Hewlett-Packard Co. is arming channel partners with new infrastructure solutions and services in areas such as virtualization and cloud services designed to meet the needs of their customers in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) space.
The new solutions, channel tools and marketing assets fall under HP’s Just Right IT program, which is designed to help HP channel partners accelerate time-to-revenue by simplifying design and delivery of HP networking, server and storage solutions for SMBs.
Two new programs were announced under that portfolio on Tuesday – ServeIT and Service IT. Each is designed to help resellers rapidly assess and deliver solution bundles based on customer size and maturity, from starting out and building momentum to business expansion. Each solution comes with channel enablement tools to help partners to market, design and deploy the solutions.
“We’re now addressing the core IT challenges for SMBs: driving down costs, maximizing IT staff and employee productivity,” said Lisa Wolfe, worldwide SMB marketing and strategy leader for HP.
Under ServeIT, HP has launched five flex bundles designed to help SMBs adopt virtualization, Microsoft Exchange and SAP technology.
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There’s HP Flex-Bundles for Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V Virtualization Solutions, which is designed to simplify the design and implementation of virtualization for business with moderate workloads.
HP Flex Bundles for VMware vSphere with Operations Management Virtualization Solutions is similar but, but for a VMware environment.
HP Flex Bundles for SMB First Server Solution with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 combines an HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 with Microsoft’s Windows Server OS for increased compute in a compact form factor.
HP Flex Bundles for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Solutions is Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2013 pm HP ProLiant Gen8 servers as a complete communications solution for an SMB, including e-mail, calendars and contacts.
Finally, HP Flex Bundles for SAP Hanna Solutions includes certified hardware for SAP Hana based on the HP ProLiant ML350p Gen8 Server.
Wolfe said that even with the growing adoption of cloud services, HP sees a huge opportunity for first server buys in the SMB space over the next several years. She also points to HP’s leadership in the x86 server market as underpinning these new offerings.
Under ServiceIT, HP is aiming to bring together a portfolio of technology services, financial services, cloud services and education services to help SMBs accelerate their growth through enhanced performance.
“We recognize partners have their own services and that’s really how they differentiate themselves in the market,” said John Flowers, worldwide channel marketing manager for HP technology services. “We want to extend and augment what they offer.”
Service IT includes three new offerings. HP Technology Services provides a menu of support offerings for SMBs, including Foundation Care Services, Proactive Care Services and Lifecycle Event Services.
“Our partners are integrated fully into this. They can sell and deliver any of these services, and we promote our Service One partners. They’re the ones that are going to bring Just Right IT to life,” said Flowers.
HP Financial Services is designed to provide SMVs with flexible financing programs to help them refresh their technology infrastructure or get started as a new business with the technology to meet their needs.
“Cash flow is king in the SMB space, and we want to enable customers to get the leading-edge technology they need to drive their business at an affordable price,” said Flowers.
Finally, HP Cloud Services includes access to a broad range of cloud services through HP’s partner network, including IaaS and SaaS solutions.
“We realty think the hybrid model is the way to go,” said Flowers. “There’s still a lot of people building on-premise for various reasons, such as regulatory concerns and data protection. We think the future is the hybrid world.”