, collaborative, interdependent processes which require more sophistication than their device monitoring and configuration tools. This is where BMC comes in — they’ve been working on management issues forever,” said Jasmine Noel, principal analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates, at the time. “I’m thinking there will be no hardware-only computing vendors by the end of this recession. The perceived customer value for hardware-only is too low. For customers with large data centers and server farms, the perceived value is having agile, policy-based computing and capacity management. Cisco, using next-generation Intel chips, could by itself deliver the first two parts, but not the management system.”

CA acquires NetQoS
CA continued expanding its broad IT management software suite when for $200 million it acquired network performance management vendor NetQoS. The deal gave CA application flow capabilities that its Wily Technology acquisition didn’t cover. The application performance management products from Wily coupled with NetQoS helped CA complete its application management portfolio.

“The acquisition is good because NetQoS has a focus on application delivery, so when combined with Wily, it offers a good one-two punch. Customers can visualize the links and relationships between the delivery technologies and the business applications and services with Wily, and understand the real-time application and service activity across those links and relationships with NetQoS traffic flows,” Noel said.

The deal also marked a larger trend among management vendors in 2009, according to Gartner’s Williams.

“Application performance management became the hot product in the availability and performance space — this was attacked from all sides: traditional end-to-end J2EE type performance (CA Wily, Compuware, IBM Tivoli, HP, Dynatrace), network NetFlow (CA NetQoS, Opnet and Network Instruments) and end-user response time and behavior analysis (Knoa, Compuware/Gomez and Aternity),” Williams says.

IBM unveils Tivoli Live Monitoring Services
IT management software delivery models experienced some transformation in 2009, with several vendors offering their typically licensed software as services. IBM, for instance, packaged sophisticated technology such as Tivoli monitoring as easily digestible services paid via subscriptions. Tivoli Live Monitoring Services provides technology hosted in IBM’s cloud computing environment, which enables IBM to provide customers with monitoring capabilities without large upfront investment or ongoing maintenance.

“Tivoli Live gives customers the ability to have hybrid service delivery models with one integrated console,” says Al Zollar, general manager at IBM Tivoli. “On-premise or off-premise, the person working in the operations center is looking at the same dashboard. We wanted to be able to deliver the same service management software through flexible service delivery models and enable customers to adopt hybrid scenarios.”

Industry watchers note that the leading management software makers developed software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, in part in response to customer demand but also to better compete with newcomers such as Service-now.com.

“The big news among IT management vendors was that they all announced SaaS offerings in some of their solutions,” Forrester’s Hubbert says. “This reflects the buying behavior we have seen with many of our customers where they want predictability in what they are spending on IT management solutions.”

EMC buys Configuresoft
With a handful of management vendors already under its belt, EMC upped its management software game even more with the acquisition of Configuresoft.

The company expanded on its OEM partnership with Configuresoft and acquired the software maker outright, which helped EMC broaden its management capabilities across the “entire IT information infrastructure,” EMC executives said at the time. Configuresoft’s Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM) technology was already sold as EMC Server Configuration Manager, and Configuresoft’s Configuration Intelligent Analytics (CIA) is sold as EMC Configuration Analytics Manager. EMC says the purchase will help customers automate management across virtualized environments. EMC also was able to unveil its Ionix brand, which incorporated the Configuresoft and other technology buys (Smarts, nLayers, Voyence and Infra).

“EMC buying Configuresoft basically enabled EMC to transform a relatively chaotic product line into a streamlined and strategic Ionix, which is a product set that definitely signals to BMC, CA, HP and IBM that EMC is serious about management,” EMA’s Mann says.

Compuware acquires Gomez
Another acquisition in the management market proved vendors recognize that customers want to deal with fewer vendors when trying to get control of their environments. As for application performance management, Compuware coupled with Gomez could help IT managers get a complete picture of internal and external environments.

“The internal monitors such as what Compuware offers don’t do a good job of providing insight into the end-user experience and the external monitors can’t see performance inside. The coupling provides a complementary viewpoint, a more complete end-to-end application performance management product,” says Jim Frey, research director at EMA.

Compuware acquired Gomez to combine Compuware’s application performance management technology with Gomez’s Web site monitoring and Web application performance management. The combination, according to industry watchers, could help Compuware win more customers and provide customers with more options in application performance management.

“In the short term, integrating information from Gomez into an APM solution becomes a strong argument in favor of Compuware’s new strategy, and providing an integration between web monitoring services and Compuware’s passive monitoring and APM is a plus for Gomez customers,” Garbani wrote in a Forrester Research blog post. “Longer term, the combination of the two could lead to an SaaS end-to-end application performance management solution, something that should have a strong market appeal.”

Cisco-EMC-VMware data center venture
Cisco’s second significant management move involved a three-way partnership with EMC and its subsidiary VMware. The trio came together to launch its Virtual Computing Environment coalition and Acadia, which would offer training and education on how to use products developed by the coalition.

According to a report in Network World, “The products being developed by the [Virtual Computing Environment] coalition are called Vblock Infrastructure Packages. They are pre-integrated, tested and validated packages combining virtualization, networking, computing, storage, security and management products from the three vendors.”

EMC’s contribution to the joint data center venture was notably unified management software. As part of the news blast, EMC also introduced Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager software, which the company says is “designed to support a wide range of enterprise management consoles.” EMC says the product will manage Vblock Infrastructure Packages that are, according to press statements from the coalition members, “validated platforms of engineered, integrated IT infrastructure from Cisco, EMC and VMware, that deliver a breakthrough total cost of ownership and pervasive virtualization at a scale to meet today’s most demanding use cases.”

VMware’s vSphere, SpringSource news
First VMware announced vSphere, which represented an overhaul of its virtualization platform designed to aggregate virtual resources in a data into one centrally managed computing poll.

“VMware partnered very strongly with cloud provider Savvis to deliver vSphere in the cloud and it clicked that they needed to also be able to manage cloud environments. Soon after announcements from management vendors BMC and CA emerged around managing cloud,” EMA’s Mann says. “VMware also launched a raft of its own management products, which also put the niche vendors on notice that VMware is really getting to the core of systems management now.”

Then VMware announced its plans to acquire SpringSource. The management technology gain might not have been top of mind to industry watchers, but considering SpringSource had acquired open source network management software maker Hyperic, it started to become clearer that VMware realized it needed management to better compete.

At the time, VMware said in a Network World report that the SpringSource acquisition would lead to new products to build, run and manage applications both internally and on external cloud platforms. SpringSource picked up Hyperic to be able to offer customers a Java application life-cycle solution that would start with developing Java applications and run through the management of applications on production systems.

“VMware and SpringSource set the groundwork for more application and workload-aware resource provisioning and automation,” IDC’s Turner says. “VMware emerged as a management software vendor this year, supported by a number of vCenter announcements.”

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By Stephen Lawson
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
December 14, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard hopes to do the same thing with storage that it did with servers, leveraging years of system-building experience and economies of scale, by blurring the distinction between servers and storage.

The company envisions platforms based on industry-standard hardware with software that can change the characteristics of each component as an enterprise’s needs change, executives said at a press briefing on Friday.

“What the Nirvana is, is that I give you something that is really 100 percent truly general-purpose,” said Ian Selway, worldwide solution marketing manager.

