HP Boosts Its Utility Computing Profile

The definitive agreements HP inked last week to acquire publicly traded Novadigm and privately held Consera Software add automation capabilities to the $73 billion vendor's OpenView enterprise management software suite.

The deals provide technologies that HP executives called "powerful" additions to reach the Holy Grail of utility computing.

Partners said the purchases make HP a more formidable competitor in the race against rivals such as IBM, Computer Associates International, EMC and Veritas Software to provide a robust end-to-end utility computing platform.

"Management software is the next big frontier for IT," said Nora Denzel, senior vice president of HP Adaptive Enterprise. "[Novadigm and Consera] put repetitive, error-prone IT management tasks on cruise control and free up IT time to focus on innovation."

HP's sales channel will have access to both technologies within a few months, Denzel said. Products from both companies likely would be branded as OpenView and sold as part of the modular software suite by the end of March, she said.

The news had HP OpenView partners excited. "What these moves represent for our customers is that HP is no longer just a people-based management model," said Kelly Rodrigues, CEO of Totality, an HP solution provider in San Francisco. "These moves indicate that HP wants real-life tools that can automate processes with the best of them."

Tom Reinsel, CEO of Pepperweed Consulting, an HP partner in Pittsburgh, agreed: "It's been a while since HP has acquired software we can build services around."

Specifically, the software from Novadigm, Mahwah, N.J., automates change and configuration management, allowing IT resources to deliver services according to established business policies. Consera's service-modeling software helps customers design a standardized IT environment that automatically adapts to changing business demands.

Consera CEO Frank Artale said that technology from the Bellevue, Wash.-based company should enable HP OpenView customers to create models that represent their business services, which then map to underlying IT components.

Despite this expanded functionality, some Consera partners said they are wary of being assimilated into a larger channel. "I'm not sure how this whole thing will impact our sales," said Greg Raimann, managing director of Greenwich Technology Partners, a Consera partner in New York. "Based on HP's presence in the enterprise with OpenView, I think there's more of a chance now than ever before to leverage the environment Consera facilitates."