Hewlett-Packard trumpeted a well-received internet strategy and announced a new partner at last week's HP World user conference in San Francisco.
Led by newly appointed CEO Carly Fiorina, various company executives gave users a glimpse of the company's future plans, which will focus mainly on delivering rentable internet applications, building vertical portal sites and developing dynamic brokering middleware for the Web.
HP also announced a partnership with Oracle, under which the companies will work on integrating the Oracle8i database and related internet products with HP technologies like its ESpeak brokering software.
HP is also working with Qwest Communications International, an internet provider in Denver, and Intelisys Electronic Commerce in New York, a provider of internet procurement products, as part of its Apps-on-Tap strategy to let users rent critical corporate applications such as enterprise resource planning programs.
"HP has become more focused," said Ralph Fusco, information technology director at Liz Claiborne Inc in New Jersey. "It is the reason why the company has become very much a part of the internet culture at our company."
On the hardware side, HP last week demonstrated database, multimedia and internet applications running on a simulated Merced server at HP World. Merced is the forthcoming 64-bit chip jointly developed by Intel and HP.
The first HP servers based on the systems should start shipping by mid-2000, said Eric Clow, an HP technology marketing manager. He added that the company will continue to offer its PA-RISC systems.