Although several major IT vendors are moving to unite computing, storage and networking, HP believes it has an advantage over rivals such as Cisco and IBM because it will let third-party products interoperate with its own and won’t lock customers into specific devices or architectures.

HP’s general-purpose approach will give organizations a cost-effective way to scale up their data centers, taking advantage of the company’s expertise in building computing platforms and its cost advantage as, for example, the largest buyer of memory in the world, according to Jeffrey Hausman, vice president of Unified Storage at HP.

With common hardware, managed by common management software, IT administrators will have fewer things to manage and an architecture that is easier to understand than a collection of distinct computing, storage and networking boxes, Hausman said. While enterprises can benefit from this type of unified system from HP, existing storage systems from other vendors will also be able to plug in and work with it, he added.

With their extra time, IT managers can study new applications that business units want to deploy in the data center, to make sure they’re deployed the best way possible, he said.

Telecommunications is one industry that’s likely to embrace this approach, as carriers seek to quickly roll out new types of profitable services to make up for flagging wireline revenues, Selway said. But businesses across the board have rapidly growing storage needs, with none seeing less than 20 percent data growth over the past year and some seeing as much as 400 percent, according to HP.

The company’s acquisition earlier this year of storage software vendor Ibrix plays a key role in its strategy. Among other things, Ibrix can allocate different parts of an infrastructure to file storage, block storage, virtual tape and other functions, and change that allocation as required. Its capabilities are at the center of the X9000 series of storage platforms, announced last month.

To realize HP’s vision today, various components such as HP’s BladeSystem storage platforms, high-density storage, Ibrix and other components need to be manually combined in most cases, Selway said. For enterprises with petabytes of data to store, the company’s X9720 platform can already be used as a unified system, thanks to some tuning by HP for specific industries such as entertainment, he said. The company plans to work with independent software vendors to make the single-system platform a reality for more types of organizations, Selway said.

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Computerworld Philippines Staff
December 2, 2009

Technology is playing a central role in the unstable business environment as it provides companies with the tools to be more flexible, innovative and intelligent, an independent study commissioned by HP revealed recently.

At least 90% of business executives surveyed said the economy will continue to be unpredictable in the next few years, leading to a significant 80% who realize the need for more flexibility in terms of technology investment.

Because of this, innovation will play a key role in driving business results (84%), leading to more technology investments from the enterprise side (71%).

It is because of these realities that HP is aligning its strategy for next year, focusing on establishing a converged infrastructure for businesses. ”Technology is a fundamental contributor to business innovation,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, HP Enterprise Business. “With HP’s portfolio of products, services and solutions, organizations can build technology environments that deliver the outcomes that matter today and tomorrow.”

HP’s converged infrastructure architecture, which forms from a host of products, solutions and services, hopes to address IT sprawl, which is the main cause of maintenance-focused IT spend.

Its Infrastructure Operating Environment, for example, consolidates application-specific processes and tools into a shared environment which speeds up business processes.

Increasing needs to virtualize networks, servers and desktops, meanwhile, can be addressed through HP’s Virtual Resource Pools, enabling I T administrators to call up specific applications or services as the need arises, the company said.

HP’s Enterprise Services, on the other hand, allow companies to outsource all or a part of their infrastructure to HP, depending on their business needs.

All of HP’s recent rollouts can be funded using its flexible financing solutions for customers deploying HP Converged Infrastructure, through HP Financial Services, it added. – John Mark V. Tuazon

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By James Niccolai
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
December 1, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - IBM retained its narrow lead over Hewlett-Packard in the worldwide server market as sales began to stabilize during the third quarter, Gartner said Monday.

IBM took 31.7 percent of server revenue in the three months to Oct. 31, up a fraction from last year, while HP’s share stayed more or less flat at 30.2 percent, Gartner said. They were followed at a distance by Dell, Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu.

Server revenue overall dropped 15.5 percent from the third quarter last year, to $10.7 billion. But it was up by 10.2 percent compared to the second quarter this year, Gartner said.

“It is important to put the yearly declines into perspective,” Gartner Research Vice President Jeffrey Hewitt said in a statement. The server market is “showing signs of stabilization as we move toward the end of 2009.”

All the top vendors bar one saw their server revenue improve from the second quarter. The exception was Sun Microsystems, whose business has been hit by uncertainty surrounding its acquisition by Oracle.

Sun’s server revenue was down 32.3 percent from the third quarter last year, much more than its main rivals, according to Gartner. It remained the top seller of Unix systems by volume, but its lead was pared down from a year earlier as shipments declined by almost half.

In terms of dollars spent, HP overtook Sun to become the second-largest Unix vendor behind IBM. HP grew its share of Unix systems revenue from 28 percent to 29.3 percent, while Sun’s declined from 29.2 percent to 24.2 percent, Gartner said. IBM’s share increased from 36.4 percent to 40.9 percent.

The Unix server market overall was worth $2.6 billion, a drop of 21.2 percent from the third quarter last year.

Industry-standard servers fared a little better. Sales of x86-based systems declined by 11.4 percent from last year, to $6.3 billion. HP retained its dominant lead, followed by Dell, IBM, Fujitsu and NEC

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By Sumner Lemon
IDG News Service (Singapore Bureau)
November 26, 2009

SINGAPORE - China was a bright spot for Hewlett-Packard during the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, with overall sales in the country up 20 percent over the previous year. But the company’s Personal Systems Group, which sells PCs, performed even better.

“On a year-over-year basis, China delivered the strongest performance with over 40 percent revenue growth,” Cathie Lesjak, an executive vice president and chief financial officer at HP, told financial analysts during a conference call Monday, according to a transcript of her remarks.

Lesjak did not put a dollar figure on the company’s PC sales in China during the period.

China is a key market for PC vendors both because of its size and the sustained high growth of its PC market in recent years. In addition, Chinese PC demand has remained relatively strong, even as sales faltered in other markets during the economic downturn.

However, HP’s strong performance in China wasn’t enough to offset weaker demand elsewhere. Overall revenue for the Personal Systems Group fell 12 percent as unit shipments rose 8 percent compared to same period last year. That rise in unit shipments was driven by laptops, which increased 17 percent while desktop shipments fell by 3 percent, she said.

Laptops accounted for 59 percent of the Personal Systems Group’s sales. Desktops represented 35 percent of sales , with the balance coming from sales of workstations and other products.

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By Greg Meckbach
Network World Canada
November 19, 2009

TORONTO - 3Com Corp.’s board of directors is facing a lawsuit over the proposed acquisition by Hewlett Packard Development Company LP, but a financial analyst who studies Ethernet switching argued if approved, both vendors would benefit from the deal.

Two 3Com shareholders - Nick Bernhardt and Shane Kadlec — filed a class action lawsuit in the Wilmington, Delaware-based Court of Chancery, which adjudicates equity disputes.

The suit came within days of HP’s announcement it agreed to pay US$2.7 billion to acquire Marlborough, Mass.-based 3Com. The deal values 3Com at $7.90 per share. This is 39 per cent higher than 3Com’s share price before the agreement was announced but the plaintiffs say the 3Com board of directors should have tried to get a better offer.

“I don’t see too many legs upon which such a suit can stand,” said Paul Mansky, San Francisco-based principal of equity research for data centre infrastructure at Vancouver, Canada-based Cannacord Adams Inc. “3Com has been a bit longer on promise than delivery for a number of years.”

