Analysis from Microsoft TechEd 2009 - Take 2

So I have now spent a couple of days at TechEd - attending sessions when possible, and meeting with some Microsoft executives to discuss their strategies in more detail, I have also spoken with the "real" attendees at the event when possible (after sessions, in coffee queues, etc) to get their take on the proceedings.

As hypothesized in my first blog post, my first impressions were correct. Microsoft is a much more positive organisation - no longer apologising for its past sins (Vista, Windows Mobile 6 etc) but looking forward to better times where solid and reliable platforms, such as Windows 7 and Windows Mobile 6.5 will help their customers to make better use of the great platofrms that already exist within their customer base (such as Exchange, SQL Server. Windows Server and SharePoint).

The focus of the event was definitely on Windows 7. Windows Mobile 6.5 received a good billing too. There was considerably less focus on the Dynamics business applications compared to previous years - and the same can probably be said for the major server platforms, such as Exchange and SQL Server. Mind you this may reflect the "stream" of presentations that I attended and the execs I met - although when I searched the agenda, there were very few "strategic" presentations around these platforms - they were all very hands on or practical sessions (i.e. there were sessions titles "Top 10 reasons to upgrade to Windows 7", but as far as I could see, there were no sessions spouting the benefits of Exchange - most of the Exchange sessions assumed customers already had Exchange). The Unified Communications push is definitely still there too.

The netbook experiement was interesting. I was hoping the 2,500 netbooks would be loaded up with heaps of social networking goodies - but they weren't. The opportunity for the major social technology experiment was lost - but there was still the Microsoft Live Communications Suite loaded onto the devices - and all users were given a three month trial of the service. This service DID allow attendees to contact the speakers and other Microsoft reps with questions and comments - something that would have been limited otherwise to the few breaks between sessions. It has increased the contact and communications between attendees and between the attendees and the Microsoft speakers - so conceptually more of the attendees will get their questions answered at the event, as opposed to go away wondering.

One area of potential improvement for Microsoft regarding the enterprise roll-out of Windows 7, should be in better exposing the many short cuts and management tools to the IT support staff responsible for rolling out and supporting the new OS. There are many tools that Microsoft has written to make it easier to roll out and manage Windows 7, but more could be done in bringing these tools together as a bundle, and exposing these tools to the target users. I feel that at the moment they have not done a good enough job in marketing or educating users on these capabilities. Having them all brought together as a single "suite" or perhaps having a role-based view on which tools would be useful to certain roles (i.e. Level 1 help desk staff, deployment managers etc) would also increase their exposure and ensure companies get the full value from the work that Microsoft has done in the development of these tools.

But overall the general message that Microsoft customers and prospects should take away from the event is that the company is more focused than ever on the success of their customers. Their technologies have been tweaked for the new generation of users entering the workforce, while at the same time making them more stable and usable for their existing users. Windows 7 should hopefully do what an operating system is designed to do - make users more productive than they would have been otherwise - make it easy to do things on the computer and online, and abstract the technology level to a point that users shouldn't need to care.

Were you at TechEd - do you have any comments? Feel free to add them below, or e-mail they to me at tsheedy at forrester dot com.

Analysis from Microsoft TechEd 2009 - Take 1

Well I am here at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Australia and am hoping to grab some valuable insights over the next few days for those interested in the comings and goings of Microsoft in the Asia Pacific region.

A few interesting points to begin with:

• There are around 2500 attendees at the event - and there was a waiting list of around 400
• All paying attendees have been given an HP Mini 2140 netbook running Windows 7
• Not surprisingly, it is an overwhelmingly "techie" crowd (the average age would be around 40)

The conference kicked off with a keynote session that was focused on products, features, and functions, as opposed to the usual strategic sessions that we are used to as such events. There is a concerted effort to renew the "buzz" around Microsoft - not to get stuck peering into the future but making a difference with the new Microsoft technologies available now (or, in the case of some of the technologies - shortly!). 

