HP Expands Smart Office Portfolio

HP (www.hp.com) announced new products and services designed to simplify the technology ownership experience for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs).

The offerings include an expansion of HP's business protection portfolio as well as financing and online resources, and new networking tools that extend its strategic alliance with Cisco Systems.

The products and services are part of HP's Smart Office portfolio to deliver smart technology, smart advice and smart services from HP and its more than 145,000 worldwide reseller and distributors to companies that want to spend less time on technology and more time focused on their businesses.

"Small and mid-size business customers know that when they choose HP, they get easy-to-use products and services designed for their specific needs, along with the local expertise and support they require," said Valerie Taglio, vice president, Small and Medium Business, Personal Systems Group, HP.

To help protect valuable information and keep businesses up and running in the face of disaster, HP has expanded its business protection portfolio for SMBs with new solutions to address data protection issues such as backup, recovery and compliance.

HP StorageWorks Data Protector Express is the first backup and recovery software from HP specifically designed for the business protection needs of SMBs. HP understands that ease of use is a key requirement for businesses that do not have full-time disaster recovery staff, or even full-time IT staff.

This simplicity extends to the way Data Protector Express is priced, licensed and supported. Licensing is straightforward and avoids complexities like per processor or backup capacity licensing. Pricing is common across all operating systems and includes one year of support during business hours and software update rights.

The new HP StorageWorks MSA 1510i provides mid-size businesses with an expandable solution that enables their data storage to keep pace with the rapid growth of business-critical information.

"HP understands the needs of smaller companies when it comes to protecting our businesses," said Vallerie Shelton, senior director of IT for Denver-based Kroenke Sports Enterprises LLC. The company deployed the recently announced HP ProLiant DL100 G2 Data Protection Storage Server, a rapid and reliable disk-based backup appliance with end-user file restore functionality.

Building on its longstanding strategic alliance with networking market leader Cisco Systems, HP announced a suite of tools that make it easier for U.S.-based customers to define their networking needs, and then put them in touch with joint HP and Cisco resellers to help deploy both HP computing and Cisco networking products.