Tag: HP

Dell offers voluntary redundancies

Posted on December 6, 2013 by - News

Dell logoA number of staff at Dell were offered voluntary redundancy, it has emerged.

The Wall Street Journal said it had got hold of an internal memorandum giving people the chance to take voluntary redundancy with the cut off date being the 20th of December.

The Journal chatted to a spinner at the company who would not say how many people Dell wanted to lay off. He also refused to say whether the tin giant would introduce compulsory redundancies if not enough people offered to fall on the sword of their own account.

He did say that Dell wanted to improve its cost structure.

Like other PC manufacturers worldwide, Dell has faced declining sales as people dash to swipe tablets and smartphones rather than face the wonders of Windows 8.1 and Intel microprocessors.

HP to axe UK jobs

Posted on December 4, 2013 by - News

HPOver 1,000 jobs at HP UK will disappear next year, as part of its move to restructure its global business.

The cuts will hit HP at Warrington, Sheffield and Bracknell.

Some people will be redeployed within the company.

600 of the job cuts will go at its Bracknell HQ.

Last week HP released its fourth quarter results which showed mixed results.  But like other tier one vendors, HP has suffered from a decline in people buying PCs using X86 chips.

Meg Whitman, the CEO of HP, has vowed to turn the company round. But HP is quite a big ocean going liner and turning it round isn’t exactly a piece of cake.

Server shipments up but revenues down

Posted on December 4, 2013 by - News

IBM logoWorldwide shipments of servers only grew 1.9 percent in the third quarter of this year, but revenues fell 2.1 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Big Blue fared particularly badly.

That’s according to the Gartner Group, which said that the worldwide server market is continuing to show weak performance.

There were some bright spots – the Canadian market grew by 6.5 percent, EMEA by 12.1 percent. But the US only showed 0.9 percent growth.

On the X86 server front, units grew by only 2.1 percent year on year but 4.4 percent in revenue. RISC, Itanium and Unix servers fell by 4.5 percent in shipments and 31 percent in revenues.

HP is king of the worldwide server castle, folllowed by IBM, Dell, Cisco and Oracle.

Blade servers fell by 1.5 percent in shipments while racks grew by 2.6 percent in shipments but fell by 1.8 percent in revenues.

Europe fared badly overall, with revenues down 4.3 percent compared to the same quarter.

Gartner analyst Adrian O’Connell said: “Ther performance of server shipments and revenue in EMEA is in a downward spiral.  Revenue has now declined for nine consecutive quarters and shipments have declined for eight.”

He said server revenues across EMEA is at its lowest level for over 15 years.

IBM fared particulalry badly, seeing its revenues fall by 19.2 percent. O’Connell said that the EMEA market is “resetting itself” for vendors that relied on high end platforms. He said the fourth quarter is also expected to be weak.

HP shows small signs of turnaround

Posted on November 27, 2013 by - News

HPGiant vendor Hewlett Packard turned in a profit of $1.4 billion on revenues of $29.1 billion, compared to a loss of $6.9 billion in the same fourth quarter a year back.

But although its enterprise group showed growth of two percent, its other divisions – personal systems, printing, enterprse services and software showed declines from the same period last year. Enterprise services fell nine percent, as did software.

All in all, HP’s revenues showed a 2.8 percent decline – and it expects further small declines in revenue.

The enterprise group managed to sell more storage and servers, with a two percent rise in sales. That follows CEO Meg Whitman’s decision a few months ago to shake up the unit.

Whitman thinks that HP needs to spend more money on research and development.

Phoenix goes HP Platinum

Posted on November 15, 2013 by - News

HPHosting and managed IT services company Phoenix said it had been appointed to HP Platinum status.

The top tier accreditation, said Kevin Mathews, UK channel director of HP’s enterprise group, said it reflected the confidence it has in Phoenix. “By achieving Platinum status, Phoenix has demonstrated that it is an expert and very capable provider of HP enterprise group technology. I am very pleased to offer Phoenix our most prestigious accreditation.”

Stuart Dickinson, procurement and vendor director at Phoenix, which has an annual turnover of around £250 million, said:  “We have new offerings in the pipeline, incorporating HP technology and with this new status customers have the confidence and reassurance of dealing with a premier services provider.”