Mansky noted 3Com has cut costs in research and development and alluded to the manufacturer’s focus on Chinese customers with its H3C unit, originally formed in a partnership with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. of Shenzhen, China.

“They’ve done a decent job in international markets, however the market in North America is still dramatically under penetrated,” Mansky said. “They re-entered that market for the third time in Ethernet switching.”

But Bernhardt and Kadlec allege in their statement of claim the 3Com directors failed to “take all necessary steps to ensure that 3Com stockholders would receive the maximum value realizable for their shares of Company stock reasonably available on the market in any transaction effecting the change of corporate control of the company.”

3Com officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Named as defendants are former 3Com CEO Eric Benhamou, currently chairman of board, and president Ron Sege.

The plaintiffs, who are represented by New York law firm Harwood Feffer LLP, claim financial analysts believe that 3Com is undervalued.

But financial statements 3Com released to the press indicate quarterly revenues and profits are dropping. During the three months ending May 29, 2009, 3Com made $20 million on revenues of $295 million. But during the quarter ending Aug. 31, net earnings were $7.46 million, or 63 per cent lower. Revenues for the latest quarter were $290.5 million, 1.5 per cent lower than in the previous quarter.

3Com’s net income for the year ending May 29, 2009 was $115 million, on revenues of $1.317 billion. 3Com lost $229 million the previous year on revenues of $1.295 billion. The loss in the previous year included a writedown of goodwill of US$158 million.

The lawsuit alleges the directors “failed to implement an adequate bidding mechanism to foster a fair auction of the company to the highest bidder or to sufficiently explore strategic alternatives …”

As of Tuesday morning 3Com shares were trading at US$7.50.

Mansky noted when Cisco Systems Inc. offered to acquire Tandberg SA in October, it was offering “much more modest premium” than HP did when it offered 39 per cent premium.

According to Cannacord Adams, its investment banking clients do not include Cisco, 3Com or HP, nor does it own one per cent or more of any of those vendors.

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco announced Oct. 2 it was offering 153.5 Norwegian Kroner per share of Oslo-based Tandberg, which was 11 per cent higher than the most recent market value. However Cisco recently increased its offer.

If the merger between HP and 3Com is approved, it would be a “win-win” for both companies, Mansky argued.

3Com has “decent products but an inferior channel” and would be “married with a company with a superior channel but absent the product portfolio,” Mansky said.

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By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
November 19, 2009

ALBAY, BICOL – Businesses need to invest on innovating their business processes not only to survive the crisis, but also to come out of it as a competitive entity, an HP executive remarked during a forum with IT reporters here Friday.

Citing the need to change the economies of technology due to the recent global financial crisis, Diana dela Rosa, technology services country manager, HP Philippines , said CIOs are faced with a constant challenge to balance the act between transforming their company and remaining stable during the crisis.

“There are firms who balance cost cutting with investment,” dela Rosa said, dispelling misconceptions that a crisis is a time for immense and drastic budget cuts. “They are focused on balancing cost reductions with laying the groundwork to exit the crisis more competitive.”

Dela Rosa shared that a downturn is a time when difficult decisions have to be made, but reassured that “there’s always a recovery after every crisis,” adding that the IT sector has in fact undergone a similar scenario during the dot-com bust of 2001.

“Economic downturns can more than double the likelihood that a business significantly changes its industry ranking,” said a statement from the company’s Corporate Executive Board, which dela Rosa shared during the forum. “Those that make it into the top quartile during a downturn sustain their market premium for an average of three years.”

To ride the wave of the upturn, Dela Rosa suggested companies start investing on innovative technologies that will optimize their processes. “There is enough room for optimization without compromising the competitiveness of companies,” she clarified.

Presently, HP found that most companies are spending at least 65% of their IT budgets in operating and maintaining the enterprise, with a measly 10% left to innovate its processes. This despite executives’ willingness to implement server and storage consolidation (62%), virtualization (58%), application modernization or consolidation (49%), and automation (42%) within the next 12 months.

Dela Rosa posited a 70-30 ideal ratio between technology innovation and operations expenditure in order to gain a competitive advantage. She also noted how the company itself achieved this ideal setting, driving down IT cost from 4% of their revenue to just 2%, reducing annual electric bills and bringing down the number of used applications from 6,000 to just about 1,500 programs.

“Clearly, there is a confined drive for innovation of these processes,” Dela Rosa noted, stressing, however, the need for companies to construct a road map in order to track its progress.

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Computerworld Philippines Staff
November 16, 2009

Pinting solutions supplier HP announced in a press statement recently its new suite of printing supplies innovations, including the new HP Vivera Inks, HP Colorsphere toner and its redesigned inkjet cartridge packaging for the convenience of users.

HP’s Vivera inks, which use dyes instead of pigments, produce up to 72.9 million colors that provide a smooth and evenly high-gloss finish on glossy photo papers, the statement said. The new lineup of inks—which HP claims provide fade-resistant and long lasting photos—is also capable of eliminating ink impurities and controlling the quality and composition of each ingredient by purifying the dyes and using a proprietary process to fill the cartridge.

Meanwhile, HP’s ColorSphere Toners are set to enable business users to print high-quality outputs through its broader range of colors, higher gloss, and improved photo resolution. “HP ColorSphere Toners offer enhanced charge capabilities and faster melting than ever before, resulting in faster printing without sacrificing print quality,” the vendor said.

HP’s inkjet cartridge lineup, on the other hand, is delineated by unique packaging designs to easily suit every user requirements. The lineup includes standard cartridges in blue, for users who print a small number of pages on a per month basis; value cartridges in white and green packaging for customers with higher volume printing needs at a lower cost; and specialty cartridges in red for those looking to have professional-looking photographs. – John Mark V. Tuazon

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By Stephen Lawson
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
November 12, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy 3Com for about US$2.7 billion, pushing forward the giant IT vendor’s strategy for combining computing, storage, services and networking under one roof.

The deal has been approved by both companies’ boards of directors and is expected to close in the first half of next year. HP is offering $7.90 per share for 3Com, about $2 per share above the stock’s price of $5.69 at the close of trading on Wednesday. U.S. and foreign regulatory approvals will be required, the companies said.

3Com will add to HP’s Ethernet switching portfolio, which is already a growing competitor to Cisco Systems, and add routing products to its lineup.

“Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor,” said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers and Networking, at HP, in a prepared statement. “We will enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center.”

The acquisition will also give HP access to a research and development team and strong sales channels in China, where 3Com operates the H3C subsidiary it originally formed as a joint venture with Huawei Technologies. The deal would also bring in 3Com’s TippingPoint line of intrusion prevention products.

As data centers are centralized and virtualized, the largest IT vendors are pursuing data-center strategies that span all parts of what is increasingly a single infrastructure of networks, storage, computing and software. Cisco’s introduction of servers earlier this year made it a more direct competitor to HP as well as IBM. HP’s own ProCurve networking line has already gained ground on Cisco in enterprises over the past few years.

3Com has trailed the dominating Cisco in the networking arena since the late 1990s and has pursued several different strategies to find its place in the market. Its TippingPoint acquisition gave it a strong position in intrusion prevention, and the company has also focused on networking gear for small and medium-sized businesses.

HP plans to combine 3Com’s enterprise network core and security products with its own offerings for the edge of the network to form an end-to-end portfolio, Donatelli said on a conference call about the deal.

