The last month has been a tumultuous one, both in the world of OSS/BSS, and in the world, at large. However, market consolidation, shifting communications paradigms, and ash-spewing volcanic craters were also accompanied by some positive spending news and a few other bright spots on the ash-covered horizon.
The volcano eruption in Iceland could be the first of many salvos in the latest battle of the video conferencing wars. The eruption kept air traffic at a standstill for about a week, and resulted in some people being stranded overseas for several weeks, according to various press reports. As a result, there were increases for many of the video conferencing providers. HP Halo studios saw a 14 percent increase week over week for the weeks of Apr 5-11 to Apr 12-18 for internal users and total usage for all customers increased 38 percent during that time period.
Darren Podrabsky, worldwide marketing manager for HP Halo Visual Collaboration
HP has a strong track record in acquisitions.
and Cisco everywhere else from the PC to the network, and even the data center.
Mergers, Acquisitions Strong
HP was also in the middle of a busy month for mergers and acquisitions with its purchase of Palm, which many analysts had seen near death just a month earlier. According to
Solutions, said he expects usage to fall back once travel opens back up, but not all the way back to the levels of before the natural disaster.
“Usually you see a spike after a natural disaster, then things drop back to more normal levels,” Podrabsky said. But any time new users come into the studios, some stay.
Cisco is another major player in the video conferencing market, and a firm that HP at which HP is taking direct aim. At HP’s Americas Partner Conference, Senior Vice President Stephen DeWitt said it was the company’s goal to beat Dell in the SMB space
Steve Hilton, Analysys Mason principal analyst, HP has a strong track record in acquisitions. It’ll take the best bits of Palm technology and make them better. Then HP will sell the solutions through their powerful channel better than Palm ever could do on its own.
Hilton expects the acquisition to prompt Cisco to go after a handset manufacturer within 12 months. Hilton also expects HP to use Palm to create an enterprise mobile device to dislodge RIM and Nokia. “RIM’s success is its hindrance in new product development. And while Apple has certainly found a small enterprise foothold, at the end of the day Apple is a consumer-centric company,” Hilton
Pipeline
Publishing, Volume 6, Issue 12
