News release

HP Simplifies PC Configuration Management with Enhanced HP OpenView Software Offering

Software helps IT managers better address business priorities through greater visibility, automation and control of PC software

HP today announced enhancements to the HP OpenView Change and Configuration Management solutions that offer customers additional PC client management, ease of administration and powerful actionable reporting capabilities to enable better business and IT decision-making, and the automation that takes action quickly on those decisions.

The HP OpenView solutions automate the change and configuration management of software across any computing device or platform to speed service delivery, reduce operational costs and improve service levels. Using the software, information technology (IT) managers can better address business priorities through greater visibility and control of PC client software.

KeyCorp, one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies, improved the efficiency of its software management process and saves millions of dollars annually by using HP OpenView Change and Configuration Management solutions to manage its 23,000 desktop and notebook PCs.

"With HP's policy-based management and desired-state automation, Key has achieved a 1,000-fold improvement in time to market of new applications and reduced total cost of ownership of corporate PCs, saving more than $4 million annually in IT costs. Additionally, because of the HP Change and Configuration Management solution's flexibility and ease of administration, we need just two IT staff to manage our 23,000 PCs," said Scott Donaldson, vice president of software distribution and workspace automation, KeyCorp. "We expect that HP's continuing enhancements to usability, visibility and control will yield ongoing efficiencies and help ensure that our employees have the reliable software tools they need to provide an exceptional banking experience for customers."

"Change in business takes on many forms, and the most successful companies today rely on their IT systems to adapt quickly to changing business requirements," said John Schneider, vice president and general manager, change and configuration software, Technology Solutions Group, HP. "With HP OpenView Change and Configuration Management solutions, HP is making it even easier for IT organizations to speed delivery of business-critical applications and improve the PC users' experience."

CESKY TELECOM, the largest provider of telecommunications services in the Czech Republic, uses HP OpenView Change and Configuration Management solutions to manage its Adaptive Enterprise.

"With HP change and configuration management solutions, we have reduced the time to deliver application services by 67 percent and improved process efficiency for software configuration for 10,000 PCs by 60 percent," said Jiri Waschka, manager, CESKY TELECOM. "The unparalleled automation and ease of administration found in HP change and configuration solutions will make it even easier for IT organizations to speed deployment and improve uptime of business applications, with the ultimate goal of optimizing end-user productivity."

HP change and configuration management solutions

HP's change and configuration management solutions were added to the HP OpenView portfolio through the acquisition of Novadigm in April 2004. They provide policy-based change and configuration management software with individualized desired-state automation capabilities. They also enable enterprise customers to maintain compliance of software in accordance with policy – automatically and reliably. Thus, customers can eliminate error-prone, repetitive and reactive management tasks and ensure that the right software is always right for each PC user, tuned and configured to meet business needs.

HP change and configuration management solutions support the HP Adaptive Enterprise strategy to synchronize business and IT to capitalize on change by supplying IT managers with the tools to automatically and seamlessly respond to changing business demands wherever and whenever they occur.

Enhancements to HP's change and configuration solutions include:

• Additional control over specific administrative tasks and the ability to set up administrative policies that will automatically execute these repetitive tasks on schedule or on administrator command.
• New active management provides the ability to query, consolidate data from multiple sources, and report on critical PC configuration issues, giving IT executives and administrators greater insight and the ability to take actions and automate tasks. Also includes a rich set of out-of-the-box actionable reports that can be easily customized.
• Simplified configuration analysis for testing and identification of potential conflicts prior to deployment in order to mitigate the risk of user downtime caused by mis-configured PCs.
• Simplified and more flexible control of the change and configuration management tool's graphical user interface, enabling IT administrators to provide PC users with customized and easily modified software services.
• Support for multiple platforms including Windows®, Linux and UNIX® for comprehensive enterprise coverage using the same change and configuration management tools, simplifying staff training requirements.
• Change and configuration management solutions include additional enhancements to inventory, usage, operating system, patch, application and self-service software management providing advanced automation for software management across PCs enterprise-wide.
• Simplified packaging and publishing for greater quality and efficiency of preparing operating systems, patches and applications for deployment.

More information about HP's management software solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/managementsoftware.

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 the four fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2004, HP revenue totaled $78.4 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

Windows is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.