The Hindu Business Line : Hewlett-Packard to sell servers with software for select sectors

Bangalore, Aug. 9 Hewlett-Packard Co has partnered with independent software vendors (ISVs) to provide packaged solutions to Indian small and medium businesses in sectors such as education, healthcare, auto ancillary and chemical.

Such a move would help the company expand business in the Indian small and medium businesses (SMB) market. The market accounts for about 60 per cent of HP’s server business in the country and is growing faster than those in mature economies, the company said.

HP has bundled software solutions from various ISVs such as Srishti Software, Yash Technologies and Dimensions with its ProLiant range of servers, thereby removing the need for customers to invest in software once they purchase the hardware. This is expected to make technology adoption easier and less costly for customers.

“The packaged solution approach will reduce complexities for customers,” said Mr Rajesh Dhar, Director, Industry Standard Servers, HP India (Sales). “It will also take the overheads away from them.”

For example, HP has bundled Srishti Software’s healthcare solution PARAS with its hardware and is offering it to hospitals. It has also used Yash Technologies’ product ChemOne to develop a packaged solution for the chemical industry. It has partnered with Dimensions to create a bundled solution for the education sector.

HP has been offering the packaged solutions for the last one year. “It has helped us to expand our customer base,” Mr Dhar said, without disclosing numbers. He said Hewlett-Packard is interested to expand its business beyond the top eight cities in the country to smaller towns as increasing technology adoption has led to more business opportunities in upcountry markets.

The company said it has seen some positive sentiment in the present quarter, which is much better than the previous one. Telecom and Government buying has been strong, while demand from the IT and IT-enabled sector is still soft.

HP is also increasing its focus to understand customer requirement in key growth markets such as India and China.

For the first time the company has decided to set up a product development team outside the US. HP would have a team of about four engineers in China that would be a part of its global product development team, said Mr Stephen Bovis, Vice-President and General Manager, Industry Standard Servers, Technology Solutions Group, Hewlett-Packard Asia Pacific and Japan.

The principal function of the team would be to understand dynamics of the market across China, India and South-East Asia.

“There could be trends from a technology perspective that are becoming more visible in these emerging markets. We must capture them to better assist the customers,” Mr Bovis said.

The data would be taken to the board, he added.

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