News release

HP PartnerONE Program One Year Highlights

HP's comprehensive PartnerONE program turned one year old today. The program provides benefits to HP partners, including resellers, systems integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs) and service providers, and spans HP's entire product and services portfolio.

Every quarter since the PartnerONE launch, more partners have moved up to the Platinum and Gold membership levels, the highest and second highest levels available, respectively, for a total 25 percent increase. This represents increased investment by those partners to upgrade their membership level.

The PartnerONE program is designed to help partners grow top-line revenue and bottom-line profitability, reward performance and initiative, and make program administration more efficient and flexible. In the United States, the program replaced some 40 previous programs.

In response to those partners serving small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs), HP launched at mid-year the PartnerONE SMB Network. Members receive a variety of focused, unique tools, benefits, solutions and support, designed to help SMB-focused partners grow their business and be more effective and profitable in the SMB market.

To qualify, more than 50 percent or more than $5 million of a partner's U.S. annual revenues must come from SMB customers – those with less than 1,000 employees.

In six months, more than 2,000 partner branches have registered in the PartnerONE SMB Network providing coverage in every state in the United States. Of those participating, 25 percent have greater than $1 million in annual HP revenues. They span the Business Partner, Gold and Platinum levels of the PartnerONE program.

Building business and generating demand with partners is a top priority for HP. With the PartnerONE program, the company introduced online sales assistance, including Campaign Central – a simple and effective means for partners to design and execute e-mail, direct mail and advertising campaigns. In the past year, there were more than 800,000 end users reached via the PartnerONE Campaign Central tool.

Further highlights during the first year of PartnerONE:

• Partners and their HP business managers created more than 1,000 jointly funded quarterly business plans to generate leads and help partners grow their business;
• More than 90 percent utilization of market development funds demonstrated solid execution of demand generation and partner business plans;
• Partners registered more than 6,500 business opportunities, making them HP's go-to partner in those deals along with the potential for significantly better margins;
• Partners continue to increase their usage of the PartnerONE referral and influencer tools;
• Linux and OpenView Elite designations were added to provide financial incentives and recognize special partner competencies in those key segments. The other designations include: Application Developer Elite, Storage Elite, ProCurve Elite and System Integrator Elite.

HP received a 5-star rating in VAR Business magazine's annual Partner Programs Guide directory.

There are three membership levels within the program based on a partner's level of expertise or sales volume:

• Platinum partners, who have the highest number of HP-trained technical consultants or sales volume;
• Gold partners, who have a significant number of HP-trained technical consultants or substantial sales volume; and
• Business partners, who are authorized to sell selected HP products.

Gold and Platinum partners are eligible to receive additional rebates and benefits.

With the introduction of PartnerONE, HP also established a unified, global certification program called the HP Certified Professional that serves all of HP's partners – plus customers and employees. This helps assure the same sales and technical competence to design and deliver HP technologies, services and solutions. Today, there are 98,000 people holding certifications.

Based largely on the feedback received from HP partners, the PartnerONE program is enhanced every quarter. Future plans include: further simplifying the program; continuing to enhance demand generation tools that help drive business and mutual profitability; and involving partners in HP Total Customer Experience surveys, which measure overall customer satisfaction.

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing for consumers, enterprises and small and medium businesses. For the last four quarters, HP revenue totaled $71.3 billion. More information about HP is available at www.hp.com.