HP to revive its software business

HP is on a new way. It is now giving new life to its software business that is predominantly Openview dependent and wants to become software major. It has lined up a simple proposition to achieve: have 70 percent of the businesses come from software licenses and the rest from services.

HP's senior sales and marketing executives for software unveiling the company's ambitious drive into the software party to its Asia Pacific channel partners said that the company is investing heavily into developer programs, sales channel programs and adding more teeth to its direct marketing efforts through HP Software Solution Organization worldwide.

Though HP is pitched against CA and IBM in the network management segment, which brings it over $ 1 billion annually, it has put together a more ambitious vision of becoming the plumber in a world which it perceives to be dominated by Web services. Called Netaction, HP's new initiative appears to be a quick answer to Microsoft's .Net and Sun's SunOne but HP begs to differ. They say we are not competition to either MS or Sun. We are more of open industry standard players and our solutions talk to any other software, said Peter van der Fluit, VP, HP (Worldwide software sales and marketing).

Though Openview is HP mainstay for now, it is rapidly building a foundation for its Web services business by bringing together disparate pieces of software solutions under Netaction umbrella. Several pieces are coming together into making this. HP's recent acquisition Blue Stone brings in the web server that competes with iPlanet, BEA Weblogic and IBM Apache. It has HP Application Server, which it is giving away free for developers to download. It has a core services framework where its platform independent platform chai and the e-services framework e-Speak concepts merge.

These three components site HP's Internet Operating environment. Over this is built the HP's Web services container. It is here HP will make its money by deploying various Web services for its customers.

In the coming year HP is planning to launch Opencall Media platform and next year it will launch a communication portal platform. Opencall is HP's trump card in the VoIP segment that allows enterprises and network operators like telecom and mobile phone service providers to offer voice and data communications using Internet Protocol.

HP's thrust in the coming years will be on Enterprise IT services market, telcos, SAN/Storage and it will focus on voice call services using Opencall for 2002-03.

(CNS)