Delivers on unified communications and collaboration initiative with Microsoft

Dubai, UAE: April 3, 2010 – HP today announced the expansion of its unified communications and collaboration portfolio with offerings optimized for Microsoft Communications Server “14,” the next version of Microsoft’s unified communications platform.

The new offerings help clients improve productivity and lower costs by consolidating infrastructure, devices and management tools.

Communication modes, technologies and devices are multiplying within organizations, often in isolation from each other and critical business operations. This creates a communications environment that slows decision-making, spends valuable IT resources on maintenance and drives up operations costs. The new HP offerings enable clients to improve business output and reduce travel, telecom and IT operating costs by integrating with Microsoft Communications Server “14.”

Building on the unified communications and collaboration initiative between HP and Microsoft announced in May 2009, the offerings include:

— The HP Survivable Branch Communication zl Module that reduces IT infrastructure at remote branch offices and extends the business productivity and reliability of Communications Server “14.” It combines Microsoft Communications Server “14” and HP ProCurve software within HP ProCurve Switch 8200zl and 5400zl series products.

— Four existing PC models designed to provide a rich business-grade voice and video user experience at a lower total cost of ownership are now tested and qualified as optimized for unified communications by Microsoft.

“Organizations face growing challenges with a mobile workforce, increasing complexity and business performance pressure,” said Alaa AlShimy, General Manager, HP ProCurve Middle East. “With these new offerings, we are enhancing how people interact, shorten business decision cycle times and connect remote employees to company culture.”

PCs provide high-quality user experience, lower total cost of ownership

HP PCs qualified for Microsoft Communicator “14” eliminate the need for additional devices to place and receive voice or video calls. The models include:

— HP TouchSmart 9100 Business PC – For businesses in hospitality, retail, healthcare and government verticals looking to engage their customers with immersive, interactive content through a multitouch user interface.

— HP EliteBook 6930p Notebook PC – Sets a new standard for on-the-move productivity with all-day battery life(1) and business-rugged features.

— HP EliteBook 8530w and 8730w Mobile Workstations – Features workstation-caliber graphics that are tested, optimized and certified to run the most demanding professional applications for mobile power users.

“Today’s increasingly mobile workforce introduces technology and support challenges requiring end-users to become more self-sufficient,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Office Communications Group, Microsoft Corp. “Communications Server ‘14’ combined with HP’s Survivable Branch Communication zl Module and UC qualified PCs delivers reliable voice infrastructure for branch offices as well as a high-quality user experience.”

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 8, 2010: HP today announced that Sahara Petrochemicals Company (Sahara), a Saudi based industrial development company specializing in petrochemical, chemicals and related products, has selected HP BladeSystem and HP ProLiant servers solutions to automate and optimise its datacentre processes.

The new implementation is part of Sahara’s technology overhaul to support and meet its growth objectives.

The HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure deployed at Sahara will allow it to consolidate its server, storage, network, power and management capabilities into a ‘datacenter in a box’. 

Additionally, the HP ProLiant BL460c G6 Server Blade will provide leading performance, expandability and the latest energy efficient technologies that are needed for a dense compute environment such as Sahara’s. The HP ProLiant Server Blade delivers excellent performance and energy savings to reduce overall datacenter spending in power constrained scale-out environments.

Commenting on the hardware implementation, Ihab Y. Hawari, IT Manager at Sahara said, “HP is our chosen technology partner to deliver both immediate business value and ongoing business advantage. When it came to selecting the right datacenter solution we studied the different offerings from various vendors that were available in the market and found that HP solutions best met the requirement of our IT infrastructure. Through this implementation our aim is to address our technology automation and flexibility challenges.”

Sahara has also implemented HP’s Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb Ethernet Module for BladeSystem which offers high performance connectivity to the datacenter and makes server administration and server applications more efficient.  With Virtual Connect, Sahara will be able to reduce costs and simplify connections to LANs and SANs, consolidate and precisely control their network connections and enable administrators to add, replace and recover server resources as an when it is needed. 

“The solutions implemented at Sahara offer the best-run IT infrastructure out of a box that is available in the market today. They are manageble, simple to operate and offers flexibility to expand depending on the company’s growth needs. It will also help Sahara reduce up-front capital costs and ongoing power and cooling costs. Our aim is to support companies in the manufacturing sector with our end-to-end solutions and allow them to realize the full potential of their business investment,” said Ali Tamimi, Enterprise Storage, servers and Networking Manager HP Saudi Arabia.
 
HP partners with the industry’s leading hardware and software providers to develop and implement solutions to help customers solve their most pressing datacenter transformation issues.

Dubai, UAE, March 2, 2010 – HP today introduced a range of services for small- to midsize data center operations that help improve efficiency, increase the flexibility of IT budgets and ensure service-level commitments.

With this portfolio of services from HP, owners of small- to midsize data centers can maximize business return on existing assets and drive rapid change with current staff resources. These services simplify management of multivendor environments, enabling clients to take advantage of innovative service-delivery models such as virtualization and cloud computing.

