BANGALORE, INDIA: Midsize companies around the world are looking for technology solutions designed to meet their specific business needs. According to research commissioned by Hewlett Packard (HP), two-thirds of respondents said their companies require solutions built for their company's size and business challenges. "The expectations for mid-sized companies are somewhat different from large-scaled companies; everything is different, the working environment, the budgets etc.," said a senior level business decision maker in India. "It makes more sense if technology is custom made for every company."

Growth and profitability are the two most important business goals for midsize businesses. According to the research, 75 percent of midsize businesses aspire to become large companies. One respondent summed it up: "You are either growing or you are dying."

"HP's new suite of solutions caters specifically to the unique needs of midsize and  growing businesses in India", said Hemant Tiwari, Director, Enterprise Server & Storage, Technology Solutions Group, HP India. "Midsize customers have big expectations for customization which are often tempered by restrictions of time, budget, power & staff. With these solutions, HP enables these businesses to take advantage of the benefits that a bladed infrastructure delivers".

The right technology is vital to midsize companies working to grow, and yet they have smaller IT budgets and staffs. Eighty-eight percent of business decision makers agree that technology is integral to the success of their company. Those surveyed expect their technology infrastructure to allow for better decision making, automation of processes, increased competitiveness and business growth. Almost 90 percent report that their companies are doing more with less by using technology.

The entry-level external storage market was $2.8 billion in 2006, according to analysts, and HP garnered a market-leading 21 percent market share in this segment in 2007 (IDC Q3FY07 Disk Systems Storage Tracker, Dec. 5, 2007).

The new HP StorageWorks 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA4400) and HP StorageWorks 2000 Modular Smart Array (MSA2000) offers a combination of high-performance and availability features, virtualization capabilities and advanced provisioning software that makes it ideal for midsize businesses that want to cost-effectively manage large amounts of data in a SAN environment without investing in deep storage experience. 

A senior IT decision maker in North America said, "When you say 'scaled down,' it means we've lost functionality and we've lost features and I don't want that; I want something that is going to directly meet my needs. I don't want something that I have to pick and choose what I can afford."

Respondents noted that obstacles to innovation include not being able to keep up with the latest technology, challenges in training staff on new technology and helping both company staff and executives understand how technology can help them achieve business outcomes.

According to a senior IT decision maker in North America, "... we are kind of caught in the middle. The smaller businesses are doing well with the little stuff and they don't have to have the Enterprise Agreement. They can get by with a basic website or Internet. ...  Either we spend a lot of money for programs we don't really need or we cut back and aren't where we need to be."

HP and its partners understand this, and have the right products and services for this market and the right means of delivering them.

Methodology
 

Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates performed the study, commissioned by HP, by conducting a total of 206 in-depth interviews among senior business and IT decision-makers from midsize businesses in the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, India, China, Japan, Asia-Pacific and Latin America during March and April 2007.