10/15/2007

HP today announced plans to expand its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering across its Business Technology Optimization (BTO) portfolio to help customers quickly and cost-effectively maximize the value of their software implementations.

ebizQ received the following:

The HP BTO software portfolio helps customers better manage their IT projects and services, ensure the quality and performance of their IT applications, and monitor their online businesses.

SaaS, also known as software “on demand,” is a model in which software is developed, hosted and operated for use by customers over the Internet. Customers do not own the software itself, but rather pay to use it.

HP plans to offer IT Service Management through the SaaS delivery channel, in addition to its current offering of Business Availability Center, Quality Center, Performance Center and Project and Portfolio Management Center products.

HP’s SaaS customer base now includes more than 670 companies, both large and small and in a variety of industries. These customers include Elsevier (publishing), Cardinal Health (healthcare), Lafarge North America (manufacturing), Akamai Technologies (information technology) and DBS Bank (financial).

As part of its SaaS offering, HP deploys experts to help customers remotely manage the performance and availability of business-critical applications. Since customers do not have to make long-term investments in technology infrastructure or staff training to use HP SaaS, it can help free up scarce IT resources to focus on other priorities. Customers can begin using software delivered through HP SaaS in a matter of weeks and, therefore, receive business benefits from their IT initiatives faster.

“HP SaaS enables customers to immediately gain the benefit of our software without significant start-up costs and training,” said Marc Olesen, vice president, Software-as-a-Service, HP. “With our BTO software offering, customers can focus on their critical IT business initiatives while HP focuses on enabling their IT organization to operate more efficiently.”