HP also introduced flexible procurement options for custom technology services that benefit clients and the reseller channel.

Always-on reliability through improved operational efficiency

With the requirement of shared, virtualized technology services to be continuously available, there is a new premium on speed, efficiency and 24/7 resource accessibility. HP is delivering services to help clients gain control and broader, deeper visibility into every support-related function across the environment. It helps clients increase service levels, and reduce the complexity and costs of managing heterogeneous technology environments.

HP’s Data Center Training Symposium helps increase staff effectiveness through a custom training plan.

Increase computing capacity, lower energy costs

Structured for data centers up to 5,000 square feet in size, these value assessment services identify opportunities for increasing computing capacity, while reducing energy costs. Basic Capacity Analysis for Smaller Footprints Assessment helps managers allocate a facility’s resources more effectively by arming them with quantitative computing capacity and availability information.

Energy Efficiency Analysis for Smaller Footprints Assessment enables clients to increase energy efficiency to lower costs and decrease the environmental impact of technology infrastructure. HP is unique in that its engineers can assess the whole environment – across infrastructure and facilities – to maximize results and minimize risk.

Enjoy flexible purchase options

HP has simplified the process for small- to midsize businesses to procure technology services that will help them better manage limited resources and drive business value from their technology infrastructures.

“HP’s portfolio of services that address evolving data center trends can help businesses achieve operational excellence, resulting in improved service levels and reduced operating costs and risk,” said Samer Zein, Technology Services Director, HP Middle East. “This allows organizations to rebalance their budgets and resources to focus on innovation for growth, which is key for CIOs and decision makers especially in a growing environment like the Middle East”.

These services are available directly from HP and through the company’s reseller channel. More information about data center services from HP Technology Services is available at www.hp.com/services/evolvingdatacenter.

Dubai, UAE, Feb. 24, 2010 – HP announced enhancements to HP Agile Accelerator to help customers increase the quality of their applications, enhance productivity, and respond to changing business scenarios quickly and cost-effectively.

Based on HP Quality Center software and HP Application Lifecycle Management consulting services, HP Agile Accelerator manages Agile development projects from proposal to production while helping IT departments better meet their application modernization initiatives. 

HP Agile Accelerator helps software development teams improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their business initiatives with predefined workflows, configurations and user reports. Recent enhancements include a built-in resource planning module, which allows development teams to better manage their Agile projects.

Recognizing the need to align applications to business priorities, one of the top initiatives for IT decision makers is to modernize existing legacy applications.  According to a recent Forrester report, almost 60 percent of respondents rated application modernization initiatives as “very important” or “important.”(1) 

By using HP Agile Accelerator for application modernization initiatives, customers can improve business agility with faster response to changing requirements, increase return on investment by delivering quality software early and frequently throughout the application life cycle, enhance productivity through greater collaboration: Standardized progress reporting improves visibility and communication across multiple teams.

HP offers a broad set of services and expertise to support customer application modernization initiatives with Agile practices, including:

HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Consulting Services for Agile HP ALM Discovery Workshop for Agile, Agile Accelerator Packaged Implementation Services – accelerates time to value for customers by tailoring the solution for individual customer needs and environments.

“With Agile quickly becoming a key methodology for application modernization, it is critical for customers to balance quality, performance and security standards with the need for speed. HP Agile Accelerator enhances collaboration among developers, quality assurance and business stakeholders to ensure customers meet their Agile objectives without compromising quality”, said Mounir Mahmoud, Software Director, HP Middle East.

Education and training for HP ALM solutions are available in a variety delivery options including virtual, end-user and instructor led. More information is available at www.hp.com/software/education.

HP ALM solutions, including HP Quality Center, HP Performance Center and HP Application Security Center are offered via HP Software as a Service. More information is available at www.saas.hp.com.

More information about HP Agile Accelerator is available at www.hp.com/go/agile.

Dubai, UAE., Feb. 18, 2010 – HP today extended its cloud consulting services portfolio with a new design service that helps businesses and government agencies accelerate the adoption of cloud-based infrastructures to improve technology and business flexibility.

The HP Cloud Design Service takes a proven approach to designing and deploying scalable, cloud-based infrastructures that speed up the delivery of projects while mitigating risk. Additionally, HP’s design principles ensure the cloud infrastructure can support a hybrid sourcing model that includes private and public cloud options. This allows organizations to consume and deliver services that support different workloads.

As part of the HP Cloud Design Service, HP works with clients to understand their requirements and existing IT investments. HP then creates a customized cloud infrastructure design blueprint and an implementation plan. This plan includes cost estimates, guidelines for deployment, testing, operational management, service life cycle management, governance and support.

The HP Cloud Design Service offers the following benefits for clients:

— Everything needed to offer a cloud service. The HP Reference Architecture for Cloud acts as a common framework for all cloud engagements and accommodates different business requirements, technologies, software stacks and cloud service requirements.

