HP unveiled new software solutions across its applications and IT operations software portfolio at HP Software Universe, its annual users' conference, in Vienna, Austria, this week.
The world's number one IT vendor, with 2008 revenue of $118 billion, has grown its software and services business through 10 acquisitions and has tripled the unit's revenue over the past four years.
Its HP Quality Center 10.0 suite, based on technology acquired through the Mercury merger, in 2005, has been upgraded - one of its a most significant upgrades in three years, according to Robin Purohit, VP and GM of software products for HP Software & Solutions.
On the IT operations side, HP announced new products integrated around its HP Universal Configuration Management Database (UCMDB) 8.0.
More software will be offered on demand as a software as a service (SaaS) option, including its business technology optimisation solutions, backed by 24/7 support.
HP said the new software and integration solutions aim to help transform IT operations from reactive "fire fighting" to a more predictive and preventative approach, addressing issues that adversely effect business users.
"We know that every CIO today is locked in conversation with their CFO on how to save cash," said Purohit. "The conversations are about how do we get ROI on our investment in 12 months, not three years. It's moved away from 'how do we do more with less?' to 'how do we do less with less?'"
Virtualisation tech
There are two sets of things CIOs can do now to cut costs and make sure their environment is a more efficient platform for the future, he said. One is the area of application modernisation, including Web 2.0, SOA and rapid application development; the other is IT operations modernisation.
"Our customers are trying to move to a service orientation, so everything they do is in the context of what matters to the business.
"Virtualisation technology is emerging as one of the hottest ways to reduce costs of capital and the cost of IT management. But it also introduces tremendous complexity as you have more things to manage."
Customers need to figure out how to embrace that cost advantage, but also make sure they have a sustainable way to roll out those technologies, said Purohit.
"They know that the best way is to automate everything, but how do they get there? How do we understand what is really important to the business? Now is the perfect time to have those difficult conversations, and centralise and do things differently to create this efficient platform for the future."
Purohit outlined the three steps to achieve this that HP advocates:
1 Start with being ruthless about prioritising everything done with IT and how it relates to business value.
2 Centralise into shared services as much as possible.
3 Standardise everything on one methodology and automate to reduce risk and lower cost.
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