The issue of HP turning to third parties for technology might seem like a big deal for a company that features the word "Invent" in its logo, but for some users this strategy isn't unsettling. Premier Bankcard's Erkonen, for example, sees the partnering as HP's validation of some relatively new technologies and is more comfortable obtaining products based on those technologies from HP than from the smaller startups that developed them. Like other HP users, he also likes the idea of a one-stop shop. "One throat to choke is the way we look at it," jokes Erkonen.

"You don't have to reinvent everything," says HP's Schultz, a sentiment he used in his address at the StorageWorks conference where he said it "takes more than HP alone." Schultz may be trying to assure HP users that these new products don't signal a shift from product development for HP, despite the fact that the third-party software is nearly intact and has only minor interface adjustments. "I don't have a concern with their partnering with vendors," says Kevin Donnellan, director of enterprise infrastructure services at the Screen Actors Guild-Producers Pension and Health Plans in Burbank, CA. "It keeps costs down."

According to Punk, Ziegel & Company's Berg, HP's partner selection isn't strong. Riverbed's software for the WAN Accelerator is essentially a default choice, he says, because two of the other key players in this still small market--Actona Technologies Inc. and Tacit Software Inc.--were no longer available. Actona was bought by Cisco Systems Inc. a year ago and Tacit is partnering with Brocade Communications Systems Inc. Berg also considers FalconStor Software Inc.'s VTL product better than Sepaton's. Although HP used to resell the FalconStor product, Sepaton will replace it in HP's product line, a move Berg suggests HP is making to distinguish itself from EMC Corp., which resells FalconStor's VTL software.

But Berg's take on HP's partnering is largely at odds with other industry analysts who give the thumbs up to HP's choices and see the move into new application areas as more important than how the firm gets there. "Some people might say they're just partnering up with everybody," says ESG's Hurley. That would be an oversimplification, she notes. HP is just avoiding reinventing the wheel while advancing emerging technologies. "They bring a clout and credibility that the smaller vendors never could," adds Hurley.

Stephanie Balaouras, a senior analyst at Boston-based Yankee Group, sees HP's OEM activities as just another example of how the industry works today. "The systems vendors in general are focusing on their core strengths and partnering with the best-of-breed partners," she says. And the product categories that HP is jumping into are requisites for any big player in the open-systems market. The VTL product may prove to be one of the more important products in the announcements as it complements HP's very successful tape backup business, Balaouras adds.

Similarly, remote storage solutions and high-end NAS are picking up steam, so HP venturing into these areas effectively plugs a couple of holes in its product lineup. Hurley thinks HP's decision to go with PolyServe for its clustered NAS gateway was a shrewd choice. "What HP ended up with in the long term is what NetApp [Network Appliance Inc.] is trying to get to with [its] Spinnaker [Networks acquisition]," she says.

Many HP users are definitely interested in the new products, if not ready to cut a purchase order immediately. Pollock at Fender Musical Instruments will consider the VTL product because he expects storage capacity to grow at the company as it adds new users from its European locations. "We're trying to come up with a way to meet our shrinking backup window," says Pollock.

At Premier Bankcard, Erkonen thinks WAN Accelerator can help tie together the firm's geographically dispersed sites. "Being able to deploy storage to all of our call centers or bank locations, and to then be able to pull it in over the WAN to centralize the backup or for disaster recovery processes is definitely of interest," he says.

< PREV PAGE   |   1  |   2  |   3  |   NEXT PAGE  >