— Speed time to delivery and mitigate implementation risk. The design blueprint and implementation plan take into account people, process, technology, cost estimations and workload migration aspects.

— Reduces costly technology redundancies while helping clients make strategic investment decisions. HP uses tested, repeatable planning and analysis tools from HP Labs, the company’s central research arm, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3 best practices and proven methodologies developed from major cloud design implementations.

— Leverage existing technology investments. Heterogeneous and highly repeatable design principals and objective recommendations ensure seamless integration of HP Converged Infrastructure technologies, HP software and third-party products into the overall cloud infrastructure design.

“Organizations of all types are struggling to understand how to build a cloud-specific infrastructure that is safe and effective while meeting their business objectives,” said Samer Zein, Technology Services Manager, HP Middle East. “HP has the experience to help clients ensure the design and implementation of cloud infrastructure will deliver the expected benefits today and in the future.”

The HP Cloud Design Service is available worldwide with pricing based on specific customer requirements. For clients that are still at the education, strategy or planning stages, HP offers the HP Cloud Discovery Workshop and the HP Cloud Roadmap Service.

The HP cloud services portfolio helps organizations use the cloud as part of a broader IT service delivery strategy. HP takes a comprehensive approach to cloud design – how to build, source, manage and secure it. Most importantly, HP helps customers develop a solid, fact-based business case for fast investment decision making. More information about the complete portfolio of HP Cloud Consulting and Infrastructure Services is available at www.hp.com/services/cloud.

Dubai, UAE, Feb. 11, 2010 – HP today introduced a records management solution that enables customers to significantly reduce the business risks associated with the growing regulatory compliance and legal discovery demands.

HP TRIM 7 – an advanced records management solution built on 24 years of experience and best practices – enables organizations to transparently manage all of their Microsoft SharePoint Server records in a single environment, regardless of the source. This includes documents as well as information found in SharePoint Server blogs, wikis, discussions, forms, calendars and workflows.

Widespread adoption of SharePoint Server provides the opportunity to consolidate and simplify the management of content stored across multiple SharePoint instances. HP TRIM 7 enables the transparent capture, search and management of all types of physical and electronic business information, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the upcoming SharePoint Server 2010. 

“Businesses today are faced with managing an explosion of content 2.0 environments while trying to meet a wave of new regulations. Our new HP TRIM solution allows customers to benefit from a dynamic collaboration platform such as SharePoint with best practices records management and governance capabilities,” said Mounir Mahmoud, Software Director, HP Middle East.

HP TRIM 7 is an advanced records management solution built on 24 years of experience and best practices. To help SharePoint Server customers, HP TRIM provides two new modules: HP TRIM Records Management for SharePoint and HP TRIM Archiving for SharePoint. 

HP TRIM Archiving module helps customers reduce the risk of data loss when reclaiming storage and system resources from SharePoint Server.  The module seamlessly archives specific list objects in SharePoint Server, or entire SharePoint Server sites to HP TRIM. This happens behind the scenes, and allows users to take entire SharePoint Server sites offline once projects are completed, while ensuring continued access to information. 

”We’re pleased to see HP embracing and extending the SharePoint platform for their TRIM offering. For our joint customers, this provides a great opportunity to realize the value of their investment in both technology stacks,” said Tricia Bush, director, Microsoft SharePoint. “This shows the commitment of both companies to openness and interoperability in the content management arena.”

With the new HP TRIM 7 web client interface and its highly configurable, off-the-shelf capabilities, customers can realize a faster deployment compared to other records management solutions – in weeks rather than months. In addition, the improved indexing and search capability allows customers to decrease the time spent searching for critical information as well as reduce response time for legal discovery, compliance requests and audits.

More information is available at www.hp.com/go/informationmanagement

Smartworld, a leading provider of advanced Information and Communications Technology (ICT) based services in the Middle East, Read the full story

Leading telecoms operator engages HP to support ongoing process of Business Service Automation

John Hoonhout, Managing Director for HP Middle East

At GITEX 2009 today, HP Technology Solutions Group (TSG) announced that it has agreed on a three-year technology upgrade and automation strategy with Qatar’s leading communications provider, Qatar Telecom (Qtel).

The technology implementation road map has been designed to support Qtel’s strategic objectives Read the full story

HP sponsors Gitex media center and focuses on the shopper

John Hoonhout, Managing Director, HP Middle East

HP, the world’s largest technology solutions provider and the market leader for enterprise, small and medium businesses and consumer technology products, announced its participation at Gitex Technology Week 2009.

HP will be exhibiting in Hall concourse 2 on Stand CC2-3 showcasing the latest consumer, small and medium businesses’ products for the Middle East. Read the full story

HP prepares select graduates from UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Oman and Egypt for professional growth

John Hoonhout, Managing Director, HP Middle East (centre, standing) with the selected graduate trainees.

HP Middle East has commenced its 2009 edition of the ‘HP Summer Sales Training Program’ designed for young, talented graduates who want to pursue a career in Sales. Read the full story