* HP is now all about the software
In case you haven’t heard yet, let me share the big news with you: HP is now all about the software.
It is odd for me to write about HP having big plans for software when the majority of what I have written over my career at Network World about HP has been about its OpenView network management software portfolio. But after having spent a week with the company at its HP Software Universe conference in Las Vegas, I can say the company’s attitude toward software has changed — even if HP’s attitude toward certain press remains unchanged. (That’s just my minor journalist gripe about no press room at the show.) But what remains unclear to me is if the heightened focus on the company’s broader software portfolio will help or hurt the long-time and faithful network management customers.
For one, company CEO Mark Hurd turned out for the show and provided me (and about 3,400 other attendees) with more than a few sound bites detailing how committed HP is to software. According to keynotes from Hurd and Tom Hogan, senior vice president for HP’s Software business, HP has spent $20 billion on R&D over the past five years, and of the $3.6 billion the company spent last year, HP dedicated 70% of that to software. “Four years ago we spent 70% of our R&D dollars on hardware, but last year that 70% was dedicated to software,” Hurd explained to show attendees.
HP also spent in the past year $500 million to deliver on 50 integration packages across HP, Mercury and other technologies it acquired. With somewhere between 200 and 300 products — HP’s now renamed OpenView portfolio had more than 100 applications alone. And while the company has its sights set on a $1.1 trillion IT market and displacing rival IBM, the future of software seemed to be more a great business strategy and less a technology agenda.
“We are seriously committed to taking the leadership position in software,” said Hurd this week “[Management] software is evolving into a category as important as database or ERP, and it’s a category looking for leadership. This is what we are going to be great at.”
While the company detailed many integrations and Hurd discussed adding automation in areas that made sense, there wasn’t a lot of technology talk around the software strategy. But that could be because the company is already rich in management technology and needs to apply it in a practical business sense for its customers. According to industry watchers, HP has as many strengths as it does potential weaknesses and it will be interesting to watch the company tackle this area and take on Big Blue.
“Both companies [HP and IBM] need to work on complex, still hard to deploy product offerings and move toward more integrated, modular designs across their full portfolios. HP is aware of this and actively working on it,” says Dennis Drogseth, a vice president with research firm Enterprise Management Associates. “HP has some advantages if it continues to accelerate to address integration and reconciliation issues architecturally and continues to invest in making using its solutions easier and more adaptable.”
