HP, Microsft Team Up

The HP-Microsoft project, code-named Agora,a Greek word meaning "meeting place",was showcased in a presentation at Comdex last week in Las Vegas. A team of HP and Microsoft engineers are working on the Agora system, which will be shown at trade shows as it evolves over the next year, with the aim of making it a full-fledged product in 2004, said Rich Dodds, manager of desktop product marketing for HP's Business PC Group.

HP would not detail the processor or collaborative products that will be included on the system. "What we are doing is taking business PCs to another level," Dodds said. "We want to get away from the PC as simply doing data routines and move it to a communications and collaboration tool. It is kind of inventing a new use for the PC as a realtime communications and collaboration product."

Part of the demonstration at Comdex involved a video presentation that showed several knowledge workers using the system to collaborate across the globe using the system's video- and audioconferencing, instant messaging and collaboration capabilities to edit a legal document in realtime.

"One of the benefits of Agora is that it makes everything much simpler," Dodds said.

The Agora system has a sleek design, with a modular communications station that sits under a monitor, separate from the PC casing. The aim is to bring an industry-standard communications and collaborations system to market that can be added to any desktop system, said Dodds. "We want companies to be able to utilize [the resources they have today," he said.

Agora is designed to separate the communications and collaboration functionality from the main bay so video- and audioconferencing are not hampered by such elements as the fan used in PCs to cool down a processor, Dodds said.

Agora is a critical piece of HP's strategy to build market share by differentiating its desktop systems from other offerings, including those from rival Dell Computer. Indeed, HP is emphasizing its huge PC R and D investment in the battle against Dell.

Grady Crunk, executive vice president of Central Data, a Titusville, Fla.-based solution provider who has partnered with HP for 17 years, applauded HP's drive to introduce more innovative products but questioned its current channel strategy. "How can you be spending all this money on R and D and then at the same time trying to be like Dell?" he said. "They are two different models. Why do you want to be another me-too company like Dell? Taking away the channel is taking away HP's ability to differentiate itself from Dell."