One of the keynotes introduced a gentleman dressed in the "I'm a PC" clothes from the famous Apple Mac advertising campaigns. He ripped them off, stating that he likes being a PC - that it is exciting to be a PC (thankfully he had another set of clothes on underneath!). It was quite a stunt, designed to generate excitement around the PC platform. I decided that I would tweet about it. I was not so excited to be a PC when I finally got my tweet typed and sent about 20 mins later after my WinXP laptop had booted up... The irony was not lost on me.

But to be honest there is a "buzz" here this year. For the first time in a few years people can actually believe MS's messages. For many years we were being told "no - you, the customer, are wrong - Vista is actually great". This year, Microsoft, and the audience, have something to be genuinely excited about. Windows 7 is a great OS - raising the bar for consumers and businesses. It does what an OS should do - it makes it easy to access what you want to access in a fast and secure manner - it helps you work - it does not get in the way. Ultimately, with all the hype around new operating systems (Win 7, Snow Leopard etc), it is easy to think that the OS is actually important. It is NOT. A good OS should not be noticed, except in your improved productivity.

The cloud-based e-mail services (and more importantly, the simple migration and management capabilities) were also showcased. In many respects it is beginning to make sense NOT to have e-mail in the cloud.

The first non-plenary session I attended was on Oslo - the "SOA enabler" from Microsoft. While the session got too technical too quickly (as they all do at TechEd - although I appreciate I am not the target audience for this event), it was interesting to notice that the room was full to bursting. SOA would appear to be alive and kicking in the MS community in Australia (well - at least interest levels are!).

For further analysis of the news coming out of TechEd, head across to ITWire.

Initial thoughts from the event are that we can expect to hear and see a LOT about Windows 7 over the next six months or so. Expect your Microsoft account managers to be calling you more often than usual, particularly with the new cloud-based services beginning to be offered in the market, and with Office 2010 around the corner (and the associated SaaS modules). It is interesting that Microsoft seems to be embracing cloud-based solutions - but they are making sure they manage the transition to cloud at a pace that suits them...

More coming. If you are here and want to catch up, or have your own thoughts, please feel free to make a comment below, or e-mail me at tsheedy at forrester dot com.

Cutting IT spend is in vogue in Asia Pacific - even for those companies getting an increased IT budget!

I recently completed a report comparing the movements and trends in IT budgets across different countries across the Asia Pacific region. The general finding of the report was that although IT budgets are down on average, there is a chasm appearing between the "haves and have nots" for IT spend. In summary, while the average decrease in IT budget decrease is around 5%, of those companies getting an increased IT budget, their spend increased by between 15-20% on average, and for those receiving an IT budget cut, the decrease was often around 20%. The decisive factor on the direction of the IT budget was often the level of exposure to the global financial crisis. Those with a high level have seen the highest budget cuts, those with low levels of exposure (or those profiting from the crisis) are seeing increases or flat IT budgets.

But as is often the case with statistics, they do not tell the entire story. What is becoming clear is that even those companies with increased IT budgets are looking to decrease their IT spend in as many areas as possible. Much of the interest in the region in cloud computing has actually come from the public sector - one of the sectors that has been relatively sheltered from the slowdown in IT spend. Virtualisation is on the agenda for nearly all companies, as they look to make better use of the hardware that they already have.

Reducing "human" costs through the reduced usage of contractors and IT services firms is on the agenda for many companies. The following figure shows the types of activities being undertaken by firms in Asia Pacific in attempting to reduce their IT spend. Please note that the averages in most countries are much higher - but the Chinese respondents to the survey bought the averages down, as they are taking fewer actions to reduce IT spend compared to enterprises in other countries.

% of Asia Pacific enterprises

Source: Forrester Research, 2009

As I have commented in other posts, I sincerely believe that the way we currently acquire, implement, manage and run IT is changing. IT departments, driven by better knowledge, and greater demands from the business, will no longer settle for "business as usual" style IT implementations. Across Asia Pacific we have already witnessed a considerable increase in the ROI bar for IT projects - and companies are also demanding quicker time to value for their IT spend. These facts won't change when the world economy recovers. The expectation for IT has now been set that business wants to do more with less. I believe it will be some time before we see the "IT arms race" style spending that we have witnessed over the past decade or so. While I am certain IT spend will continue to increase sooner rather than later, value received on that spend will be expected to increase at a faster rate than ever.