Avnet claims HP enterprise domination

Posted on November 5, 2013 by - News

avnettsMajor distributor Avnet Technology Solutions said it has added HP ArcSightLogger as part of its enterprise security product portfolio.

A log management tool, the ArcSight Logger is intended to provide management across search, reports, security, IT operations, application development and compliance.

Avnet claimed it is the only distributor in the UK to provide the entire HP networking portfolio along with HP enterprise security.

Andrew Stuart, HP business unit manager, Avnet Technology Solutions, UK, said: “Rogue employees, partners or criminal rings engaged in fraudulent activities only have to get it right once to create serious damage to an organisation’s network and reputation.  With access to a broader suite of HP enterprise software products, including enterprise event log management, network intrusion and application security, our partners can competitively differentiate themselves and deliver solutions to enhance threat detection and improve security while driving additional networking sales supported by Avnet.”

“Organisations need comprehensive enterprise security and compliance solutions to effectively manage network and application environments,” said Miles Rippon, manager, EMEA distribution, HP.  “With this extended partnership, Avnet can now include HP ArcSight in its portfolio of solutions for channel partners to deliver cost-effective log management capabilities to protect customers’ hybrid IT infrastructure from sophisticated cyber threats.”

The Itanium lives on in HP kit

Posted on November 4, 2013 by - News, Products

HPWe don’t know how many Itanium microprocessors Intel still manufactures in its wafer manufactories.

The chip hasn’t been an Intel runaway success but today HP said it lives on its mission critical HP Nonstop technology for X86 servers.

According to HP, eight of the top 10 world banks use HP Nonstop and now the company is selling Integrity blade servers based on the Itanium 9500 series.

HP is, it said already developing tech to extend Nonstop to the X86 but it willtake several years before adoption, the company said.

Blade systems NB56000c-cg and NB56000c are already available, with prices varying. Resellers should contact their HP account manager for more information.

HP to slash 7,000 EMEA jobs

Posted on October 28, 2013 by - Moving People, News

HPHewlett-Packard is planning to cut as many as 7,095 jobs in EMEA. Some of the staff will be redeployed, but some will get the sack. HP did not offer a timeline for the cuts.

“Under the proposal presented to the European Works Council (EWC), HP expects approximately 7,095 employees to exit the company or to be redeployed into new roles,” the company said.

HP added that workforce reduction plans will vary by country, based on legal requirements and consultation with work councils and employee representatives. Needless to say, HP is adamant that the cuts will have no effect on customer service.

The cuts come as no surprise, as HP has already outlined plans to reduce its workforce by 15 percent in an effort to save $3 billion. It’s all part of Meg Whitman’s cunning five-year plan, which like most five-year plans isn’t going well. However, Whitman is not in a position to send anyone to Siberia or unperson them, so all HP can do is sack a bunch of people and hope Lenovo doesn’t eat its lunch in the meantime.

Microsoft is damaged – report

Posted on October 18, 2013 by - News

Windows 8.1 is unlikely to save Microsoft’s bacon and slowness in delivering an adequate OS has damaged its reputation, a report suggests.

According to Taiwanese wire Digitimes, unnamed sources in the supply chain are suggesting that there will be little or no improvement in the PC market not only this year, but into next year too.

It isn’t all Microsoft’s fault, however.  Sales of PCs are in decline because people are using tablets and smartphones more.

Even though the unnamed sources think that things are looking gloomy, nevertheless a number of vendors including HP, Lenovo, Acer and Asustek are introducing devices tailored to Windows 8.1, says Digitimes, here.

Westcoast to be powered by HP’s cloud

Posted on October 17, 2013 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeHP said that its distributor and partner Westcoast will use its  Converged Cloud offering to woo the reseller base.

The investment is over £1 million and will mean Westcoast will offer its resellers cloud services, to manage Microsoft Lync, Exchange and SharePoint in the distributors’ IL3 data centre.

The move, said HP, means that Westcoast customers – that is to say its resellers –  will be able to use current credit lines as well as take part in a partner programme which includes training and support.

Duncan Forsyth, Westcoast’s MD said that the era of onsite IT is becoming IT in the cloud. “We want to support both,” he said. HP Converged Cloud will let his company deliver IaaS (infrastructure as a service) and SaaS (software as a service) for resellers with a minimal need for capital investment.

