How is device-as-a-service catching on?
Device-as-a-service is our other growth initiative. We started talking about it at this event last year and rolled out a program at the Global Partner Summit in November, and we already have a scale pipeline from our channel partners. They are starting to close deals as evidenced by NWN (honored the HP Executive Forum for its first channel-led device-as-a-service win).
Foundationally you have a macro trend of businesses going to as a service – PCs and mobile devices have been a laggard in that. But what we know from our research is two years ago 20 percent of commercial customers said they were interested or actively deploying device as a service, last year 40 percent and this year 50 percent. The shift is massive. It feels similar to what we saw in print where the market just started tipping towards managed services. In this instance we don't have to build it from scratch because the managed print services guys already built it.
We have folks like Bill (Avey, general manager and global head of HP Personal Systems Services) who have spent the last eight years in the managed print services business. We have infrastructure as well as know how that we believe puts us in an advantage position versus the rest of the PC competitors.
