HP India Ltd has launched a two-pronged initiative to enhance its presence in the software market. While the company will address the enterprise customers and service providers through its partners, it will target the telecom segment directly through its consulting arm HP Consulting.
Traditionally focused on the hardware sector, HP's foray into the software market is fairly recent. However, its software initiative is deeply intertwined with its hardware strategy and the latest thrust needs to be understood as part of its bigger gameplan which the company terms it as the 'HP Ecosystem'.
According to HP estimates, for each dollar invested in software, the service provider or the enterprise would invest seven times on hardware. So each software deal would create another market for its hardware products significantly affecting its
bottomline.
However, a late entrant in the Indian market as compared to the likes of IBM and Compaq, HP Software has 30 installations to its credit in the ISP and data centers market. Among its clients figure big names like HCL Comnet and British Gas Broadband Ltd in Gujarat.
The company does not yet have a presence in the telecom sector since operators here are still in the process of rolling out their networks. Nevertheless, HP plans to target the sector aggressively this year and even hopes to see a couple of deals within this calendar year. Typically, since the size of project in the telecom sector is huge HP will address it through its consulting arm directly.
During the last six months, HP has made a concerted effort to consolidate the strategy of its channel. The company has adopted a three-tier structure to address the enterprise segment. In the first tier figure Wipro, HCL Infosystems, CMC and its distributor Tech-Pacific. In the second tier figure the likes of Bangalore Labs, Ramco Systems and Network Solutions; and the third tier would have four or five regional players to address each region.
Speaking about its initiative in firming up the channels, Amit Chatterjee, Country Sales Manager (Software Solutions Organization), HP India, said, "Partners are categorized into different tiers depending on the sales they bring to the company. Tier three partners typically only provide the leads to software sales without much involvement in the implementation although they are given the opportunity to climb up the ladder by implementing solutions."
HP Software offers end-to-end solutions for the telecom service providers from network creation to delivery systems to assurance and network usage. Therefore, the software division's big gamble would be during this year depending on whether or not it is able to pull off a big deal or two.
Asim Raina & Balaka Baruah Aggarwal