Fiorina Urges Solution Providers To Team With HP

"Every single one of the systems integrators has a big competitor, and that competitor's name is IBM Global Services," Fiorina said in a question and answer session at an HP analyst meeting here. She said HP has a full range of technology and services that solution providers can use to battle IBM Global Services.

Fiorina said HP is providing its solution-provider partners with "solution maps" so they know exactly where HP will seek direct engagements, and where HP expects partners to lead with HP products.

"One of the reasons we can partner effectively is because we give them a plan of where we're going to play and where they will play," Fiorina said. "We go to SIs (System Integrators) with solution maps and say, 'Here's where we'll play, here's where we want you to play. So they know precisely [what to expect. That's a clean, crisp message to the marketplace."

Hewlett Packard Executive Vice President of Services Ann Livermore said HP is committed to providing services in multivendor heterogenous environments. "Almost none of the contracts are HP only environments because you're taking an [existing environment and there's a lot of stuff in it." Livermore said. "If it's an environment that's running industry standard products, there are very often Dell servers and IBM servers in there as well. Even in the Unix environments where we may have a big presence with HP UX in the environments, there's some Solaris boxes in the environment and AIX boxes. So we have to be able to deal with whatever's in the environment."

"Our rule is that we lead with HP technology and solutions when it's a great fit for the customer," Livermore said. "Sometimes there's a competing technology in their environment that they want to continue with. You always have to do what's best for the customer."