“Every customer I speak to has asked us to do more networking,” Donatelli said. There is little overlap between the two companies’ products, and it will be easy to integrate them because both companies adhere to industry standards, he added. “We’re ready to go to market day one with a portfolio,” Donatelli said. HP executives declined to discuss what brand the products would carry until after the deal has closed.

The purpose of the deal is focused on the traditional enterprise market, not service providers, HP said.

3Com, which once left the enterprise networking business altogether, has had trouble regaining ground in most of the world because it didn’t have enough sales and marketing scale, Donatelli said. HP has examined 3Com’s products and found them compelling enough that it plans to build all of its own networking infrastructure from the combination of 3Com’s gear and its own, he said.

The deal will give HP the network parts it has needed in large enterprises, along with the power of a well-known name, analysts said.

“It gives HP a core switch — a brand-new core switch,” said Steve Schuchart of Current Analysis, referring to 3Com’s H3C 12500, which the company is pitting against Cisco’s Nexus 7000.

“It gives them a real platform to move forward with,” he said, adding that the HP ProCurve 8212 and 5400 series switches didn’t really cut it for core applications. “This is newer, bigger, and a much more purpose-built switch.”

3Com will also give HP some enterprise edge routers. The MSR line features a Linux-based server blade for running open-source applications such as IP PBX (Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange), security and WAN optimization, much like Cisco’s wildly successful ISR series platforms.

There will be considerable overlap, however, at the low end of both companies’ switching lines, Schuchart said. HP will have to rationalize that and base its decisions on which product line is newer and more feature-laden.

“Whoever has newer/faster/better/more will get the nod,” he said.

The symbolism of the acquisition also counts for something, according to analyst Gordon Haff of Illuminata.

“Even if 3Com is a shadow of what it once was, this is a storied company in the networking space. I think that has to rub off at some level on HP, from an internal engineering perspective and external perception,” Haff said.

Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala said 3Com’s departure from the enterprise market about 10 years ago left a bad taste in the mouths of IT managers, but HP’s brand and distribution can overcome that.

“3Com is perhaps the most undervalued company in the networking space,” Kerravala said. It has the broadest enterprise portfolio of any networking vendor except Cisco and will make HP an even more effective rival to the dominant networking company, he said.

In a statement Wednesday that did not refer directly to the proposed acquisition, Cisco said it is confident in its business strategy. “While Cisco has a healthy respect for all of our competitors, acquisitions in our industry only validate the fact that networking is becoming the platform for all forms of communications and IT,” it said.

3Com’s strongest market is China, where it holds about 30 percent of the networking market, HP executives said. HP already has a strong business in China itself but plans to use 3Com’s assets to gain market share there and to develop new products, they said.

China is a high-growth market where 3Com has been “going gangbusters,” Schuchart of Current Analysis said. The R&D team is also a key asset, he said. “They have some serious networking R&D people,” Schuchart said.

And 3Com’s TippingPoint business will give HP security products it either had to partner to obtain or could not offer customers at all, Schuchart said.

“This is huge for HP. It gives them legitimate network security,” he says.

HP also gets a VoIP (voice over IP) product line in the 3Com NBX and VCX IP PBX and handset lines. 3Com has less than 0.5 percent share of the total $16 billion enterprise telephony market, according to Dell’Oro Group. But that’s still more than the zero share HP has, which up to now addressed the market through partnerships with Avaya and Microsoft, among others.

There will also be considerable overlap in wireless LANs, Schuchart said. 3Com has an OEM arrangement with Trapeze Networks, but HP bought Colubris a couple of years ago. HP is expected to continue on with the Colubris product line.

The deal also is in line with a trend among large technology companies to become vertically integrated suppliers, Illuminata’s Haff said. “The story here isn’t the rise of a new Cisco, but really, this is part of this reintegration of the big systems company,” he said.

He cites Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun and the Cisco, EMC and VMware deal as other examples of this trend. “It’s a bit different in every case, but we do have this movement toward vertically integrated companies,” Haff said.

Nancy Gohring of the IDG News Service and Jim Duffy of Network World contributed to this story.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
November 10, 2009

FRAMINGHAM (11/09/2009) - Dell and Hewlett-Packard customers are angry that they have not yet received the Windows 7 upgrades promised them when they purchased new PCs earlier this year, according to messages on the companies’ support forums.

The grumbling is reminiscent of criticism in 2007, when Vista upgrades were delayed by weeks .

Last summer, Microsoft announced “Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program,” which would deliver free or discounted Windows 7 upgrades to people who bought new Vista PCs between June 26, 2009, and Jan. 31, 2010. The program is administered by computer manufacturers, which set the price and delivery dates. 

“I honestly think that this whole windows 7 “FREE!!!” upgrade is total BS,” said a user identified as “mdr322″ in a message Monday posted to a thread dedicated to upgrade complaints. “It took me 1 month to register my service tag and now my delivery date has been delayed by 2 Weeks!!!!!” 

“Dell is behaving very unprofessionally!” said someone labeled “Vlad G” on the same thread. “I am sure this will cost them customers.”

On the HP support site, users were also frustrated by the delay.

“Inept does not do justice to this royal screw-up,” ranted “littlewhizkid” in a message last week on an HP thread. “Total incompetence is closer, but without using language that would lead my message to being deleted I do not think I could adequately describe how poorly managed this process has been. HP has certainly lost any shred of loyalty I may have had.” 

A Dell representative explained the delay. “These are estimated ship dates,” said “Jesse L,” who was tagged as a Dell employee in the forum, referring to complaints from some users that the delivery date for their upgrade kept being pushed back. “The reason they keep changing is because [of] issues with the shippers’ inventory. They got behind and are working to catch up.”

Other users urged patience. “Did everyone forget that the copy is free, not including possible charges to shipping and taxes?” asked “ravenneangelle” last Wednesday. “And how high in demand this product is? I’m sure Dell is doing their best in getting it all out to us in time.” 

That argument didn’t sit well with some.

“Really? This is Dell doing their best? Not having the software ready to go?” countered Jack Dusty on Friday. “Not having a functioning tracking system? Not providing a download link which would’ve been the easiest solution? This is them doing their best? When they knew Windows 7 was going to be in demand? When they knew before [Oct.] 22 the names and addresses of the people who needed the upgrade? When they had months to prepare? Their best? I don’t think so.” 

Although several users on the Dell support thread said that they had received their Windows 7 upgrade, no one on the HP forum reported that they had gotten theirs. A user tagged as “oldmike” on the HP thread claimed he had e-mailed HP, and gotten a reply that included the line, “We have checked the status of your order. Arvato has received all the required information from your side. It will take some time to complete the process.” 

HP is using California-based Arvato Digital Services to fulfill the Windows 7 upgrade orders.

“What a bunch of baloney!!” said oldmike. “I wrote back to them and asked if they had a clue what ’some time’ meant. I haven’t heard from them since.”

The delays have exhausted the patience of some users. “I got tired of waiting & [and] purchased a copy of Vista Ultimate with the Windows 7 Upgrade Offer,” said “SpeedStep” on the Dell thread. “I purchased the software, logged into Microsoft and put the offer key in. Got the Win7 Ultimate Upgrade DVD in the mail within 5 days with no charge.”

Dell did not reply to a request for comment about its Windows 7 upgrade delays. An HP spokeswoman, however, acknowledged that the upgrades were behind schedule. “There has been a delay in shipping consumer notebook upgrade kits due to extra efforts made by HP’s consumer notebook business to ensure customers will have an easy upgrade experience.” She added that HP would begin shipping upgrades this week.

