HP PartnerOne Adapting for a 'New Style of IT'

Hewlett-Packard President and CEO Meg Whitman is calling for a change in the way HP and its partners relate.

"The New Style of IT requires a new style of partnering," Whitman said in a statement this week from the HP Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas. "Together HP and our partners have become the go-to technology provider for the New Style of IT with industry-leading technology solutions, programs and incentives that help partners drive growth."

What does the new style of IT mean to Whitman?

During her keynote, Whitman delineated four major trends undergirding the "new style" -- cloud, security, big data and mobility. She also noted the shift in the way technology is consumed, paid for and delivered, and changes in how infrastructure is built, apps are written and data is consumed.

She implied that the sheer volume of content and data being created through social media and ubiquitous cameras puts legacy datacenter approaches on a path that isn't sustainable in terms of space, energy or cost.

Whitman said HP is looking for partners to help customers achieve IT goals, including lower costs, greater agility, simplicity and speed.

"HP, with our partners, is the only company with the breadth and depth of innovative products and services to help customers succeed in this new reality," Whitman said. "With HP as your partner, you will have the broadest array of channel-optimized products and programs suited for technology refreshes, upsell and cross-sell opportunities."

Down where executive strategy meets channel engagements, Whitman's themes translate to several changes coming to the HP PartnerOne program this year. The changes broaden the types of companies who can become part of the formal HP PartnerOne program and bring cloud more formally into the partner program.

The expanded channel company types eligible for PartnerOne will soon include service providers, systems integrators, OEM integrators, ISVs and distributors.

On the cloud side, HP is launching HP PartnerOne for Cloud, aimed at partners who can help customers build hybrid cloud solutions that bring together private, public and managed cloud deployments. HP joins other major vendors, including Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and Google, in trying to build hybrid capacity in the channel. (See this feature from the April issue of RCP for a roundup.)

HP is also adding what it calls the HP PartnerOne Cloud Reseller Specialization. The label will supports partners who resell HP Public Cloud, HP Managed CloudSystem Matrix and cloud services from HP PartnerOne Service Providers.

Posted by Scott Bekker on March 27, 2014