HP Vows Enterprise Support for NT
Special to UniNews online
By Peggy King
At Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto, Calif., corporate headquarters, HP CEO Lew Platt and Executive Vice President Rick Belluzo shared the podium with Bill Gates of Microsoft as the two companies outlined a series of far-reaching collaborative efforts. Many of HP's Unix server customers had asked HP to clarify its position on supporting NT. "Quite often when I visit enterprise customers I'm asked what we can do to help them integrate NT with their Unix and to keep their distributed computing systems highly available," says Belluzo.
HP's plan to open an Enterprise Solutions Center in Redmond, Washington sends a clear message that HP expects to provide enterprise-level NT support for customers of both companies. Many of HP's customers have already incorporated NT servers into their architecture, and many Microsoft customers are in search of enterprise-level expertise for supporting Microsoft NT in mission-critical environments. According to Ann Livermore, general manager of HP's Professional Services Organization, HP already has 5,000 engineers with Windows NT expertise who stand ready to deliver enterprise consulting and outsourcing services for that platform.
HP and Microsoft also announced joint initiatives that show HP's commitment to bring its support for the NT environment more on a par with its support for Unix. The two companies will combine their system and network management platforms under the OpenVue banner. As part of the enhancements to OpenVue, HP will make it possible to plug Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS) directly into HP OpenVue for NT. The alliance also gives HP access to Microsoft's "Wolfpack" high-availability technology as part of its high-availability support services for Microsoft NT.
"These days the enterprise environment is getting to look more and more like NT. HP is simply bowing to the inevitable by bringing its customers the NT support they want", says Andrew Allison, an industry analyst based in Carmel Valley, Calif.