The free upgrade program has come under fire before. Last month, a consumer watchdog site slammed computer makers for charging as much as $17 for shipping the discs to consumers.

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By Channelworld staff
Channelworld India
November 6, 2009

BANGALORE - HP announced its converged infrastructure solution consisting of virtualized servers, storage, networks and power and cooling. These components will be wrapped by end-to-end management software which will reportedly allow organizations to scale up or down depending on their changing needs, claimed the vendor. HP currently has about six customers using this infrastructure.

Durgadutt Nedungadi, Director- Enterprise Server and Storage, HP TSG said, “Through HP’s research we have found that 70 percent of power consumed in the datacenter is used to cool it, rather than running it. Through HP’s ‘Dynamic Infrastructure’ we now have utilities that can shift this power to running the datacenter.” Quoting IDC’s research he added that this year virtualized servers are set to overtake the number of physical servers deployed in the country.

The vendor claims its converged infrastructure comes with features such as virtualization, resiliency and provides optimized usage along with modular technology. Outlining what the converged infrastructure architecture would consist of, Nedungadi said, “The architecture would consist of an infrastructure operating environment, flex fabric, adaptive resource pools and a datacenter smart grid. Adaptive resource pools help customers search for resources across multiple datacenters, so re-use of existing resources becomes possible.”

Cisco along with EMC had launched a similar solution called the ‘Unified Computing’ about six months ago. However, Nedungadi maintained that the HP solution was differentiated by the fact that it takes a holistic view of a customers needs, from business to application to infrastructure.

The vendor aims to go directly to the market and through its partners, while concentrating on the enterprise segment initially. Training programs for the same are being conducted. HP aims at selling the solution by holding visioning workshops, PoC and planning services among others. Commenting on the costs involved in a virtual environment, Nedungadi said, “The cost is currently high as there isn’t proper management software available, and investing in this is crucial. There is not much incremental cost involved though there is effort required to shift from a silo to a converged environment.”

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Computerworld Philippines Staff
November 4, 2009

HP recently launched a new program to support the increasing number of Sun customers looking to transition to a more cost-effective and stable server and storage platform.

Dubbed Sun Complete Care, HP’s program leverages on the company’s IT portfolios and its team of experienced IT professionals with a wide range of transition and modernization services to drive value for customers.  

According to HP, customers moving to an HP environment can reap the benefits of the decades of experience that HP and its partners have in helping minimize costs for customers.

HP said more than 100 customers have chosen to migrate to the HP server and storage platforms over the past months to significantly improve the return on their investments. On average, Sun customers are paying up to 80% more in total cost of ownership (TCO) for Sun SPARC servers than customers using HP Integrity servers. The company said customers transitioning to HP report savings of up to 80% in hardware costs and 60% in server maintenance.

Yet HP also said many applications are also significantly more expensive to run on SPARC servers compared with HP servers. It costs 50% more per core to run Oracle’s database software on SPARC than on HP Integrity. 

To make the transition easier than ever, the HP Sun Complete Care program offers customers a variety of specialized services, support programs and financial incentives. Among these include business case development, free TCO/ROI analysis and migration assessment services, design, migration and support to financing options.

HP added by availing of its Sun program, customers will benefit from trade-in opportunities on hardware and software as well as education programs.

For instance, customers are expected to save on costs by using an HP server platform while staying on the Solaris operating environment. They can also choose to migrate to Linux, HP-UX, or Microsoft Windows on HP’s Integrity server line. To ease the transition, HP provides a single point of accountability for purchase and life cycle support of Solaris on HP servers. By choosing HP servers for Solaris-based applications, customers can advance on performance, scalability and virtualization capabilities. – Tom S. Noda

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HP recently turned Rustan’s Makati into an exciting shopping wonderland last August 14 as it awarded the first batch of winners of the HP 2.4 Million Shopping Bonus Promo. Granting five individuals who were chosen via electronic raffle a shopping experience of a lifetime, the promo aims to reward Original HP Ink Cartridge users for their loyal patronage.

Photo shows winners with HP executives at East Café, Rustan’s Makati. (from left) Gio Sabio, HP Supplies market development manager, Arnold Fabic, Generoso Ignacio, Sonny Jhun Savella, Ronnel Pecayo, and Hermo Anthony Bose, with Jenny Sotto-Siquioco and Francis Chua, HP IPG general manager and HP IPG marketing communications manager, respectively.

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By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
November 3, 2009

Hewlett Packard (HP) recently launched what it claims to be the first consumer line-up of touch-enabled HP photosmart printers enabled by its new breakthrough called TouchSmart user interface.

The touchscreen technology by HP promises to enable consumers to conveniently display, edit and print photos, as well as copy, scan and print documents.

The expanded Photosmart portfolio also features one-touch wireless set-up, a new piano black design, and up to 30% reduced energy consumption compared to previous models – in addition to its new TouchSmart printing interface.

Gizelle Villacorta, market development manager for the consumer category of HP Philippines imaging and printing group, said the new HP Photosmart line-up is designed to better meet the needs of growing consumer demand for touch technology in their devices.

Villacorta shared a market research by Gartner which predicts that the capacitive touchscreen and touch-button controller segment will continue to explode, hitting 1.3 billion units by 2012 – which translates to 44% compounded annual growth rate.

“Since HP introduced its first consumer touchscreen printer in 2006, our R&D teams have drawn from extensive customer insights and leading-edge touchscreen technology to develop a new TouchSmart user interface that will make everyday printing easy and enjoyable,” said Jenny Sotto-Siquioco, country general manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Philippines. “More importantly, we will be leading the industry in making Touchsmart technology available on our full line-up of new HP Photosmart printers.”

Yet besides the touch-enabled Photosmart line-up, HP also added in its portfolio of consumer printing and personal publishing products three HP deskjet printers, including HP’s low price wireless offering – the HP Deskjet D5560 Printer Series.

Called “Magic Frame,” the product is described to be a TouchSmart-enabled HP Photosmart All-in-One printer. This patented touch-enabled panel is said to provide consistency, value, and ease-of-use across the portfolio. With the touch of a finger, the screen maximizes the size of the touch area by including contextual buttons that light up only when relevant to the user.

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By Patrick Thibodeau
Computerworld (US)
October 21, 209

ORLANDO - Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, Mark Hurd, is raising issues with cloud computing, on everything from its name to its ability to offer a secure environment.
There’s a lot that Hurd likes about the cloud environment, but he told attendees at Gartner Inc.’s Symposium/ITxpo Tuesday that more work is needed before cloud services, specifically those located outside the firewall, can offer enough security.
“There is whole set of things from a security perspective that, frankly, have to be overcome to make sure we can keep the momentum going,” Hurd said of cloud computing’s potential.

Citing the 1,000 hack attacks fended off daily, Hurd said “it’s unlikely we would put anything outside the firewall that was material in nature, that we couldn’t just 100% secure.”

He acknowledged that there are many external cloud services that do work, particularly consumer services, but said most of the risk is on the credit card companies.

Another problem with cloud is that it is too technical a term, and there’s a need “try to break this down into simple, clear services,” he said.

Hurd was questioned by Gartner analysts David Cearley and Donna Scott. Usually, for tsuch interviews, the person being interviewed sits as well, but Hurd spent a lot of his time on his feet, drawing diagrams on the board to show how the company was developing, and poising itself for a move to vertical markets.

