Vendor Rating: HP Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00147380, Carl Claunch, Andrew Butler, Kris Brittain, Laura McLellan, Peter J. Grant, Leslie Fiering, Ken Dulaney, John Enck, Ron Silliman, Tiffani Bova, Roger W. Cox, Mark Fabbi, Alex Soejarto, Dave Russell, 8 June 2007 R2354 6/29/2008 During the past two years, HP has driven its cost structure to healthy levels, while executing well in most areas of its business. The company is strongly focused on growth to complement profitability and consistent execution. OVERALL RATING Strong Positive WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Overall, HP is a solid vendor, with a portfolio ranging from hardware to software to services. In most of HP’s major business areas, its clients should consider it a strategic partner. We have rated all major aspects of the business. Where HP is still evolving or facing specific challenges, its products or services should be evaluated tactically or situationally. We expect this vendor to progress by focusing its attention on its remaining areas of weakness, as well as by increasing its overall portfolio quality, revenue and market share. VENDOR RATING Analyst Comments HP needs a clearer strategy to deal with increasing competition from its strongest partners, including Oracle, Microsoft and Intel, now that HP is moving into market segments it had previously left to those partners to cover. Corporate Viability For the most part, HP has dealt with the questions concerning its viability and health, having delivered solid results during the past several quarters. Attention has shifted to understanding its aspirations, strategies and principles, which is a consequence of HP having proved that it can achieve what it set out to do. The important questions from potential clients considering future interactions with HP, as well as the competitors that are eyeing it carefully, involve where the company is going. Strategy HP has clear, coherent strategies at all levels, based on its desire to be the world’s leading IT company in each product segment and geographic area. The vendor’s success is built on a solid strategy, bolstered by sound execution and tactical decisions. HP no longer appears to be an amalgam of seemingly independent businesses, and sustained good results have dispelled the idea that its divisions would be more successful as separate entities. Full communication and adoption of the company’s foundational strategies throughout the enterprise are the last barriers to our increasing HP’s rating in the strategy category – it will remain at Positive until HP’s customer base and the market understand its intentions. 2 Table 1. Detailed Rating Initiative Rating Change Corporate Viability Strategy Positive No Change Financial Strong Positive Up Marketing Positive No Change Organization Strong Positive Up Market Offerings Product/Service Strong Positive Up ProLiant and BladeSystem Servers Strong Positive Up HP-UX Integrity Servers Positive Up Other Servers Caution No Change Software Promising No Change Personal Computers Strong Positive Up Handhelds Caution Down C&I Services Promising No Change Outsourcing Services Positive Up External Controller-Based Disk Storage Promising No Change Tape and Tape Automation Positive Down Storage Software Promising Up Networking Promising New Consumer and SMB Printing Strong Positive New Large Company Printing Strong Positive New Graphic Arts and Creative Strong Positive New Production Run Printing Promising New Technology/Methodology Strong Positive No Change Adaptive Infrastructure Promising New Pricing Structure Positive No Change Customer Service/Support Sales/Distribution Strong Positive Up Channels Strong Positive Up Direct Sales Positive New Support/Account Management Positive Up Product Support Strong Positive No Change Account Management Positive Up Source: Gartner (June 2007 Financial Marketing HP is solidly profitable, increasing its level of profitability at a HP’s marketing efforts are emboldened by improved execution, dependable rate and driving up revenue across all its business with crisper messaging and better collaboration with the sales segments. The company is achieving this while, in most cases, organizations. Marketing momentum in HP’s imaging and PC holding or growing market share. Its cash position and financial businesses remains strong, while the marketing stance of its metrics are respectable, arming the company with the capital and Technology Solutions Group (TSG) is evolving toward a more safety margins required to make sound investments in the future of tangible set of initiatives focused on business outcomes. Although its business. synergies across the three major product groups are welcome and © 2007 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although Gartner’s research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. 3 necessary, closer integration among business units, products and acquisitions, as HP Software expands from IT operations services could challenge the traditional relationships with channel management into application development management, business and technology partners that have been the cornerstone of HP’s intelligence (BI) and vertical solutions. During the next three to five legacy success. years, HP Software’s acquisition strategy must demonstrate the ability to exploit potential synergies across a broad range of Organization products. Given the software division’s rapid expansion, customers Although the structure of its three autonomous product groups should be informed of product road maps prior to acquisition. survives, cooperation among these groups is more obvious. The management style of HP’s chairman, CEO and president, Mark Personal Computers Hurd, has given the groups more synergistic responsibility and The Personal Systems Group (PSG) has been completely financial accountability, and this has rejuvenated morale and self- revitalized during the past two years to become a strong PC esteem at all levels of the company. Centralized functions have supplier and partner. This group has benefited from strong been aligned with the product groups to harmonize branding, management and from broader HP initiatives, including supply design and outbound messaging, without imposing the rigid top- chain management efficiencies to produce competitive pricing, down structure that had previously limited execution. More work is channel optimization to improve reach to small and midsize needed to integrate the complementary strengths of HP’s three businesses (SMBs) and emerging economies, as well as the product groups, but market confidence in the vendor’s corporate empowerment of the sales team to improve large-enterprise value proposition is higher than it has been in years. account management. HP has successfully leveraged consumer desktop and notebook products to maintain economies of scale Market Offerings and innovation. ProLiant and BladeSystem Servers The ProLiant and BladeSystem rating addresses HP frame-based, Handhelds rack-mounted and blade servers housing Intel and AMD x86 iPAQ’s market share fell from 21.3% in 2004 to 9.7% in 2006. HP’s processors running Windows, Linux or Solaris x86. Through 2006 road map is less clear than those of HTC, Motorola, Nokia and and the 1Q07, HP has fielded a strong, balanced portfolio of Research In Motion. To regain leadership, HP needs to realign its products in this category. ProLiant has regained the market share it offerings with key market trends: had lost to Dell, and HP has increased market confidence in • Cellular service ProLiant. In BladeSystem, HP invested in c-Class technology and • Integration with PBX services gained market share against IBM BladeCenter. • Support for applications (especially e-mail) • Combined business/personal offerings HP-UX Integrity Servers The HP-UX Integrity rating addresses frame-based, rack-mounted and Integrity blade servers with Intel Itanium processors running Carrier neutrality gives HP an advantage over Nokia and Motorola. HP-UX. Through 2006 and 1Q07, HP has built a technically sound Windows Mobile 6 should boost iPAQ. Other pluses include: portfolio of Integrity products and gained traction and momentum • Having the same models in the consumer market in the market – particularly in PA-RISC-to-Itanium conversions. • Direct support Integrity needs to show strong growth outside HP’s installed base, • Integration services as well as benefit from migrations from PA-RISC. This will be a challenging task in a market (Unix) that is flat at best. Consulting and Integration Services Other Servers C&I is developing consultative competency and delivery capability This is a compound rating addressing frame-based and rack- to fully execute on HP’s new value vision, where it today only has mounted servers with Intel Itanium processors running Windows, pockets of strength. For its Business Technology Optimization Linux, NonStop and OpenVMS, as well as PA-RISC processors (BTO)