Hewlett-Packard has rolled out its so-called Electronic World strategy under which it will deliver products and services targeted at various segments of the electronic commerce market.
Announced at Internet World in Los Angeles recently, the strategy will in part develop "information appliances" for accessing the Internet.
David Lenz, electronic commerce program manager for HP Australia and New Zealand said the technology is available in Australia and the company will be talking to prospective customers.
Lenz said the announcement demonstrates HP's "option to focus on the establishment of an electronic world".
"[HP is] delivering a business solution that embraces the electronic future," he said. The products and services of the strategy will fall into four categories: e-business, e-commerce, e-consumer and extended enterprise.
Under the extended enterprise plan HP will help users build IT infrastructures based on an open, distributed computing and the Internet. As part of that, HP is developing a new systems strategy to support Unix and Windows platforms and build bridges between those environments, HP officials said. They also said the company will guarantee uptime 99.95 per cent of the time and ship networked-ready PCs, as well as offer support and consulting services.
In the consumer market HP will strengthen its presence by launching a new branding strategy, called expanding possibilities, and also by rolling out added supply chain and support capabilities en masse, officials said. For its e-commerce area HP will use technology gained from its acquisition of VeriFone to offer end-to-end Internet-based payments for Internet transaction-processing.
According to Lenz, in Australia HP will be working closely with Verifone and Telstra in several areas including e-commerce.