In his nearly five years as CEO, Hurd has put a lot of effort into reducing costs, cutting management layers, and cutting the number of applications used in the business, from 7,000, some gained through a number of acquisitions, including EDS, to 2,000. The goal now is to reduce the number of applications to 1,000.
The cuts and changes in HP’s staff may have created other issues for the company, something Scott alluded at in one question about the sales effort. “We hear about fragmentation and that HP is difficult to do business with,” she said, and asked what customers should expect from HP’s account teams.

Hurd acknowledged that “sales, as a discipline, has not been what’s been at the heart for the company,” and said he agreed “to some degree” with Scott’s point, but said that the company was making progress in that area. “There are a lot of things we can do to simplify the customer experience,” he said.

A major goal will be creating new verticals to provide complete industry product lines, Hurd said.

The plan to move into verticals raised the eyebrows of Sina Adibi, of the consulting firm Practical CTO LLC, who was at the conference. He said HP’s plan to become a vertical provider could be an issue for some IT managers. “CIOs are not paid to hitch their wagon to a single vendor,” Adibi said.

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By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
October 15, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Acer overtook Dell as the world’s second-largest computer vendor during the third quarter, as the PC market showed signs of coming back to life, IDC said on Wednesday.

Global PC shipments grew 2.3% from the same quarter a year earlier, to 78.1 million units. It was the first quarter this year in which PC shipments have grown, IDC said.

Acer’s shipments grew by a whopping 25.6% to reach 10.96 million units, outpacing Dell, whose shipments declined 8.4% to 9.95 million units. Acer “outperformed the market in virtually all regions,” IDC said.

Acer benefited from strong shipments during the back-to-school season, as prices for laptops fell and netbook shipments gained momentum, said Jay Chou, research manager at IDC.

Dell has not embraced low-cost netbooks as enthusiastically as Acer, Chou said. Acer benefitted more from the competitive pricing environment for laptops and netbooks.

Acer ended the quarter with 14% of the market, compared to Dell’s 12.7%. Both companies trailed Hewlett-Packard, which retained its spot as the world’s top PC vendor. HP held 20.2% of the market after shipping 15.79 million PCs, a year-over-year growth rate of 9.3%.

HP is stronger in retail sales than Dell, which helped it generate stronger back-to-school sales.

Dell is stronger in sales to businesses, and it could rebound during a corporate PC refresh cycle that could happen in 2010, Chou said. Until then, Dell may struggle to keep up with competitors in unit shipments. The company saw solid growth in emerging markets, IDC noted, which was a positive sign.

Ever since Dell lost its market share lead, founder and CEO Michael Dell has insisted he is more concerned with profits. “If we wanted [market share], we’d go and sell a whole bunch of netbooks,” he said in a recent earnings call. Netbooks carry lower profit margins than full-fledged PCs.

Lenovo recorded strong growth of 18.2%, giving it the fourth-place spot with PC shipments of 6.99 million. Toshiba was fifth, with shipments growing 6.9% to 4.04 million.

“The continued strength of both the U.S. and worldwide PC business in the face of difficult economic environments underscores the value that both consumer and corporate buyers place on PCs,” Bob O’Donnell, vice president for clients and displays at IDC, said in a statement.

PC shipments in the U.S. grew by 2.5% during the third quarter, while shipments in Asia-Pacific “grew nicely,” IDC said. Shipments in Japan declined by a double-digit%age as consumer and corporate spending remained weak. Shipments also declined in EMEA, IDC said.

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By Lucas Mearian
Computerworld (US)
October 6, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Brocade Communications Systems Inc. has hung a “for sale” sign on its door, according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal . Brocade declined to comment on the report.

Hewlett-Packard Co. and Oracle Corp. have shown interest in buying Brocade, which make switches for routing data storage traffic, according to the report, which added that an agreement is not imminent.

Brocade is said to be valued at about $3.2 billion. The company reported a loss of $21 million on sales of about $493.3 million in the its 2009 fiscal year’s third quarter that ended Aug. 1.

San Jose-based Brocade has about 2,800 employees.

Brocade late last year acquired Foundry Networks Inc. whose IP networking technology gives it a leg up in the server networking market, and puts it in a stronger competitive position rival Cisco Systems Inc.

“The question is: ‘do the server vendors want to increase the competitive pressure against Cisco because Cisco is now in the server business?’” said Brian Babineau, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass. “I think that’s what makes Brocade more attractive, and you can consider Oracle in the server business as well because they plan to own Sun .”

Babineau said he has heard rumors as recently as last week about Brocade putting itself on the block. If true, he added, the timing isn’t surprising.

Over the past seven or so years, switch maker Cisco has added a line of storage switches and routers that make it a heavy player in the storage business. Just last month, it was reported that Cisco and EMC Corp. were in talks to create a technology services arm. Earlier this year, Cisco, EMC and others said they jointly developed a new storage blade server to be sold by Cisco.

Brocade has also been making moves to attract new sales channels by signing reseller agreements with EMC rivals IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. and quasi-competitor Dell Inc.

Dell has increased its presence in business-class data storage systems over the past few years, originally through reseller deals with EMC and recently with its own line of data storage products that are moving from entry-level to midrange. Dell’s acquisition of storage vendor EqualLogic two years ago likely placed a strain on its reseller relationship with EMC.

Babineau said Hewlett-Packard may be the most appropriate suitor for Brocade because it has an established networking and a storage portfolio of products, and because Cisco is increasingly competitive with HP .

“It’s very logical. If you look at the timing, it’s almost like a perfect storm for Brocade,” Babineau said. “Exiting a Foundry integration process, potential uptick in IT spending starting shortly, and big IT companies wanting to compete against Cisco with Brocade being one of the only viable candidates in that market.”

“This is not about storage, but about networking,” he added.

Another source, who asked not to be named, said that HP executive Dave Donatelli , who had headed EMC’s storage unit until earlier this year, could help HP position Brocade’s storage offerings against those of his former firm. “I just think Donatelli has some real institutional knowledge after selling a good portion of Brocade’s products when he was with EMC,” the source said.

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By James Niccolai
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)

SAN FRANCISCO (09/30/2009) - Hewlett-Packard will make some significant updates to its Integrity server line next year to coincide with the launch of Intel’s first quad-core Itanium processor, known as Tukwila, an HP executive said.

HP won’t provide details about the new systems yet, but one analyst said HP may introduce a modular, blade-like design for more of its Integrity systems, much as it did last year for the Integrity NonStop. That could help to make the systems more energy-efficient and reduce HP’s manufacturing costs.

It will be a good time for HP to update the systems. Tukwila will not be socket-compatible with previous generations of Itanium, and HP customers won’t be able to use the new chip in most existing Integrity systems, Lorraine Bartlett, a vice president with HP’s Business Critical Systems division, said in an interview.

That means customers will have to buy a new server if they want to use the quad-core Itanium processor. HP will try to sweeten the transition to the new chip by using it as an occasion to “modernize” its Integrity hardware, Bartlett said.

The Integrity line competes with Sun Sparc and IBM Power systems and is targeted at applications that require a large memory footprint or high levels of uptime. HP is by far the biggest customer for Itanium, which it adopted to replace its own PA-RISC processor running HP-UX and other OSes.