IT leaders across the Asia Pacific region are in for a roller coaster ride over the next few years as we drive greater value from our IT spend - we will most likely be dealing with different sets of IT vendors, or at least the solutions we buy from our traditional vendors will be very different from what we are used to buying. We can expect our IT sourcing strategies will change dramatically as we challenge our suppliers to provide greater value. I truly enjoy the conversations I'm having with IT buyers at the moment about looking for new ways to "do IT" - and expect many more of them in future. IT buyers across the region are challenging the status quo. It's great to see!

Do you have any experiences you are willing to share, or ideas on how companies can drive greater value from their IT spend (or do you disagree with my comments)? Please feel free to e-mail me, or submit a comment below.

It's time for IT departments in Asia Pacific to get Lean

I was just read on Twitter that apparently it is too late to get Lean or Agile. I do question why the two have been bundled together (one is a development methodology, one is a management principle), but either way, I disagree with this statement - at least part of it. Moving to an agile development process is not a decision that should be taken lightly - it involves significantly re-engineering many processes, including much of the program and project management - and this is not a trivial issue! So the statement around Agile I agree with!

However, getting Lean should be on the agenda for all CIOs - in fact, I would argue that Lean is more important now than it has ever been due to the current changing needs of customers. Lean management principles are fundamentally about focusing on delivering the best outcome for the customer with minimum waste. And with major changes going on with the way people consume IT, focusing on the changing requirements for IT customers and delivering them efficiently is extremely important.

Lean typically uses many small changes to achieve this outcome. And it is this point which makes Lean particularly relevant for the current economic environment - you can remove waste (read: save money) through many small improvements - and as a general rule, small changes don't need serious change management capabilities."Lean thinking" should be at the core of all that we do in the IT department - and running some Kaizen blitzes to make small improvements and remove waste should be on the agenda.

The five "Lean thinking" principles are:

1. Specifying value by specific services/products
2. Identifying the value stream by service/product
3. Making value flow without interruptions
4. Letting the customer pull value from supplier
5. Pursuing perfection

When we translate these to the IT world, they should be:

1. Define IT in terms of the services/products it is expected to deliver.
2. Streamline IT capabilities by services/products.
3. Ensure that processes and information flow.
4. Establish business-driven governance to pull value from IT.
5. Monitor and measure IT’s delivery for continuous improvement.

The challenges that IT departments have when getting Lean is their ability to (a) define customer requirements (particularly as they are currently in a state of flux); (b) link those customer requirements to IT services; and (c) identify where waste lies in their processes (i.e. ensuring that the value flows). In Asia Pacific in my experience there is also very little knowledge of Lean management principles within IT departments - so there is also an education curve to overcome.

What becomes increasingly clear is that a good Demand Management function is essential to the longer term success of Lean management principles within the IT department. While we can certainly start to become Lean pretty quickly, in order to achieve the full benefits of Lean, a strong demand management capability within the IT department is required. IT's ability to control not only the supply but also the demand for IT services is essential in delivering the required functionality to the customer (i.e. the business user OR the end user) at the price they are willing to pay.

Forrester Principal Analyst Alexander Peters, Ph.D. recently wrote an excellent document "The Lean Foundation For Business Service Portfolio Management" (this document is available for Forrester subscribers). This document goes into more detail about what IT organizations need to do in order to get Lean. I recently presented on this topic around Asia - so if you are after some more information about the wholeLean IT topic feel free to reach out to me on tsheedy@forrester.com - or add your comment below.

And as one final comment, I appreciate that on Twitter it is easy to take comments out of context - so I may have the wrong end of the stick on the whole argument about it being too late to get Lean and Agile. If you have views on this I certainly encourage (and enjoy!) healthy debate between analysts, IT end-users and IT vendors. So if you agree or disagree feel free to comment below.

