FOCUS - Hewlett-Packard stakes claim on Internet
09:56 PM ET 05/18/99
By Andrea Orr
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 18 (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co.
Tuesday unveiled its plans to become a major player on the
Internet by offering a host of services to help other companies
build more effective online businesses.
HP's "Internet Chapter II" strategy addresses the ways the
company expects the Internet to evolve -- from a collection of
distinct Web and e-commerce sites to a connected set of
information and services that will automatically respond to
customer needs with little instruction.
Hewlett-Packard, which by many accounts has trailed other
players in the first chapter of the Internet, is now offering
some futuristic scenarios for how it believes Chapter Two will
unfold -- a car that breaks down and automatically sends for a
mechanic or an airline reservation that notifies a hotel of a
passenger's late check-in if a flight is delayed.
These are the sorts of things it says many of its customers
are talking about or even beginning to deploy.
Hewlett-Packard Chairman Lewis Platt said the new strategy
grew out of "a lot of soul searching," and a lot of talking to
customers and other industry leaders.
"A vision began to emerge," he said, adding that over the
past several months the comany pulled its various hardware and
software businesses together around that new vision.
Although the new strategy is multi-pronged, it centers
around three trends the company has identified: the rise of
software sold as a service rather than outright, a new
generation of Internet portals that offer services like
bill-payment rather than just selling products, and the
emergence of a "brokered e-services marktplace" where requests
for services are automatically sent around the internet, bid and
transacted at the best price.
"It's very un-HP," said Harry Fenik, vice president of Zona
Research, who praised the company for taking the lead in an area
where it has tended to be a follower. "Their business is not what
it was last week. Last week they were selling hardware and
software and this week they are providing services that utilize
their products on the Internet."
"We really believe a whole new set of software companies are
going to be the leaders," said Ann Livermore, chief executive of
the company's Enterprise Computing busines. "And we want to be at
the front of the pack."
Unlike rival IBM , which has focused on an
e-business strategy to move more companies onto the Internet, she
said Hewlett-Packard is focused on "differentiating
technologies."
Most of the technologies unveiled Tuesday have been
developed in the past 180 days, since Hewlett-Packard says it
became serious about implementing its own vision for the
Internet.
Livermore said they are to date not contributing much to
revenues since they are so new. But she projected that over the
next three years the company's new e-services could contribute up
to half of the revenues at the $15 billion Enterprise Computing
division. |