The company is particularly keen to update its high-end SuperDome server, which has had the same enclosure since it was launched almost a decade ago, Bartlett said. The Tukwila launch “really is the opportunity for us to introduce a much more efficient, modern infrastructure for SuperDome,” she said.

SuperDome is the largest Integrity system, scaling to 64 processors. The line also includes entry-class systems that scale to four processors and mid-range servers that scale to 16. Those systems today each have a different underlying hardware infrastructure.

“So what you’ll find that we’ll do in the next generation is a platform that can cover that entire space very cost-effectively and efficiently for customers. Today the servers are quite similar, but they are independent servers,” Bartlett said.

She declined to elaborate, but Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said the launch of HP’s Integrity Nonstop BladeSystem last year may offer a clue where the company is headed.

That move saw HP move its fault-tolerant NonStop technology onto its BladeSystem hardware. That means HP gets to use some of the same hardware that it uses for other, higher-volume blade products, which reduces its design and manufacturing costs. HP says the blade systems are also more energy-efficient and require less floor space.

“It wouldn’t be a big stretch to assume that HP is taking at least a somewhat similar approach” with its other Integrity products, Haff said.

The strategy is similar to what Intel is doing with Tukwila, which will use some of the same chip-set components as Intel’s higher-volume Nehalem EX Xeon processors, said Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat. “The more commonality you have between products, the cheaper it is to make them,” he said.

After several delays, Intel expects to launch Tukwila in the first quarter next year. HP will need about three months after that to get the chip into its servers, Bartlett said.

Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight64, said it’s always more challenging to sell customers a forklift server upgrade, “but sometimes it becomes necessary, and that’s been true over the years with systems from Sun and IBM and others.”

IBM has said its Power7 chip, due in the first half of next year, will plug into some of its existing high-end servers. But previous updates required customers to buy new server systems.

HP says the upgrade will be worth it. With twice as many cores, Tukwila will allow HP to put the same compute capacity into a system half the size, Bartlett said. For example, a fully loaded SuperDome with 64 processors will occupy one server cabinet with Tukwila, whereas today it uses two.

One exception with the upgrade will be HP’s Integrity blade servers: Customers will be able to put a Tukwila server into an existing Integrity blade enclosure, Bartlett said.

Moving forward, Intel has said Tukwila will be socket-compatible with the next two generations of Itanium, known as Poulson and Kittson.

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By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)

SAN FRANCISCO (09/15/2009) - Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday introduced the ProBook 5310m lightweight business laptop, which features a low-power chip from Intel traditionally used in inexpensive home PCs.

The new laptop has the portability of a netbook and adequate performance to run most desktop and high-definition multimedia applications, HP said. Intel earlier this year announced new inexpensive, low-power chips for such ultrathin PCs, which are typically priced starting at US$400.

The ProBook costs $699 with a low-power single-core Intel Celeron SU2300 chip, an HP spokeswoman said. The chip runs at 1.2GHz and includes 1MB of cache. The laptop can be configured to include a standard Core 2 Duo chip usually found in mainstream laptops. A Core 2 Duo chip is more powerful than the Celeron chip, but uses more power. The standard-voltage Core 2 Duo SP9300 runs at 2.26 GHz with 6MB of cache.

The laptop is 3.79 pounds (1.72 kilograms) and is 0.93 inches (2.36 cms) at its thinnest point. It comes with a 13.3-inch screen, and storage capacity of up to 320GB. It offers with Intel integrated graphics, integrated webcam and optional wireless broadband modules. A four-cell lithium polymer battery will give up to 6 hours of battery life depending on the processor and configuration, the spokeswoman said. A six-cell could give a battery life of up to 8 hours.

The laptop has features not found in consumer laptops, the spokeswoman said. For example, the laptop has a lightweight metal case built with a magnesium alloy bottom to protect it from the rigors of mobile use. Buttons next to the keyboard provide one-touch access to e-mail, calendar, contacts and tasks. A USB docking station can attach to the laptop and it also has instant-on capability for users to quickly surf the Web or check e-mail without a full boot up.

The laptop is HP’s first to be made without hazardous substances like polyvinyl chloride plastic and brominated flame retardants, the spokeswoman said. This is an early step by HP to remove such substances from all of its hardware by 2011, the company said.

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By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
September 17, 2009

Realizing the potentials of the MPS (Managed Print Services) market especially in the enterprise space, IT print solutions provider HP on Wednesday announced the creation of a new business unit that will focus solely on managing the MPS function of the company.

Called the Managed Enterprise Solutions (MES) unit, HP officials said during a teleconference with reporters from neighboring Asian countries that the new division will utilize the multi-function device offerings of both HP and Canon, its long-standing partner in the MPS space.

Canon and HP have 25 years of relationship between them, and the new division will further strengthen this collaboration, HP officials said. The expanded alliance will combine Canon’s range of multifunction office systems with HP’s Laserjet and multifunction printer offerings.

“But the partnership is strictly for the MPS functions this time,” clarified Bruce Dahlgren, the newly-appointed head of the new division, adding that HP and Canon remain competitors in other areas of the market, such as consumer electronics.

With the new division bolstering its MPS strategies, HP is keen on making a mark in the print services industry. “We are bringing it all together as a service,” remarked Dahlgren. “MPS is becoming a huge trend among enterprises today, with well over one-third of world companies already adopting MPS solutions for their companies.

Dahlgren said MPS will help firms drive efficiency to their businesses by adopting tailored solutions that address their specific problems. To date, he added, HP serves well over 2,000 customers with MPS around the world.

In the Philippines where majority of businesses are SMBs, HP Philippines officials said they are not offering MPS but a host of Smart Printing Services instead. “SPS are solutions that are delivered by most of our channel partners nationwide,” explained Jerome Nicdao, Commercial and Enterprise Manager, HP IPG (Imaging and Printing Group) Philippines.

Nicdao said the difference between MPS and SPS in developing countries such as the Philippines is that in countries where MPS is available, HP directly manages the solutions for interested companies. “Here in the companies, since the MPS market is not that big, we trust our channel partners to handle the implementation of our offerings.”

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By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
September 17, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard on Monday formed a new print services division with a focus on managing print and imaging hardware and software in enterprises.

The division, called Managed Enterprise Solutions, aims to unify disparate hardware such as copiers, printers and scanners in order to cut hardware and printing costs, said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s imaging and printing group. The unit will also provide services and software that put scanned or printed documents in workflow systems to make document management easier.

The company’s attention has been geared toward hardware and supplies, but software and services surrounding printing and imaging are a growing opportunity, Joshi said. The company sees a US$121 billion annual opportunity in the printing market, of which $64 billion is for hardware and $57 billion for software and services.

There is more to printing than just hitting the print button, said Roger Douglas, director of managed print services at HP. For example, software provided with the managed services could enable an invoice to be scanned, which can automatically be put into a company’s payroll system. The automation reduces the number of steps and cost required to manage the document, Douglas said. It also reduces the chance for error through manual transcription.

The documents can also be secured through a service by establishing a status to ensure documents aren’t appended, Douglas said. For example, if a marketing logo is finalized on a particular document, its status can be appended to ensure no one changes it. This approach is particularly helpful when editing legal documents, he said.

The company is also changing printer designs to build in more services-related functionality. For example, a touch screen on multifunction printers can be used to input or check the job status of scanned documents like patient records.

