Hardware major HP will peddle software, solutions now

Hardware major HP is set to unravel its best secret in the Indian market — its software products and solutions.

The company, which has been trying its hand at software and solutions for sometime now, is gearing up for a major show after revving up some key offerings, particularly in the field of using technology for business management.

“India is proving to be a major market opportunity for HP software and solutions. In fact, India offers us a major opportunity since the market on its own has some unique features. Unlike other markets, the enterprise technology users in India are not stuck with legacy systems. So, our products and solutions have an immediate market here since there is no need for the users to either integrate our solutions or migrate from their existing solutions,” Darryl Dickens, head of marketing for HP Software in Asia Pacific and Japan, told DNA Money in Washington recently.

Company officials are still not willing to put a number to the opportunity, though they have identified the sectors to target their software solutions.

“HP predominantly has been a hardware company. But, the software side of the company is equally interesting and significant.

“We have already tried out marketing some of our solutions in telecom sector. Many service providers today use HP’s software solutions in managing their networks. The market is definitely opening up and we find ourselves in the right place,” Dickens said.

HP Software is now eyeing opportunities in marketing its business management solutions to the energy and BFS (banking and financial services) sectors.

The government’s programmes to accelerate development and also to deploy technology for monitoring the performance of various services including power are being seen as key opportunities for HP to tap. The projects are allotted through a tender process by the government under its Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme.

“We are participating in tenders either through a consortium or on our own. It all depends on the projects that are offered to IT companies,” Dickens said.
The company has also identified the focus areas for taking its solutions to market.

The primary focus is expected to be in the application testing arena. Though several IT majors including Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant are already into testing, HP sees it as a major opportunity in the days to come. “There is a gold rush in testing for Indian companies. We are all set to tap the opportunity.

Though we have already started out, the addressable market is significant. HP Software will definitely make its presence felt in the days to come in a big way,” Kamal Dutta, director, software and solutions, HP India, said.

According to him, HP is all set to provide tools to various Indian companies for taking up testing projects. “Several Indian companies are taking up testing projects and they need some powerful tools since the world is moving towards automated testing. We are now bringing to them a host of products to automate the entire testing process,” Dutta said.

The writer was in Washington at the invitation of HP