HP increases functionalities around OpenView

BANGALORE: Compared to the software business of companies like IBM, which has a wide range of software products, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is relatively happy with its limited but key software portfolio - OpenView and OpenCall.

Russell Daniels, VP and CTO, Software Global Business Unit, HP, said that the company's strategy is to leverage on its existing products' core capability rather than to expand into new areas. HP's software business division is estimated to contribute around $1 billion towards overall revenues compared to IBM whose software revenues are 15 times that of HP's.

Daniels said, “We don't think of OpenView as being just about IT infrastructure management. We feel there are capabilities in the portfolio and those we have added in the last few years which are of significant strategic value to our customers.” He added that while the company had gone in for inorganic deals like the recent acquisitions of Peregrine Systems, HP's focus remains on building products around the core technology rather than go off into brand new areas.

“Besides network management, we have developed an extensive OpenView product suite that addresses operations management, services management, software distribution, deployment, software change management, identity management, automation technologies and SoA run-time technology.”

HP has also invested organically into products like Business Process Insight and OpenView compliance manager and OpenView SLA manager all of which extend customers' typical expectations in enterprise systems.

The company's recent Perigrine Systems buy-out will add capabilities like service request management, and asset management.

HP also announced agreements with business intelligence vendors like Cognos, SAS and Business Objects to connect analytics and data with real time business intelligence thro HP OpenView Business Process Insight. “What's critical for customers is that they want to integrate with existing management processes,” said Daniels.

The company is now working on providing additional functionalities around server centric management, integrated virtual server management and storage. Daniels states that the company is not averse to further acquisitions in the software space.