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HP to grow its software business

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CIOL Bureau
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Pragati Simlote

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NEW DELHI: HP is known more as a printer company and its software business has been a bit of a secret. Though the company is not a big player in the software space - that of the level of the Oracles, IBMs or Microsofts, etc., it does plan to increase its software revenue.

The software business of HP is going through a change with a very supportive CEO having a strong software background trying to drive the software business of HP.

Recently HP had acquired Mercury Interactive for $4.5 billion, its largest acquisition after Compaq. This acquisition is expected boost the portfolio of IT management software and services for HP and is expected to propel HP into a leadership position in IT management software.

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HP VP of Software for Asia Pacific and Japan Steve McWhirter said, “Hardware is 10 times as much as software. We are looking at software being a very significant contributor to the bottomline. HP is a major IT player in the world and customers look at us in general for providing end-to-end solution. We are very good at managing your business – data centers, handheld devices at super market, cellphones, telecom network, etc. So we want to be the best management company. We have very good technology in non-mainframe space. We have a mind share issue with customers as well as internally. But we can see the whole thing moving.”

HP is catering to the Indian SMBs right now through a trimmed down version of OpenView but is now also planning to target this segment in a big way by increasing its product portfolio by launching software focused on this segment. This is part of a bigger plan that’s being drawn by the company in APAC. The company is now looking at developing software, which can go into the SMB segment.

HP India HP software country sales manager Amit Chatterjee said, “Work is going on in developing software for the SMB segment. In the meantime, whatever portfolio we have, we have already made investment in terms of resources that would focus on this segment. We had started a program last year with our tier two partners and we’ve made that program more aggressive this year. We have drawn a set of 15 partners across India who would be our channel to reach out to that segment as the deal values are small, the gestation period is long so doesn’t make sense for a lot of HP people to address that market. So we would approach the SMB market through channels.”

He added, “But that program will become more aggressive when we would have products tailored for that space because OpenView is expensive – not every customer may want it. SMB is a sizable chunk in India and it is one of the priority areas that software business is addressing.”

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