The lighter side of tech: Michael Jackson and technology

It's been a while since I blogged - and even longer since I did something a bit light hearted - so I thought it's time to make a comment on something about tech that has been bugging me recently.

So Michael Jackson and technology seem like very loosely related issues - and they definitely are. But the death of such a "big name" is quite a rare occurrence - and it makes people think back to the last time someone with such a high profile passed away, and how they reacted then. And at the same time, it demonstrates how technology, that is ultimately designed to connect people, actually ends up keeping us apart (or at least reminding us of the fact that we are apart).

When I think back to the last big "star" that passed away, in any territory of the world connected to the United Kingdom, it was probably the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. This happened in August 1997. In North America, people have been comparing Michael Jackson's passing to that of Elvis, Buddy Holly, and the likes. Such big events act as markers of time. People remember where they were when they heard of Elvis', President Kennedy's, and Lady Diana's deaths. And often these were shared experiences - people remember who they were with at the time - as often they heard this information from other people. I remember driving on Spit Road in Sydney when it was announced on the radio that Diana, Princess of Wales, had passed away. I had my partner (now wife) and friends in the car with me at the time. We shared the experience, and somehow even bonded over it.

But it probably comes as no surprise that news of Michael Jackson's death first spread online. It was through websites, e-mail, twitter, SMS, etc that the news first spread. So when you ask people "where were you when you heard about Michael Jackson's death?", the common response is "at my computer", "on the bus", "in bed", "on the sofa", and even "on the loo" (we can thank BlackBerries and iPhones for that wonderful addition to our existence!).

So what am I getting at here? Ultimately, it is to highlight the fact that technologies that are designed to connect us, often end up reminding us that we are actually alone. As information moves faster than people, "shared experiences" are becoming rarer. Technology is changing our lives in ways that we don't yet understand. How will the fact that we are having less "real life shared experiences" affect us in the long term? Who knows - maybe not at all? But this is one of a million small ways that technology is changing human interactions - and while we have some clue where this change is taking us (and most of it is for the better), there will be some unexpected downsides along the way too. Of that I am certain.

So to take a leaf from my own book, I am sitting alone in a cold office at the moment and it's 1am and my beautiful wife is upstairs asleep ina warm bed! Time to turn off the PC and join her there!

Good news for IT folks - server sales are down!

I read on a twitter post recently that according to some recent research by Gartner, server sales are down 24%. And today I saw an article based on some IDC research that in Australia they are down by 39%. In my humble opinion, this is good news for IT leaders in Asia Pacific.

So why is it good news that server sales are down? The way I see it, IT departments are still serving their clients, web sites are not crashing, applications are stable, and generally IT systems in the region are running pretty well. So it seems that IT departments are doing well without all the extra hardware expenses.

The economic downturn has been a good thing for IT leaders. They have been forced to look for new ways of doing things - they have challenged the accepted wisdom. And they have continued to deliver what the business requires and have not had to buy a new piece of equipment every time they want to implement a new capability within the business. IT departments are now being given the license they have been asking for to consolidate systems across business units, departments and/or applications. Virtualisation, SaaS, cloud computing, SOA and many other technologies or technology-assisted services have come to the fore to allow IT departments to continue to deliver on the their requirements.

And yes - I do realise that there has been a big decrease in project-based IT work - and that IT budgets are down in general across the AP region. These are the factors that have driven IT organisations to think differently about how they provision new services and deliver new capabilities for their company.

Why I am particularly excited about the server stats is that I honestly think what we are witnessing now is a wholesale shift in the way that companies think about developing new IT capabilities. After the downturn project work WILL pick up again, but I don't think we will see a return to the mentality of "we need new hardware for every project". The status quo has been upset, and companies won't go back to their old ways of doing things when things pick up again.

At least I hope so. For their benefit.

Your thoughts? Feel free to add a comment below, or e-mail me at: tsheedy@forrester.com

Is Apple BlackBerry's main competition in Asia Pacific?