“A lot of times customers have treated imaging and printing like an afterthought,” Douglas said. Managed print is all about stepping back and taking a more strategic and methodical look at how those documents are managed, he said.

The company has also expanded the availability of a program that guarantees savings for customers who sign up for its print services outside the US Under the plan, HP assesses a company’s imaging and printing environment and calculates the possible savings a company can realize using HP’s managed services. If customers haven’t realized the savings in a year, HP will make up the difference with a credit that can be used for their next printing services contract. The company has already signed up 100 customers since it launched that program, Joshi said.

The unit will be a part of the company’s imaging and printing division, Joshi said. The company has pulled some personnel from the existing services division and has seen its services customer base expand since acquiring EDS.

HP has a strong presence in the printer market, and the expansion of services could help it capture a larger share in the printer space, said Edward Crowley, CEO of Photizo Group, a consulting company that specializes in managed print services, who was at HP’s press briefing Monday. The increased level of focus on services could also benefit HP’s enterprise customers, he said.

HP is the first company to establish a dedicated print services division, according to Crowley. Competitors including Xerox have managed print services spread across various company divisions and programs, which can make it harder for customers to find the right offering, he said.

More and more customers are focusing on their print costs per page, Crowley said. The new HP division could potentially charge companies per page printed, he said, a fee that would cover hardware, supplies and services such as help desk support.

An analyst agreed with Crowley, saying the new unit will deliver transparency between imaging and printing services and other HP services offerings. “They probably are the first to form a global-focused business unit at this level,” said Jon Reardon, group director at research firm Infotrends.

Xerox claimed leadership in the managed printing services space over HP, though, citing research from Gartner. It also disputes the claims that HP is the first with a dedicated print services division and that Xerox’s print services are spread across various divisions.

“The race for leadership in enterprise print started a decade ago, it isn’t something that another vendor can easily replicate. Xerox has one division that handles managed print services — Xerox Global Services,” said Jim Joyce, senior vice president of Xerox enterprise print services, in an e-mail.

The Xerox Global Services group includes managed print services as well as document and enterprise content management services.

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By Eric Lai
Computerworld (US)
August 19, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Best known for its conservative Thinkpad business laptops, Lenovo Group Ltd. is trying its best to break out of that box.

The PC maker today released a quartet of consumer PCs under its IdeaCentre line that are firsts in their respective categories for Lenovo. They also sporting slim-and-sexy designs targeting the family or the living room rather than the traditional home office.

They also target No. 1 PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co., which generally rules the consumer segment.

The first are a pair of net-top PCs, the IdeaCentre Q100 and the Q110, that run Intel’s Atom processor. They measure 6 x 6 inches and are 0.7 inches thick.

The Q100 uses just 40 watts of power at full operation and 14 watts when idle. The Q110 is not as green, but, instead of Intel’s integrated graphics, uses Nvidia’s ION graphics chip for 1080p video and DirectX 10 graphics, said Lenovo, making it suitable for watching high-def videos or gaming.

The Q100 and Q110 start at $249 and $349, respectively, and will be available in mid-September.

The IdeaCentre Q700 is a slightly chunkier although more powerful machine aimed squarely at the home theatre PC (HTPC) market. It sports an Intel E5200 dual-core CPU at 2.5 GHz, 4 GB memory, 320 GB SATA hard drive, DVD-RW drive, and Intel integrated GMA X4500 graphics. It also supports 1080p graphics via its HDMI connector and 7.1 digital surround sound.

The Q700 is available from Lenovo’s Web site, starting at $499.

The IdeaCentre D400 is Lenovo’s first Windows home server. It will compete with Acer’s EasyStore Home Server and HP’s MediaSmarts.

The D400 supports up to 8TB of total storage, said Lenovo, via its four hard drive bays and five USB ports and eSATA port. It will be available in mid-September with prices starting at $499.

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By Carolyn Duffy Marsan
IDG News Service
August 19, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Some techies like to think of themselves as eco-friendly, driving energy-efficient cars, riding mass transit or, better yet, biking to work. On the job, many are involved in data center consolidation and virtualization efforts aimed at slashing electricity costs. But how many techies are willing to go green on their desktops?

That’s the question a group of IT vendors is asking as it challenges its own employees and government workers to turn off their PCs, monitors and printers at the end of the workday to save power.

Next Thursday — Aug. 27 — is Power IT Down Day, an awareness-raising event sponsored by Citrix, HP, Intel and Microsoft to encourage employees to hit their power strips as they head out the door for the evening.

“The objective for the day is to raise awareness of what individual consumers of IT can do to impact green IT initiatives, whether in government or private industry,” says Tom Simmons, area vice president for Citrix Federal.

Simmons says most IT departments focus on greening their data centers through server virtualization and efficient air conditioning systems, but they don’t focus on the client side of green IT, which is a significant portion of an organization’s overall electricity usage.

The IT vendors involved in Power IT Down Day say it saves an average of 13 kilowatt hours of electricity per person per evening if employees shut down their CPUs, monitors and printers from 5 p.m. until 8 a.m. the next day.

It’s the second annual Power IT Down Day, which was started by Citrix’s public sector group to encourage its government customers to save energy by turning off their PCs at night. Citrix planned the event for August, when electricity consumption is at its peak due to air conditioning usage.

Last year, Power IT Down Day attracted 2,800 participants who saved more than 36,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. So far, the 2009 Power IT Down Day has attracted more than 1,100 participants.

More registrations are due early next week, as CIOs of participating organizations send out internal e-mail asking employees to participate in Power IT Down Day. Citrix hopes to have at least 3,100 participants.

Anyone can participate in the 2009 Power IT Down Day. You can register here.

Simmons says powering down your PC, monitor and printer has other benefits besides electricity savings. Systems are more secure because rather than being in idle mode they need to be rebooted in order for them to be hacked. Additionally, CPUs and printers last longer if their power is turned off for eight hours at a time.

“But the primary objective is the energy savings,” Simmons says.

With so many benefits, what keeps techies from powering down every night? Habit, Simmons says. After last year’s Power IT Down Day, Simmons started powering down his laptop, monitor and printer before leaving for the day. “I’ve built a new habit where I shut all that down, and then I flip the switch on my power strip so there’s no electrical draw on any of those devices,” he says.

Admittedly, some techies won’t be able to participate in Power IT Down Day because their IT departments ask them to leave their PCs on overnight since that’s when they push software updates and send patches. But Simmons is urging these folks to at least turn off their monitors and printers next Thursday night.

“Everybody is focused on expense management and expense reduction. While this is a small reduction on an individual basis, it does add up,” Simmons says. “Last year, we estimated that if we could get 1% of the 1.8 million federal government employees to participate in Power IT Down Day, the government would save over $24,000 for that day. If you multiply that over a year, it does have a material impact on the energy spend.”

Citrix has promised to make a donation to the Wounded Warrior Project of at least $20,000 depending on how much electricity savings are generated by Power IT Down Day. Last year, Citrix donated $20,000 to the American Red Cross.

As altruistic as it sounds, Citrix does have a business objective for promoting Power IT Down Day. The software vendor sells desktop virtualization systems that reduce desktop power consumption even more than turning off PCs overnight.

“The IT community could look to virtual desktops for 40% to 60% of its user population. Then instead of having machines to power up, they’d have virtual desktops in their data centers. That would not only save energy but give them additional management insight,” Simmons says.

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