Amid an aggressive global drive around their respective Internet strategies Hewlett-Packard and SAP are expanding the local partnership and bringing more closely-aligned solutions to market.
While fundamentally linked by common Net-related programmes - HP`s E-services initiative and SAP`s mySAP.com collaborative portal - the stated intentions of local activities are relatively broad. Large enterprises and the mid-market both feature strongly in the business plan.
The companies say they are primarily targeting Internet integration, enterprise application management and high availability solutions on Unix and Windows NT platforms. HP is clearly strong in the Unix space with over 40 percent local market share; Windows NT, however, is an area of focus as the company is looking to boost its current stake.
Nicolas Leblanc, alliance manager at HP Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) South Africa, says the basic goal is to provide technology and services which let SAP customers make the most of the mySAP.com portal.
"HP will help build the Internet-enabling infrastructure that SAP customers require. And this joint initiative is also key to us delivering application hosting options [pay-per-seat services] to our customers."
The first of the deliverables will be HP Rapid/Web - the first ever integration service which links SAP R/3 to the Internet and allows customers to conduct SAP transactions over the Web.
As the product continues to be rolled out it will also leverage e"speak - a technology platform that uses open standards to promote the brokering of E-services.
This, says Nicole Anderson, technology alliance manager at SAP Southern Africa, supports the companies` commitment to include HP`s e"speak in the mySAP.com offerings.
The enterprise application management solutions are set to come to market in several different guises. HP is offering two new services that enable customers to fine tune their SAP enterprise environments for optimal performance. It is also releasing new modules in the HP OpenView software suite.
"New versions of HP OpenView Manager and Smart Plug-In for SAP R/3 are now both available," says Leblanc.
"These new software technologies will help IT organisations manage the end-to-end performance and availability of SAP R/3 more effectively. This will provide the capacity to deliver business data to millions, rather than thousands, of R/3 users."
This close business collaboration is not something particularly unique in the local market, but it does represent a renewed Net-related focus from two companies that have been in partnership for over a decade.
It also comes soon after SAP internationally aligned itself with HP`s 5nines:5minutes high availability strategy - a research and development programme that will eventually provide 99,999 percent application availability or less than five minutes unplanned downtime per annum.
Anderson concludes by noting that HP`s new Internet-related solutions complement the mySAP.com initiative well.
"Our strategies for helping customers leverage the Internet are clearly aligned. These new services and solutions provide further evidence of the ways HP and SAP will make the Internet work harder for customers," she says.
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Hewlett-Packard
HP`s E-services vision, first made public in May this year, describes a world in which people and businesses derive new value from the Internet. This entails moving beyond Web-based access to information to a world in which a rich array of nimble, modular electronic services - "E-services" - are accessible by virtually anyone and any device. www.hp.com/go/eservices
mySAP.com is an encompassing strategy designed and maintained by SAP which provides an open collaborative business environment of personalised solutions on demand. This enables companies of all sizes and industries to fully engage their employees, customers and partners to capitalise on the new Internet economy. www.mySAP.com