The system will effectively be based on HP products including Proliant Bladesystem c7000 enclosures with BL460c Gen 8 blades using Intel Xeon chips.  The system will also use SoreServ storage systems, HP tape libraries and HP 5400 Switch series.

HP exec Michael Clifford said that managing and using data centres “frighten many resellers” but using its systems will help resellers to see clearly through the mists of the cloud and offer quality cloud services.

Intel’s Q3 shows a profit dip

Posted on October 16, 2013 by - News

Brian KrzanichA UK executive at Intel once pointed out to me that a billion of anything is a lot of something.

And Intel released its third quarter results late yesterday evening, turning in a net profit of $2.95 billion, down from the same quarter last year of $2.97 billion. The Q3 net profit is based on sales of $13.48 billion but turned in a gross profit margin of 62.4 percent.

Intel expects the fourth quarter to be flat, but claimed at an analyst conference after its results were released that there are signs of an uptick in the X86 market.

Its customers, including giants like Dell, HP and Acer, and industry analysts such as Gartner and IDC may beg to differ that the PC market is recovering.

Meanwhile the chip behemoth admitted that sales to consumers continued to be sluggish. Right now the firm’s strength seems to be in the server market, where margins are high.

Brian Krzanich, Intel’s CEO, needs to do something to address the company’s so far woeful performance in tablets and smartphones. Most handset makers use chips based on ARM technology which are far cheaper than Intel processors.

While Intel has been a leader in process technology, it is having trouble getting the right yields on 14 nanometre technology – and it admitted as much last night.

PC market continues to be weak

Posted on October 10, 2013 by - News, Products

IDC graphIDC released figures estimating that worldwide PC shipments accounted for 81.6 million units in Q3 of 2013 – that’s a drop of 7.6 percent, compared to the previous year.

But IDC said it had expected a decline of 9.5 percent for the quarter.  It said that shipments were weak in the early part of the quarter but business buys and channel intake of Windows 8.1 based systems happened in September.

IDC said emerging markets continued to be weak, while the channel and vendors were stock heavy on Ivy Bridge systems and eroded by lower priced smartphones and tablets.

Upgrades from Windows XP boosted shipments in the enterprise desktop section.

Rajani Singh, senior research analyst at IDC, said that the US market hasn’t changed that much. There may be a small increase in the fourth quarter, he said. But that will be followed “by a challenging 2014”.

In EMEA the PC market continued to decline with weak consumer demand a shift to tablets.  The channel maintained lean inventories during the period.

The only bright light were “pockets of investments” despite companies still being reluctant to spend any money.

Lenovo is the top vendor and is expanding into the channel, while HP and Dell were numbers two and three.  Acer and Asus both were weakened by lack of spend by consumers. Asus doesn’t have a significant corporate user base.

HP rejigs certifications again

Posted on October 1, 2013 by - News

HPHP has made some updates to its PartnerOne programme which it promises will make doing business with the company “easier” and “more predictable”.

There’s a range of specialisations in new areas, as well as more rebates to go along with its compensation model, better partner portal navigation, role based certs, and “a consistent membership structure”.

New specialisations include platinum for software and converged infrastructure, gold for cloud builder, Vertica, ServiceOne Enterprise, and ServiceOne Printing and Computing, while silver certs include Autonomy, Vertica, ServiceOne Enterprise, and Workstations in Printing & Personal Systems for EMEA.

HP insists that racking up ExpertOne certified sales will make partners more likely to close further deals. The company points out it slashed technical certifications by half and put together role based certs in their place, leading to less time out of the office for the courses.

Partners can now take a gander at rebate rates at every PartnerOne level on the partner portal, building on the compensation model introduced in June this year.

Other announcements include HP’s Cloud Partner Solution Navigator, to check up on details of partner specialities, and listing them for the customer to pick, particularly with cloud migration. Top partners will be promoted through an HP marketing campaign, which are to be listed by membership level on HP’s Global Partner Locator.

Lenovo “at crossroads” in servers

Posted on September 30, 2013 by - News

lenovo_hqA report from Patrick Moorhead’s Moor Insights & Strategy has asserted that, although the server market is dominated by Dell, HP and IBM at present, Lenovo is well positioned to break out of the “other” category and start making a serious dent in market share.

Players like Cisco and Fujitsu, 4th and 5th in the server market respectively, could even be overtaken by Lenovo in the near future. But it has some hurdles to leap and if it is to do so, Lenovo will have to prioritise servers.

