HP Readies Makeover for the MidMarket

Although customers can buy any of the products separately, by rolling all these products out together HP is trying to highlight the symbiotic relationship of new server, storage and networking technologies. For example, as customers upgrade to new servers running multiple virtual machines, they are likely to encounter I/O bottlenecks using their existing storage and networking technologies.

The new additions to the HP lineup include:

• A  HP Virtualization Smart Bundles for Hyper-V offering built on HP ProLiant, StorageWorks and ProCurve products, along with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 that is designed to simplify virtualization deployments and a similar bundle built around a set of HP thin client devices.
• New HP ProLiant ML110 and DL120 G6 Servers priced under $1,000 that are based on Intel quad-core Xeon processors.
• A new the HP ProCurve 2520 Switch Series that includes support for Power-over- Ethenet.
• New HP StorageWorks DAT 320 Tape Drive, HP StorageWorks D2D Backup System and HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solution offerings.
• A range of 500MB, 1TB and 2TB SimpleSave hard drives that don’t require customers to install separate backup software because that process has been automated.
• A new HP Pro 3000 Series of PCs that come in new micro-tower configurations.
• An HP Connect Service that gives customers access to virtual space online for collaboration.

Rather than continuing to bring a raft of products to market separately, HP has been making a concerted effort to bring complementary products and services to market at the same time after realizing that many system upgrades are dependent upon other technologies being in place to create a balanced IT architecture.