The battle for the heart and mind of the enterprise mobile user in Asia Pacific has traditionally been fought between RIM (BlackBerry) and Microsoft. For whatever reason, Symbian and Palm OS never really gained traction in the market as mobile application platforms. Until recently, Microsoft has "owned" the mobile application market, and RIM the mobile messaging and collaboration one, but this is beginning to change.

In Forrester's recent Business Data Survey of enterprises in Asia Pacific across the following countries: Australia, New Zealand, China, Vietnam, Singapore, India, Japan & South Korea, we asked companies which mobile platform they support. As can be seen in the chart below, the majority of companies support BlackBerry, with some flavour of Microsoft as the second most popular choice.

Source: Forrester Research, 2009

What is interesting in this chart is the comparatively large proportion of organisations interviewed that support the Apple iPhone. While 11% or so does not seem like a huge proportion, based on the fact that the iPhone had only been in AP for about 5-7 months when the survey ran, it is actually quite an impressive feat. And this is for a phone that Forrester only recently declared to be "enterprise ready".

One can assume that BlackBerry's original dominance was due to its great messaging capabilities - and that Microsoft dominated due to the fact that it was the only serious application platform for a long time. The Apple iPhone will emerge as a competitor to both of these mobile platforms due to the fact that it can do both applications and messaging well - and more importantly, it is a highly desired device by many executives. Apple is currently in the envious position of "trend-maker". The company does not have to follow a trend, as it defines the trend. This position will pass - but before it does, we can expect the company to emerge as the main rival to BlackBerry and Microsoft for enterprise mobility capabilities.

Microsoft will be the most challenged to hold onto its position. Anyone who has used an iPhone/iPod Touch, BlackBerry Storm or one of the many LG or Samsung touch screen phones has a different perspective of a "touch" screen. These days touch screens are about using your fingers - not a stylus. The use of a device that needs a stylus seems like a flashback to the 90s. Just look at the fact that HTC and other companies that manufacture smartphones running Windows Mobile do everything they can to hide the Microsoft OS behind a user-friendly interface. Microsoft is definitely coming from behind from a user experience perspective - but with a large installed base of users and applications, a variety of handset manufacturers dedicated to the platform and a new version of their mobile software hitting the market sometime soon, they will fight hard to hold their market share.

So what mobile platforms does your company support - and how do you see that changing? Feel free to add a comment below, or e-mail me directly at: tsheedy@forrester.com.

Now is the chance for IT to be embedded in public infrastructure

Imagine driving to work on a road system that informs you of delays, and informs you of the smartest and fastest route to your exact destination. Imagine the huge savings you could make on many items you purchase if the ports and associated transport systems worked seamlessly, moving goods from ship to shelves in less than 25% of the time it takes today. Imagine a health system that identifies you when you enter the hospital, automatically transfers all your medical history to the nurse or doctor, and matches your condition with the best person available at that time in the hospital in order to achieve the best possible patient outcome…

This post is aimed at anyone in the infrastructure space in Asia Pacific, along with those in the public sector who are making the big decisions on the spending of the massive stimulus packages being doled out by governments across the region at the moment.

While this post is not directly targeted towards IT leaders, the decisions being made by the people who should read this post WILL affect you – so please forward this on to your local government minister or people in the infrastructure business who will be bidding for the projects being funded by these massive economic stimulus packages.

So the fact is that many of the governments in the AP region are rolling out stimulus packages at the moment that include huge investments in infrastructure, including roads, rail, ports, buses, bridges, schools, hospitals, water/sewage systems etc. A considerable amount of infrastructure will be rolled out over the next five years or so. And that infrastructure will last between 10 and 100 years – perhaps even more. So any decisions being made now will be worn by all for a long time.

Traditionally infrastructure has not been IT intensive. Roads were about laying bitumen; bridges were about concrete and steel; railways were about tracks and carriages etc. But today, there is the opportunity to build a whole new type of “smart” infrastructure. Roads with sensors that can feed traffic and other information back to central computers; hospitals optimised for patient records and data being delivered digitally and wirelessly; electricity or gas networks with intelligent meters and intelligent pipes – that can send data back to home base to minimize cost and fix problems before they get out of hand; smart farms that deliver water to the plants or fields that need it the most.

