HP chases small business

Smart Office programme for SMEs

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Small Biz, 25th March 2004 08:45 GMT

HP has unveiled a package of services aimed at tempting more small and medium sized businesses into HP's fold.

The worldwide programme, which HP says is costing $750m, includes financial software from Intuit and cheaper storage solutions.

The "Smart Office" scheme aims to give SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) more access to expertise, more reliable technology, more business benefits from HP kit.

HP is to provide expert advice itself and through its channel partners and through dedicated small business portals in 32 countries. HP is improving channel training so SMBs get better service from HP partners.

The company announced 20 new products and bundles aimed at smaller businesses. The SmartSolutions programme bundles software, hardware, services and support together.

HP is also rejigging its storage offerings to attract more SMBs.

Frank Harbist, general manager of storage at HP, said in a statement: "HP is reducing SAN solution cost and complexity to extend the benefits of SANs to small and medium businesses which traditionally have deployed direct attached storage"

Lastly, HP is teaming up with Intuit to jointly market and sell Intuit's QuickBooks finance package with HP servers. ®