REDMOND, Wash. — May 25, 2012 — In the ever-changing world of corporate IT, new challenges are always arising. From the “consumerization of IT” to managing a growing volume of data, today’s IT professionals must find a way to blend a huge array of new technologies while continually improving the efficiency and security of their organizations.
On May 9, one of the world’s top providers of enterprise technology, HP, released the largest new line of commercial products in its history, designed to address the issues facing IT both today and in the future. With more than 30 new business desktops, notebooks, workstations, printers and more, HP’s new lineup was created to help business leaders balance the onslaught of issues they’re facing today against the demands of their end users — while also offering a foundation for the future.
Jeffery Hoag, an HP R&D professional who serves as a liaison between partners, customers and HP’s own engineering teams, says the new lineup is designed to offer the sleek, lightweight designs that users are craving while also providing the business and reliability features IT departments demand.
“It’s offering products that are manageable by IT rather than consumer products that are entering into the workplace,” he says. “With this new product refresh, we’re making enterprise computers light and sleek and cool enough that users will adopt them, while ensuring they support all the local and remote security features and software that HP deploys across our enterprise and business products.”
The new lineup includes a set of Ultrabooks designed to balance business features and attractive design. The company also announced its smallest and lightest EliteBook business notebook yet, the 2170p, scheduled to come out later this year. HP is also refreshing its b-series and s-series notebooks, designed for small and medium-sized businesses, with stylish aluminum cases. On the desktop side, the company has redesigned its 8300, 6300 and 4300 series desktops, including the introduction of a new 4300 series all-in-one PC.
According to Hoag, besides offering that important blend of enterprise and consumer appeal, all the new products were designed and built with the future in mind. As the industry prepares for the new world of Windows 8, HP has worked closely with Microsoft to understand the upcoming OS and build its PCs accordingly.
HP’s work with Microsoft involves a close collaboration including a resident engineer at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. But according to Jeff Erbstein, senior director of Microsoft’s Worldwide HP account team responsible for commercial products, HP spends an even greater amount of time grounding its design work in customer feedback.
“They do multiple customer councils,” he says. “Their product design people spend a lot of time with customers reviewing current products and concepts to make sure they contain features and benefits that enterprise customers are really looking for.”
According to Hoag, HP routinely brings in IT managers and key decision-makers from its enterprise customers to both critique and to look at needs and functions both short term and long term. Many of the customers HP consults are worldwide organizations, with all the associated challenges of deploying across the globe to tens of thousands of users, something that HP takes seriously.
Whether it’s with its largest enterprise customers or industry partners such as Microsoft, Hoag says HP’s collaborative approach to product design has resulted in a massive suite of new products that are state-of-the-art now, and ready to handle the next generation of technologies.
“We’re looking to move ahead of the legacy and move into the future,” he says. “This new product refresh is not only a huge launch for us, it’s also a huge leap forward.”