HP Hitches Virtual Ride

HP, which recently reshuffled its storage and server businesses, today overhauled its HP-UX operating system and unveiled new hardware in order to lure users away from IBM and Sun. (See HP Unveils New OS, HP Reshuffles More Software, and HP's New Unit Meant to Spur Storage.)

Despite this flurry of marketing spiel, there is still concern in some quarters that HP is not doing enough to keep its own customers in the loop about its UNIX strategy.

Virtualization and blade servers appear to be at the heart of this roadmap. HP, apparently hell-bent on breathing new life into its data management business, boosted its HP-UX virtualization story by taking the wraps off the first server blade, based on its Integrity technology today. (See HP Forms New Unit, HP Unveils Blade Design, and HP to Consolidate Data Centers.)

With the launch of HP-UX version 3, HP has added a set of software tools which include the ability to migrate memory from one virtual machine to another. This, according to the vendor, can save users money by avoiding wasted memory resource.

HP has also developed an "online patching" feature for mirroring virtual data while a patch gets installed, unveiled a set reference architectures for quickly deploying Oracle and SAP applications, and improved its clustering story. (See Oracle Broadens Portfolio .) Virtual data can now be transferred across three rather than two data centers in the event of a failover, according to HP execs.HP-UX version 3, which is available now, is the same price as previous versions of the operating system, according to Ute Albert, marketing manager for the vendor's virtualization division. This, she told Byte and Switch starts at around $5,000 per CPU for an entry-level Integrity server.

Pricing for the BL860c server blade, which will be on the market in March, starts at $3,827. (See FilesX Runs on HP Integrity, HP Brandishes Blades, and HP Unveils Fast Blade.)

But the exec made it clear she has her eye on IBM's AIX and Sun's Solaris users. "Opportunities are there when customers are looking at new projects," she says, adding that efforts such as business intelligence, ERP, and CRM are forcing many firms to virtualize their data.

At least one analyst thinks that this could still be a tall order. "Switching platforms is very, very difficult," says Paul McGuckin, vice president of research at Gartner. "It's mostly to do with the different way that the systems are managed and the different expertise of your administrators."

The last time users jumped platforms occurred around five years ago when IBM and HP picked up some Sun customers at the height of their rival's organizational struggles. (See Is Sun Setting? and Sun Loses $760M in Q3.) "Those opportunities don't come around very often," explains McGuckin.Virtualization leader VMware, is, of course, exempt from this UNIX struggle because it plays in a different part of the market, running its software on Windows or Linux-based x86 servers. (See VMware IPO , VMware Intros Bundle for SMBs, VMware Swallows Akimbi, and Vamping Virtualization.)

Although HP is slowly fleshing out its technology platforms, there's grumbling about the company's customer service. "They are very difficult to get information out of, and it has been that way since they took over Compaq," says John Anderson, head of the systems group at Royal Holloway College at the University of London and treasurer of the HP UK User Group.

Gartner analyst McGuckin agrees that this remains an issue for many HP users. "I think that HP could do a better job communicating with customers," he says, despite CEO Mark Hurd's recent efforts to instill better discipline into HP's sales force. (See Well Played, Mr. Hurd, HP CEO Calls for Better Storage, and High Hopes in Palo Alto.)

Even U.S. users have voiced their concerns about service. "We did a survey last year and people said that they would like to see HP improve the customer support of their services organization and also improve in the area of [customer] education," explains Nina Buik, president of the 16,000 strong Encompass user group.

The exec, who is also senior vice president of Norcross, Georgia-based training firm MindIQ, told Byte and Switch that HP appears to be taking this message to heart. "We had an issue with a server installation and within 24 hours [HP] had someone onsite and we were able to go live," she says.HP's Albert says that the firm is now focusing attention on its channel in an attempt to reach out to users. Partners, she says, will be doing targeted virtualization workshops and consulting work on a country-by-country basis.

James Rogers, Senior Editor Byte and Switch