HP Partners Not Counting On Handheld Channel

HP this week revealed plans to move handheld devices out of its Mobility Business Unit and into its Personal Systems Group (PSG), in move by the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor to make devices such as smartphones more of a core business.

HP appears to have made a new commitment to enterprise wireless devices, according to Andrew Lauter, president of PSC Group, Schaumburg, Ill. "It's a powerful statement on HP's part that they intend to bring thick client functionality to as many presentation layers as possible, whether it's a browser, desktop or wireless device," Lauter said.

Crawford Del Prete, senior vice president of communications, hardware, services and software research at IDC, said handheld devices such as smartphones are increasingly becoming more of a strategic business for HP. "Moving handhelds into the PSG is a way for them to measure [handhelds] more directly and start behaving more like a vendor that is interested in the mobility space," Del Prete said.

HP made a spash this week at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona when it unveiled its new iPaq hw6900 Mobile Messenger, a smartphone that's scheduled to ship in the U.S. this summer. The device, positioned as a competitor to RIM's BlackBerry, will include Microsoft's Messaging and Security Feature Pack, which enables push email functionality without the need for extra servers or third party software.

Although Paul Giobbi, president of Lake Forest, Calif.-based solution provider Zumasys, hasn't considered HP a player in the smartphone market for the past 12-18 months, he said the vendor has the ability to be a key player in the market. "Anything [HP] can do to put a focus on this critical market would be huge."

However, smartphones are not generally a channel friendly product, and it's tough for solution providers to compete with the carriers, Giobbi said. "I would love to see them go to market with a killer smartphone through the channel instead of through carriers."

It's tough for a solution provider to make much money selling handhelds -- especially when the partner is HP, says Tom Hebel, president of TCI Systems, a College Point, N.Y., solution provider.

"HP is doing so much to take business direct these days that they treat handhelds like a retail product. We don't push handhelds because the margins are so low it's insulting," Hebel said. An HP partner for 13 years, Hebel says he has sold "about 10" HP handhelds this year and made between $10-15 on each sale.

Daniel Duffy, president and CEO of Valley Network Solutions, a Fresno, Calif.-based HP partner, thinks there's a 50-50 chance the new handheld group will benefit solution providers. Still, "chances are they will go direct to market," he said.