LAS VEGAS – Hewlett-Packard yesterday announced new cloud-based tools aimed at helping channel partners deliver new services to their consumer and business customers.
Among the solutions unveiled at HP Discover 2013 were tools that help qualified HP partners control the managed print service (MPS) selling process; enhancements that enabled Salesforce.com users compose personalize marketing documents and new encryption features for HP’s content management solution.
“Our customers and partners recognize that mobile devices, print services and printers play a key role in transforming the digital landscape,” said Pradeep Jatwar, senior vice-president for laser jet enterprise solutions at HP. “With these new cloud-based solutions, HP will help drive a higher level of productivity in the office or on the go.”
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“These tools are just what the customers need and what partners have been looking for,” said Adam Shaffer, senior vice-president of marketing for PC Mall, a business-to-business computer sales company based in El Segundo, Calif. “These tools provide HP partners like us lots of opportunities to sell services to our customers.”
Among the new tools announced were:
HP Managed Print Specialist Resell Program – A set of cloud-based tools that help partners control the MPS process. It includes the HP Express Decision Portal, a site where partners can create proposals and do quote generation, invoicing, reporting, monitoring, and account management.
HP Relate – An application that enables users of Salesforce.com’s customer relations management tools to create highly personalized marketing documents from anywhere within the Salesforce environment and be able to print this content or transmit it online to customers.
HP Flow CM Professional – This solution gives customers of HP’s cloud-based, content management solution additional security and flexibility with encryption at rest and support for the Android platform. The new encryption-at-rest feature helps to ensure that sensitive business content remains secure and encrypted when access controls such as user names and passwords fail.
HP also announced a new line of desktop and all-in-one PCs. The new products HP released yesterday will not work with the Windows XP operating system, which will no longer be supported by Microsoft come April 2014, according to Derek Everett, director of desktop product management and commercial managed IT of the partners and personal systems group at HP.
“Our new all-in-one and tower line will support Windows 7 and Windows 8,” said Everett.
Among the new products introduced by the PC and server maker yesterday were: The HP Elite One 800 business AiO and its consumer-focused sibling the Pro One 600 AiO which both feature touch screen displays and near field communication Wi-Fi and wireless hotspot capabilities; the new line of HP Pro and HP Elite desktop and tower PCs featuring a range of compact form factors; and the point-of-sale focused HP Elite Pad tablet vice.
No more than three months ago various technology industry analysts have partly blamed the touch-enabled Windows 8 OS for the sluggish PC market last year and early this year. They cited the slow adoption rate of Windows 8, coupled with other factors such as longer product replacement cycles due to budget constraints and the popularity of tablet devices as the reason for slow PC sales.
However, HP executives yesterday said they are bullish on Windows 7 and Windows 8.