However, to date, much of the infrastructure being proposed in these stimulus packages is not “smart”. And this is disappointing – for both the IT sector and the longer term users of this infrastructure – that could have had an improved user experience if someone had thought to integrate some technology with the deployment originally.

The ultimate aim is to roll out “smart infrastructure” – infrastructure that has IT-based systems embedded within it in order to ensure that the customer gets the best possible experience, and the infrastructure itself is “future proof”. This outcome will obviously also be beneficial to the IT industry as a whole – providing more jobs and making it a more important sector for the entire economy of the AP region.

The current failure the IT industry to affect this outcome points to the immaturity of the IT sector in general. Here in Asia Pacific, the IT sector is an important one, however, outside of a few countries, the sector has very little political influence or involvement. Other big industries (auto, tourism, mining, telcos etc) are very good at political persuasion – and in ensuring that their industries receive the right outcome from government decisions. But the IT sector in most countries has multiple membership groups, little contact with the government or any politicians, and little influence on decisions made by the governments in the region.

IBM is one of the few companies that is trying to make a difference with their “smarter planet” initiative – although they appear to be taking more of a market lead approach, as opposed to an influencer group one (mind you I don’t see everything that goes on behind the scenes!). As the biggest IT company in the world, HP is surprisingly quiet – although this does go back to my earlier blog post, regarding the fact that as the largest IT vendor in the world, they have not done a good job at “leading” the industry.

I was impressed to see that here in Australia the IT industry in Queensland actually pulled together to make itself an important force in the recent state elections. Both sides of politics came under pressure from Queensland's ICT industry this week with the ICT Industry Workgroup, a lobbying organisation representing a large part of the industry, placing advertisements demanding support from both sides of politics to boost technology jobs and the industry as a whole. It also was revealed that many of the vendors had hired lobbyists to work on their behalf. One of my ex-colleagues from Forrester, Sam Higgins, was actually involved with this movement in Queensland – and credit to him for that!

We need more of this in the IT industry in most AP countries. Both IT buyers and vendors can gain if IT is made an important element of the infrastructure being rolled out across the region over the next five years. Without IT most of the companies we work for would stop – let’s take that same mentality to the public infrastructure that we access on a day-to-day basis. With some better IT, this public infrastructure will be much improved – and at some point in the future we won’t be able to imagine a time when we didn’t have that smarter infrastructure available to us.

Chinese mobile network equipment vendors positioned to burst onto the world stage

There hasn’t been much written on the recent 3G license awards in China and subsequent network hardware MOUs being signed for the roll out of the networks and equipment. This mirrors the world’s general lack on interest in the award and roll out of mobile licenses and networks in Korea in the late 90s. The government of Korea specifically awarded the licenses and network equipment contracts in order to give the local electronics/equipment manufacturers a platform to develop economies of scale, manufacturing processes and capabilities, design teams, software platforms, etc in order to launch into the global network equipment and handset market. Before the award of these licenses and contracts LG and Samsung had little presence in the global handset market. Now they are two of the top five handset manufacturers globally.

For the most part, the media, and many outside of the Chinese market seem to have missed the significance of the deals being awarded in China for what will most certainly be the three biggest mobile networks on the planet. China Mobile is to build a TD-SCDMA network, China Telecom a CDMA 2000 network, and China Unicom a WCDMA network. The operators will spend tens of billions of dollars on building their new networks during the next few years – and most of that spend will end up in the pockets of the Chinese equipment manufacturers – giving them vital experience in building the networks and perhaps more importantly in this case, experience building the handsets at scale for 3G networks. According to some internal data provided to me by one of the major Chinese network equipment manufacturers, to date Datang, ZTE and Huawei between them have won over 63% of the contracts awarded to date for 3G network equipment.