Looking at Lenovo’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT), it’s clear the company can compete on price and has a robust supply chain behind it. The company is leading in the growing China market, performing well with SMBs, and there remains a perceived tie with IBM when Big Blue sold off a chunk of its hardware.

However, Lenovo doesn’t offer cloud services or a complete product line outside of its home turf and is somewhat lacking on the ineternational enterprise stage. It has no small core direction, according to Moor Insights, a weak storage offering, and no apparent network switch or fabric offering.

Moor Insights & Strategy believes Lenovo will have the opportunity, although not without challenges, to pick up IBM’s x86 server business, which could address some of the above concerns. There is also a window for Lenovo to expand its SMB offerings within EMEA, particularly western Europe, where small to medium businesses are highly concentrated.

If Lenovo decided to buy IBM’s x86 business, Moor thinks it’s likely it’d go for the whole lot, while IBM could minimise damage to its own bottom line by maintaining blade IP, which it could then license to Lenovo. An acquisition would propel Lenovo to #3 in the server charts, way ahead of Fujitsu and Cisco, but the buy would have to be twinned with serious efforts to maintain previous IBM customers to prevent seduction over to rivals like HP or Dell.

Moor Insights suggests Lenovo focus on the cloud, where it is underrepresented, as well as building a portfolio it can extend to the large business market.  It must also underline its “message” – although it’s understood Lenovo performs well in client devices, the message is “not translating in the server market,” according to Moor. Lenovo needs to reinforce its position to potential enterprise customers.

Lenovo, the report says, is “at an interesting crossroads in the server market”. While there is ample opportunity for the company to really cement its position and overtake some of the competition, it will need to invest heavily.

“Lenovo has an opportunity to break out of its position and quickly move up in the market, as well it remains a company that could disrupt the market the way that Dell did years ago. But in order to do that, it needs to get into the market in a serious way,” the report concludes.

HP announces open SDN app store

Posted on September 30, 2013 by - News

HPHP has announced what it calls the first enterprise class software-defined networking (SDN) open ecosystem, with the HP SDN Developer Kit (SDK) and the HP SDN App Store.

HP boasts the emergence of SDN should do away with fiddling around with legacy network gear and epic customisation projects, instead automating network operations. But an open SDN ecosystem, HP argues, will encourage collobration and innovation to improve the technology, compared to closed, proprietary SDN.

The HP SDN dev kit is up for grabs in November this year, and includes all the necessary stuff for building SDN apps. HP hopes this will bolster its position in the market as well as complement support services. On the app store, customers can browse, search, buy and download SDN apps onto their virtual application networks SDN controller.

HP partners and indie software developers will be able to develop, simulate and validate enterprise level SDN apps to then sell on HP’s app store. Developers will have access to API documentation, developer guides and sample code, as well as the ability to test app functionality and interoperability that can simulate user conditions, using the SDN sim suite and HP SDN Virtual Lab.

Partners registered for HP SDN developer kit include Citrix, F5, Infoblox, Intel, Microsoft, Mitel, Riverbed, Shoretel, Samsung, SAP, Tech Mahindra, VMware, Websense, and more.

The company wheeled out IDC network infrastructure veep Rohit Mehra, who pointed out it will be the apps that will bring SDN technology to the forefront of mainstream networking.

“The catch 22 is that to innovate through applications requires a large investment in infrastructure to develope, which becomes prohibitive,” Mehra said. “The advent of an SDN app store and developer kit makes this an accessible alternative for developers”.

Clearly there is value for HP, too, which has a wide range of products and software that fit in with SDN. In addition, the company added OpenFlow support to 10 new routers in HP FlexNetwork.

SDN certification will be available December 2013, while the SDN app store should be ready in the first half of 2014, along with apps services and support, and services and support for HP OpenFlow. Developer support is available in November this year.

As part of the HP ExpertOne program, those interested in learning more can sign up to the cheerily named “SDN Learning Journey” course.

Senior veep and GM for networking at HP, Bethany Mayer, said the networking industry should leap on the disruptions offered by SDN.

“HP has created the industry’s most comprehensive SDN product portfolio as well as an open SDN ecosystem, which offers an environment for enterprises and partners to rapidly tune the network to their business and application needs,” Mayer said.