HP backs Unicenter

New Orleans - In the battle for supremacy in enterprise management, Hewlett-Packard Co. may be its own worst enemy.

An HP executive's resounding endorsement of a product that competes with HP's OpenView shocked attendees of a Computer Associates International, Inc. user conference here last week and prompted analysts to start numbering OpenView's days as a viable enterprise management framework.

"We recommend, endorse and support CA as the preferred vendor of end-to-end enterprise management," said Dick Watts, general manager of worldwide computer sales at HP. Watts added, though, that HP will continue to market OpenView with its systems and servers. HP announced its own server/manager bundling program ' called HP OpenView-Ready ' two days after Watts made his remarks.

The endorsement left HP scrambling to do damage control, which including a retraction by the executive. But the backpedaling did little to sway those who heard the statements during a packed press conference announcing CA's Unicenter TNG Framework program.

Unicenter TNG Framework is a stripped-down version of CA's Unicenter TNG enterprise management system, which is designed to be bundled with systems and servers at no charge to end users. CA has recruited 14 vendors into the Unicenter TNG Framework fold, including HP, which was the first vendor to publicly laud CA's program.

In light of Watts' ringing endorsement of Unicenter TNG, analysts began to count out OpenView as an enterprise management framework capable of going up against the likes of Unicenter TNG and IBM's Tivoli Management Environment.

"It sounds like the death knell to me," said Paul Mason, research manager for enterprise systems management at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., of Watts' remarks. "I can't see what the future [of OpenView] would be beyond the pure HP base."

"OpenView's only option is to become an application," said Carolyn DiCenzo, director and principal analyst of client/server software worldwide at Dataquest, Inc. in San Jose, Calif. "This clearly says they're not going to be playing in the framework area."

Added Ken Sobel, senior analyst at the Hurwitz Group, Inc. in Newton, Mass., "One of the reasons HP made a deal like this is that customers must have been demanding better management than HP can supply. Long term, I don't see very bright lights for OpenView at this point."

Users had a less fatalistic view of the CA/HP union, however.

"We're not replacing OpenView," said Dennis Fishback, manager of data processing for Virginia Power Co. in Richmond, Va., which uses OpenView and Unicenter TNG. "The two can live side by side very nicely. I don't necessarily see it as one vs. the other."

Investment giant JP Morgan & Co., Inc. also uses OpenView and Unicenter TNG and about 150 other products to manage its 17,000-client, 300-server network. But as the firm looks to trim down that 150 product roster, Unicenter TNG is the only sure bet to stay.

"TNG is absolutely going to be there as the underlying technology," said William Oris, a JP Morgan vice president.

HP OpenView officials downplayed Watts' endorsement of Unicenter TNG. They noted that CA and HP have had a long-standing relationship bundling previous versions of Unicenter with HP systems, and that last week's announcement is a continuation of that and consistent with HP's intention of offering customers a choice.

"This is the third time HP has had a similar partnership with CA," said Gordon McKinney, HP OpenView program manager.

He also said the OpenView-Ready Program is not a response to CA's Unicenter TNG Framework initiative, even though the timing of the HP announcement appears to indicate otherwise.

"This is the first time that CA has positioned themselves as a framework or integration point," McKinney said, adding that CA's positioning comes four years after HP did the same. "We already have 300-plus vendors that have integrated with OpenView."

OpenView officials also prodded Watts into issuing this retraction to Network World: "We are certainly not positioning this new offering we're making with CA as the preferred solution or the standard or in any way giving it strategic preference over OpenView, although we certainly recognize that there are environments or specific customer situations where it will be the solution we will offer."