HP’s way of lowering PC TCO

The past two weeks, I’ve looked at the trends in vendors’ value-added services for caring for corporate PCs from cradle to grave.  In 1995, Compaq, now part of HP, became one of the first companies to deliver tools and services that help to lower the overall cost of ownership of corporate PCs.  Today, HP offers one of the industry’s most comprehensive set of products, tools and services for business PCs across the lifecycle.   They are known as HP Business PC Lifecycle Solutions.

Along with security and mobility/wireless products, the lifecycle set of tools and services cover a broad array of client devices for the enterprise, including desktops, notebooks, tablets, thin clients, workstations, displays and handhelds.   

HP’s tools and services included in the lifecycle portfolio fall into four categories:

* Planning, including environment and user requirement assessment, technology assessment and financing.

* Deployment, including configuration simplification, image assistance and deployment assistance.

* Management, including hardware update, software/image update, service support and inventory management.

* Transition, including asset recovery and migration assistance.

To learn more about all of the specific tools and services in each category, visit www.hp.com/go/lifecyclesolutions

To help you understand your company’s starting point in terms of managing your cost of ownership of the corporate fleet of PCs, give HP’s TCO Snapshot tool a try. This is a free, Web-based service that allows you to assess your current IT processes and measure against industry best practices, as defined by Gartner.  The results of the assessment will tell you where your estimated lifecycle costs are now and where to focus your efforts to lower costs during implementation and ongoing operation. Utilizing these best practices can help your organization cut lifecycle costs by up to 48%.

Once you understand where your biggest costs are in managing and maintaining the PCs, you can select the various HP lifecycle tools à la carte or bundled.  You also can choose to implement them yourself, or have HP Services step in and do the work for you.  Learn more about the service capabilities at https://www.hp.com/hps/spotlight/index_gartnerbp.html

One of the lifecycle services where HP has a particularly strong offering is in its Client Management Solution, which monitors hardware and software across the aforementioned platforms, through a single console.  HP has a strategic partnership with Altiris that allows the company to deliver an integrated portfolio of solutions that reduce the complexity of managing client devices and servers throughout their lifecycle.  The HP Client Manager Software, the foundation for all HP Client Management Solutions, is developed jointly between HP and Altiris. 

HP Client Manager Software assists HP customers in managing the hardware aspects of their client computers, including in-depth hardware information, alert monitoring, diagnostics, and driver/BIOS management.  What’s more, policies can be set to automate tasks when triggered by a specific condition.  There is seamless integration through a single console to manage the entire PC architecture.  And, with a modular architecture, you pay for only what you need and use. 

For a more comprehensive management solution, there’s the Altiris Connector for HP OpenView, which allows easy integration with your server and infrastructure management, giving you a complete look at your enterprise IT operations.  Printer management will integrate into this solution later this year.

As another advantage, HP also boasts having the industry’s only proactive change notification program.  The company promises to notify corporate customers of significant hardware or software changes up to 60 days prior to product shipment.  For example, if HP plans a BIOS revision for new product builds, you’ll learn about it in plenty of time to assess how it might affect your organization.

If old computers plague your enterprise with low productivity and security, you’ll want to catch one of HP’s “IT’s go time” seminars in various cities around the U.S.  Visit http://www.pcgotime.com for a schedule of seminars and locations.  HP, Intel and Altiris will tell you how to reduce the pain and cost of migrating your current PCs to new, more robust platforms.

Deploying, supporting and managing a huge base of corporate PCs and mobile devices can be a challenge.  However, HP has products, tools and services to help you reduce the time and cost of these activities every step of the way.

Linda Musthaler is vice president of Currid & Company.  You can write to her at Linda.Musthaler@currid.com