HP gunning for the solutions space

HP is playing to win in the solutions space",
thundered Michael Hoffmann, VP and GM (Business Customer Sales Organization),
Asia Pacific, HP. He was addressing the media gathering at the Asia Pacific
press symposium here today.

HP has announced an investment of $ 18 million as part of
its strategic thrust into the solutions market in Asia-Pacific. The investment
will be used to help the company build, design and deploy solutions either on
its own or jointly with customers and partners.

Added Hoffmann, "HP is in a unique position to build
a strong leadership in the solutions area. We already have strong
proof-of-concept solutions developed for the network service provider market. We
intend to capitalize on this and leverage our experience for the other focused
segments such as manufacturing and financial services."

The target markets that HP intends to focus on
are--Financial Services Industry, Manufacturing, Network And Service Providers,
And Small And Medium Businesses. In addition, it will also focus on some other
critical solutions that include e-commerce, CRM, and operational procurement.

As part of the overall investment, HP also plans to
launch two customer service centers in the Asia Pacific region. In addition, 25
resource centers will also be set up, out of which, probably two would be
located in India.

The first customer center--spread across 6,000 sq ft--has
already come up in Ichigaya, Japan. It provides its customers with a broad set
of services and solutions that include third party technologies such as Oracle
CRM, Cisco ICM, Broad Vision and EpiphanyOne. The second such center is slated
to come up in Singapore later this year.

The customer centers in Japan and Singapore will
provide a higher level of customer experience for our customers. We have heavily
invested in the customer centers to ensure that customers are able to access the
right people, solutions and services provided by HP and its key partner,"
elaborated Hoffmann. In conjunction with this announcement, HP also

launched new printer and storage solutions designed to make business
transformation a reality. It introduced five new Internet-enabled printers that
allow business customers to leverage the power of Internet by improving speed,
efficiency and delivery of information and workflow processes. These new devices
will provide customers with a wide range of

Internet and wireless features--from embedded Web server and embedded virtual
machine technologies to scan-to-Web functionality and fast infrared for wireless
printing.

HP is revolutionizing the role of printers and with
these new printers, our customers will be able to leverage Web-based services
and information to maximize their competitive advantage," said Joergen
Jakobsen, VP and GM (Imaging and Printing Systems) Asia Pacific, HP. Added
Hoffmann, "We want to make Internet work for our customers."

HP also unveiled its Federated Storage Area Management (FSAM)
strategy and a $ 50 million investment in Asia Pacific to support this strategy.
FSAM solutions will enable businesses to manage today's unpredictable storage
demands. The announcement included three FSAM solutions--Hp Network Storage
Appliance, Hp Surestore Array 7100, And Hp Openview Storage Area Manager.

(CNS)