HP continues to target SMEs

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 04/04/2005 2:21 PM  |  Life

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, zatni@cbn.net.id

For some time Hewlett-Packard seems to have dropped off our radar screens. Most of us would attribute the company's extended absence from the list of leading providers of ground-breaking technologies to the horrendous task it faced in merging with Compaq some years ago.

However, earlier this year the company grabbed our attention again with the company board telling Carly Fiorina to step down from her position as HP's CEO.

People certainly have a lot of different opinions about Carly. Some say that the board should have made the decision much earlier. Personally, however, I tend to side with those who are more sympathetic toward her. We all know how challenging the merger undertaking was, and not everyone could have achieved what she achieved. Besides, I've always admired people who try and fail rather than those who never fail because they never try.

Well, one thing is clear. Last February, Carly's time at the helm of this IT vendor was over. The good news is that, quietly, the company has continued to introduce new technologies, products and solutions aimed at improving the productivity of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the market segment that it has been focusing its attention on for many years now.

The company is not doing it alone, of course. It has a pool of two thousand channel partners around the world to deliver its Smart Office offerings. While the initiative is global in its scope, HP's Smart Office was showcased at a one-day event at Jakarta's Mercantile Sports Club in early March.

Smart Way to Work

Our office environment has evolved over the years. When we work, we no longer necessarily want to be tied to our desktop.

We want to be mobile. However, when we are away from the office, from time to time we may need to access our company data. We may be using a notebook computer, or a powerful PDA such as the PocketPC-based HP iPaq 6300, to remotely access sales data, for example. Clearly, mobility is a key feature of today's work environment.

Mobility means connectivity, and connectivity requires security. One example is the HP Digital Send Authentication (DSA) found in the company's OfficeJet 9100 All-in-One printer. Each time a user sends a job to this device, he or she is asked to enter a user name and password.

In addition, the security solution also supports Microsoft's Active Directory and Kerberos infrastructure to increase network security protection.

We also want to make sure that our connection is as safe as possible. To achieve this, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution is also made available in the Smart Office range of solutions, called HP SAFE IP. This solution creates a secured tunnel across the public Internet network, which allows secure data exchange between mobile devices and the corporate information system.

Backing up data is a must, as we all know too well by now. However, it can also be a chore. Therefore, an automated backup solution should also be built in. In the Smart Office solutions, HP offers Altiris Local Recovery software application. It creates a copy of a hard disk's content in a hidden area on the same hard disk.

An alternative is to backup and recover data across a network, and this is made possible with HP SURE PC Backup and Recovery Services. When a mobile worker is away on a business trip and wants to make sure that the hard disk on his computer is backed up remotely, all he or she has to do is connect via the Internet to the service and then do the backup.

The main benefit of this service, as opposed to Altiris, is that the data storage is kept in a different location, while Altiris creates the backup on the same hard disk. So, even if the notebook is stolen, a copy of the data on its hard disks will still be available.

All these new solutions -- showcased during the event in March -- are easy to implement on top of a company's existing infrastructure.

The Smart Office day provided us with a glimpse of how we will be working in the future. Technology has progressed a lot and it may change the landscape in many significant ways. Let us hope that, under Mark Hurd -- the newly appointed CEO -- HP will once again concentrate on its ""Invent"" drive and come up with really ground-breaking products and solutions that our future SMEs can actually use to maximize their competitiveness.

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