Canadian businesses, the bulk of which are mid-sized, may benefit from Hewlett Packard’s launch of data centre technology specifically designed for the mid market – products the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said won’t be the usual “watered down enterprise solutions”.
HP announced Wednesday the newest member of its BladeSystem series, the HP BladeSystem c3000 enclosure for smaller sites, branch offices and remote locations. Along with it came the HP StorageWorks All-in-One SB600c Storage Blade (for use in c3000 and c7000) with backup, archiving and disaster recovery capabilities. The products began shipping same day at $4,944 and $11,424 for the BladeSystem and storage blade, respectively.
The mid market is a critical market segment for HP that is fast expanding, said Ann Livermore, executive vice-president for HP’s technology solutions group, during a keynote. “They have a unique set of IT needs that have not been served well.”
The products respond to mid market companies’ need to cut costs, time and power, along with the requirement for technology that is easily deployed, managed and reliable, said Livermore.
As well, c3000 is built to survive the “harsh environments” that are often characteristic of mid-sized businesses, such as factory floors, warehouses, and in temperatures of up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, said Paul Miller, vice-president of marketing, enterprise storage and servers. Besides those specific mid-market benefits, Miller said the BladeSystem’s break-even point is reduced to three to five servers, effectively making it more cost-effective for mid-sized businesses to purchase the BladeSystem vis-