A $50 million alliance between Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft Tuesday was formally launched in Vienna by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, highlighting the key role the European market will play in the technology, sales and services drive to promote the development of systems and applications based on .Net.
"Microsoft and HP are making this announcement in Europe because we have seen a great demand for XML Web services here with people starting to do a lot of hard core work through .Net," said Paul Thomalla, Microsoft's head of sales for .Net in the U.K.
The companies Monday announced plans to train more than 5,000 HP salespeople on .Net and to certify 3,000 employees from HP's services division to design, build and deploy systems based on the Web-based software platform. HP has also committed itself to forming a new group of .Net solution architects in addition to existing employees that will be trained on the software.
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"There has been much better take-up in Europe, partly because models in the U.S. are a little bit more entrenched. From a Microsoft point of view, we would like to drive hard in Europe and the U.K. because that is where we can get the most traction quickly," Thomalla said.
Elwyn Hopkin, HP's manager of the .Net result program in Europe, said that his region will have 2,200 .Net-trained salespeople and 1,300 of the .Net certified employees.
Though .Net is still in the early stages on development, Thomalla conceded, the initiative with HP is designed to bring momentum to Microsoft's efforts to offer companies a way to build Web-based applications and services as well as share data among disparate software and hardware systems. HP's expanded relationship with the Redmond, Washington, software giant is intended to ensure that customers can turn to the Palo Alto systems company when building systems based on .Net.
"The .Net message is becoming real. This relationship with HP is the first time we've done anything on this level. HP has the ability to actually physically go and deliver .Net, and this is the sweet spot for Microsoft," Thomalla said.
HP and Microsoft intend to create one of the world's largest, most specialized forces of .Net consultants and system architects. As part of the initiative, there will be 30 dedicated sales teams in Europe, comprised of three people per team, allocated to selling and deploying .Net software systems on HP hardware, Hopkin said.
There will also be a "European SWAT team" of eight consultants "to roam around Europe to get the key messages about .Net across to customers," Hopkin said.
The deal combines HP's servers and infrastructure hardware products, as well as its services division, with Microsoft's .Net initiative. Microsoft and HP will work together to sell companies on using Web services in four areas: collaborative sharing between employees, business intelligence including collecting and analyzing data, putting core enterprise processes onto the Internet and enterprise application integration, Hopkins said.
Specific programs will be aimed at industries such as healthcare, financial markets and e-government. "We can make a big difference in the financial markets in Europe, particularly in Germany, the U.K. and Switzerland. In e-government, there is a lot of work being done, especially in Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic," Hopkins said.
HP and Microsoft pointed to two customers HP has already been working with in Europe as part of the new hardware, software and services alliance. Nine months ago, HP began working with the Swiss reseller of PCs and computer hardware, Also ABC Trading AG, to put the company's shipping and tracking procedures online and replace the need for paper documents, Hopkins said.
It is also working with the Whiltshire Police in the U.K.
"We have been working with the Whiltshire Police for the past 18 months to use .Net as a way to help the police reduce their administrative burden, for example giving them the ability to fill in forms online. Currently, 47% of a police officer's time is spent in the office, and 24% of their time is spent on paper work. By freeing up just 1% of a police officer's time, 16,000 police hours are freed up at a savings of £200,000 ($310,300)," Hopkins said.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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