Clapper: Storage investments are certainly being driven by customer moves to enable ILM (Information Life Cycle Management) in their environments. In the first phase this is driven by compliance requirements, but post implementation customers can expect to see better ROI on IT infrastructure and tier their storage to use less expensive storage mediums for non-critical or dated information. What you will start seeing is the emergence of the data classification culture and prioritisation of corporate data based on business relevance.

CNME: But the topic has been volleyed around for long now. Why the sudden surge in deployments?

Clapper: The pain points for customers have become strong enough. Storage capacities have also been growing and companies are now seeing the real business opportunity in maintaining and transforming their corporate data. So they are naturally gravitating towards data management and data retention tools.

“What you see is the emergence of the data classification culture and prioritisation of corporate data based on business relevance.”

CNME: So how will HP transform its play in this space?

Clapper: Operational spending is growing especially on management. Customers are also increasingly finding less time for innovation. So HP is set to go one step ahead and unify servers and storage under the unified infrastructure management and offer the Insight Management tools. We are focused on delivering a better set of services to customers and work with them proactively. Investments will continue in storage and server management tools management tools. Security and data encryption will also be a focus area. You will also see us adding capabilities and putting a lot around key management. We have also made significant acquisitions in the software space including AppIQ, which will give us significant play in the storage management software and tools area. In the coming year, HP wants to go after name brand customers to showcase how we have delivered value to enterprises.

CNME: HP is also plotting its move into the business applications space. How does your business plan to leverage that?

Clapper: We are moving into a segment called “Business Information Optimisation” and we expect to combine those capabilities with our ILM offering. Customers will then have access to a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that lets them store, archive, retain and use information to generate business value and drive routes to revenues at lower costs.

HP is also going to pursue a vertical route to delivering services and the thrust will be on four main segments – CME (communications, media and entertainment), manufacturing, financial services and public sector.

CNME: Disaster Recovery and BCM is another key topic that warrants investments in the right storage and backup environment. But how do you make a case for this when investments often tend to be reactive rather than proactive?

Clapper: Most outages in companies and loss of critical data happen due to human and operational errors than a major disaster. DR and BCM have to become basic hygiene practices and with the objective to meet internal and external SLAs. The awareness is rising and we expect to see companies look this seriously hereon.