'High tech, low cost, best customer experience'

The strategy of HP’s soft-ware business is now go-ing to be

"High tech, low cost, best customer experience". This was revealed by

Peter van der Fluit, VP and Worldwide Software Sales & Marketing Manager

(Software Global Business Unit), HP. He was detailing HP’s software strategy

and direction for the new fiscal at the HP Software Sales Olympics 2003

conference at Southern Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Held every year at a different location, this event is a part

of HP’s commitment to its channel partners. At this event, key HP executives

and channel partners from the Asia Pacific region share best practices and their

expertise in delivering solutions that meet customer needs. In addition, HP also

recognizes the achievements and performance of its top channel partners.

At this year’s event, the award winners from India included

Wipro (in the Sales Champion category) and Hyd-erabad-based Xius (in the

Innovation of the Year categ-ory). Individual award win-ners were Kathiresan

Laksh-manau of HCL Comnet (in the category of Regional Out-standing Technical

Consul-tant) and Praveer Singh of HP SW (in the Best Channel Sales of SGBU

category).

At the event, HP also ann-ounced a new initiative that

enables its channel partners to provide more value-added solutions to customers

who are demanding more from their IT resources and want to achieve higher return

on IT invest-ments. Called the HP OpenView Independent Software Vendor program,

it aims to build an ecosystem of channel partners and solution providers for IT

services management (ITSM) and Web services management. Targeted at ISVs in the

Asia Pac region, the program has been developed as demand grows with more

companies starting to recognize the benefits of implementing ITSM solutions.

Elaborating on the program, Steve Au-Yeung, VP and GM

(Software Global Business Unit), HP Asia Pacific, said, "In Asia Pacific we

see strong growth opportunities in ITSM, web ser-vices management and Wind-ows

management. We will leverage the expertise of our channel partners who will add

value to and resell our solutions to meet demand in these grow-th sectors.

Through this prog-ram, ISVs will enhance and add value to HP’s OpenView ITSM

solutions. We are confident that closer collaboration with our channel partners

will drive even greater value thr-ough the chain to benefit our customers."

To further strengthen its network of channel partners in Asia Pac over the

next 12 months, HP will expand its channel programs to include outsourcing

service pro-viders. The company will also enhance its channel programs by

incorporating special in-centives for growth and new business opportunities

iden-tified by the channel partners.

Asim Raina


Hangzhou/China