HP unveils automated services tools

US tech giant HP has bolstered its service offerings with a suite of new software and services to help customers transform their IT operations and automate the management of business operations.

The HP Automated Operations 1.0 offering is a set of products that automates IT operations, eliminating labor-intensive tasks and ad hoc, error-prone manual processes. The company says the product dramatically lowers the day-to-day cost of IT operations.

The HP Automated Operations 1.0 software suite is composed of IT Service Management, Business Service Management and Business Service Automation solutions.

It also launched its HP Business Service Automation software, a single platform to automate all IT processes and drive change across applications, servers, networks, storage and clients.

“We have been aggressively expanding our software portfolio in the last two years to broaden and deepen our capabilities to help customers improve their top and bottom lines,” HP’s Software senior vice-president Tom Hogan said.

IDC Enterprise Management Service research director Stephen Elliot said business service automation was an opportunity for IT organisations to more closely align with business objectives such as compliance, security, and cost reduction, and the delivery of innovative products.

“The legacy manner in which many IT organisations execute enterprise infrastructure management processes is quickly becoming obsolete as they are too static, take too long to execute and lengthen time to market cycles,” Mr Elliot said.

“IT organisations must mature toward processes and technologies that enable a more dynamic, business-driven impact.”

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Pre-installed penguin mooted for Dell, HP

GLOBAL PC market leaders Dell and HP are considering offering boxes pre-loaded with Linux and other open source software in the face of growing customer demand for the service.

Both companies have been watched the demand grow for years, but have chosen to turn a blind eye.

The complications of licensing arrangement with their powerful software partner – Microsoft – has made any decision to pre-load Linux more complex than it might appear to the casual observer.

But the demands have become more difficult to ignore, particularly for Dell, which has launched a customer-facing web site called Ideastorm that aimed to elicit ideas from its user base.

In less than three weeks, Ideastorm has attracted 110,000 comments from people talking about pre-installed open source Linux – by far the most talked about idea talked about by customers.

And the next most discussed topic was a suggestion – with 72,000 comments – that Dell pre-install OpenOffice, either alongside Microsoft Office or MS Works, or instead of them.

Dell hasn’t officially commented on the response it has received from the Ideastorm, although a spokesman was quoted on US media sites saying the Linux buzz was “being taken into account” and that users should stay tuned.

Hewlett-Packard is also said to be considering offering pre-installed Linux as a product option – but says it is responding more to demand from corporate customers.

CRN magazine in the US quotes HP worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing Doug Small saying a series of massive deals for Linux desktops were “indicators of critical mass … so we are looking at it very hard.”

The company does not sell PCs or notebooks pre-loaded with Linux, but has several systems that are certified for both SUSE and Red Hat. It will pre-load Linux as part of custom orders, usually for large enterprise roll-outs.

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IBM dines out on healthy server market

WORLDWIDE server shipments grew nearly nine per cent last year, with IBM topping market share for the eighth consecutive year, according to research house Gartner.

But while the number of servers shipped in 2006 grow 8.9 per cent to 8.2 million units, revenue growth was significantly lower, growing two per cent last year to US$52.7 billion.

IBM claimed more than 32 per cent of the global server market, growing its revenue 1.7 per cent to nearly US$17 billion, Gartner said. The second largest server vendor, Hewlett-Packard, lost ground in 2006, with revenue down 2.6 per cent to US$15.2 billion.

Of the top five global vendors, only Sun – the third biggest server vendor – gained revenue share for the year. By growing its market share 1.2 per cent to 10.8 percent, Sun reversed a yearly revenue share decline trend that had been occurring since 2001.

Blade servers continue to be the high-growth segment with a revenue increase of 36.5 percent and a shipment increase of 33.0 percent for the 2006.

IBM and HP continued to dominate the blade server market with a combined share of almost 74 percent of the worldwide blade revenue share for 2006.

IBM's leadership position in global server revenue in 2006 was bolstered by strong revenue growth in its System Z mainframe class server business.

"Mainframes are important to our customers today. We believe the launch of the System z Business Class mainframe during the year, as well a $100 million investment to simplify the platform and the uptake of workloads driven by the launch of specialty processors for Linux and Java workloads," IBM senior vice-president Bill Zeitler said

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HP targets NAS market with acquisition

HEWLETT Packard has given itself a leg-up in the enterprise network-attached storage (NAS) market, acquiring a US-based storage software innovator PolyServe.

The acquisition gives HP leverage to better compete in the enterorise NAS market with industry leader EMC.

Specifically, the PolyServe software will let HP extend its NAS technology to blade systems, the fastest growing segment of the storage market.

The acquisition also lets HP offer customers a powerful consolidation platform – including energy saving blades – for databases that require high performance and resilience.

PolyServe has been an HP business partner for two years. HP has sold the PolyServe software with its ProLiant servers and its portfolio of storage arrays to consolidate and virtualise NAS in Linux and Windows environments.

The PolyServe software lets information from file or database servers be consolidated into a shared pool of scalable storage.

Founded in 1999, PolyServe is based in Oregon with 117 employees and boasts about 500 customers from industries including finance, energy and technology.

The companies did not reveal the financial terms of the acquisition. PolyServe was founded on venture capital funding. It’s fourth-round funding of US$20 million brought its total VC funding to about $70 million since it was set up.

“Our two-year relationship with PolyServe has convinced us that its technology will help accelerate HP’s growth and complement our HP StorageWorks, ProLiant and BladeSystem businesses,” HP senior vice-president Bob Schultz said in a statement.

“The combination of PolyServe software and industry-standard HP hardware can help customers consolidate individual silos of storage, reduce complexity in their IT infrastructures, increase agility and lower IT costs,” he said.

The transaction is expected to be completed within 60 days and will be consolidated into the StorageWorks division of HP’s Technology Solutions Group.

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HP universal driver attracts 2 million users

HP has released internal results of its Universal Print Driver deployment, claiming the system led to a 20 per cent reduction in printer-related help-desk calls in its first three months.

Senior management says the two week roll-out of the HP Universal Print Driver (UPD) across 100,000 staff had also allowed the company to “retire” 225 redundant print servers costing about US$2,900 (A$3,700) per server per month – saving the company $7.8 million a year.

The company said more than two million copied of its UPD had so far been downloaded from HP.com. The driver works with virtually all networked HP LaserJet printing devices, letting IT staff focus on more strategic issues and projects, reduce helpdesk calls and improve the productivity of those who print.

Because the driver automatically recognises upgrades to HP devices, IT staff don’t have to manually update the driver on each device on a network. For business travellers, the UPD eliminates the need to locate and download drivers for remote offices, since they are already able to print to most HP LaserJet printers, regardless of location.

“Issues related to printer drivers are daily time-sinks for IT professionals. But the (UPD) eliminates those headaches by simplifying printing and reducing IT and help desk calls,” said HP worldwide marketing vice-president for LaserJet, Vince Ferraro.

“The HP UPD allows customers to concentrate on their real business of printing valuable documents, not supporting and managing their printer fleets,” Mr Ferraro said.

HP found a couple of other advantages in its internal UPD deployment, the biggest being that by changing the default settings to duplex printing – double-sided printing – paper usage at the company was reduced by 25 percent.

HP expects to save more than $6 million and reduce annual paper usage by 750 tons when implemented globally as a standard.

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