It could be argued that China has arrived too late on the scene to make a serious impact on the 3G networks or handsets market – and this is probably right – to an extent. China is late to the party with awarding 3G licenses – most first world countries have already handed them out, and the network equipment providers and the handset providers have established their presence in the market. However, there are many second and third world countries that will make a move to 3G sooner or later – and on top of this the experience gained from the 3G implementations (both on the network equipment and the handset sides) will prove invaluable in the shift to 4G networks – for the Korean vendors, their experience with CDMA translated quite effectively to GSM and WCDMA – this is also likely to happen for the Chinese vendors.

So in the longer term, we can expect the emergence of the Chinese network equipment and handset manufacturers to drive further consolidation on the global network equipment provider market, and further fragment the handset market – perhaps driving consolidation of vendors there too. The importance of this event cannot be underestimated. In five years time I am certain we will be talking about the Chinese telecoms manufacturers in the same breath as we do Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent. Hopefully this will also help to bring the quality of equipment up and the price down.

HP is coming of age

Last week I was given the opportunity to go to Boston with HP for their annual TSG (Technology Solutions Group) global analyst event. I have attended this event regularly over the last 5-6 years and enjoyed this year as much as any other. I do find with these events that it is always interesting to look back at a company's evolution to see where they came from - as often it gives a clearer picture where they are going.

My main impression coming out of this event is that HP is finally starting to grow up. Ever since IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo, HP has been the biggest IT company in the world - and they told you this. Often. But they never acted like the biggest IT company in the world. They were rarely technology leaders, they always compared themselves to IBM, and they never took the responsibility to lead the IT industry. Perhaps it took the acquisition of EDS for them to really put some distance between 1st and 2nd place - whatever it was, the HP that presented itself at this years TSG analyst conference was one that not only knew what it was - but more importantly it knew what it was NOT.

On top of this, the message I heard was more "global" in nature than any other year. Mind you Asia Pacific was not mentioned once in any of the keynote presentations (as far as I can remember) - but the US was not mentioned either. And as far as I can tell, many of the products and services are or will be available across many countries - as opposed to previously when their capabilities were very different country-by-country.

HP is definitely taking its job more seriously as the industry leader. They now have the stated aim of being number 1 or 2 in every market they play in (like Cisco) - as opposed to trying to be everything to everyone. They also now realise that they are responsible for many of both the good and bad things that IT brings to a business and the world in general - and are taking steps to "accentuate the positive" and "eliminate the negative". They still need to do more in their HP Labs to focus on longer term bigger issue projects - and also to move the focus away from printer and consumer hardware to software and services - but this too is already starting to happen.

However, this new "maturing" HP is not quite there yet. Whatever they say, we are still in what is looking like a protracted economic downturn - and IT budgets are hurting. On top of this, they still have the challenges around staff motivation to deal with - and expenses are being so tightly controlled at the moment I really can't see how they this cannot be affecting client outcomes or deliverables.

In Asia Pacific, the EDS acquisition helped to give the company's IT services arm a real shot of adrenaline - as previously HP services was not as successful as it perhaps should have been in AP. And while whispers of discontented staff still float around the media occasionally, it seems to be a much stronger organisation both with EDS and because of the significant restructures that the EDS acquisition brought about. Bringing the strengths of the software acquisitions and the services teams together under single capabilities (as they have done around their BTO - business technology optimisation - solution, amongst others) really gives HP the ability to sell, deliver and implement their solutions effectively and with as little complication as possible.

We can expect HP to continue to mature over the next few years - particularly in Asia Pacific. Expect them to withdraw from markets that they do not effectively compete in, and invest further in others. Expect to hear much more about cloud computing from them (great...). One thing that has to be said about their cloud strategy, is that longevity has led them to better understand more of the challenges of cloud computing than most other vendors - so their strategy is one of the most mature out there at the moment (although that's not saying much!).

What are your thoughts on HP - do you do any work with them? Do you have an opinion on them either way - particularly in the AP region? Feel free to add a comment below, or if you would like to share your thoughts confidentially, drop me an e-mail to tsheedy@forrester.com.