HP to roll out managed SMB services next year

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) will begin selling managed IT and communications services next year to small and medium-size businesses in three continents, offering Internet access, servers, voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and help desk calls at fixed monthly rates, an HP official said.

The service, called HP Ready Office, has been in pilot in France since May. It will be rolled out there in the first half of next year, in partnership with France Telecom SA, which provides the communications services, and Alcatel SA, which provides IP telephony equipment.

HP is also signing telecom partners in Asia and the U.S., where it hopes to start implementing the service in the second half of 2005, said Francois Mateo, worldwide program director for Ready Office. Other European countries are also likely to follow.

HP is betting that smaller businesses -- those with up to about 1,000 employees -- would prefer to "lease" servers and IP phones for a fixed fee, and have their equipment managed remotely by an experienced IT provider. Mateo cited having a single point of contact for all support calls as a key benefit. In France, France Telecom will receive the calls, with the IT queries handled by HP behind the scenes.

The services will be offered in a variety of packages. A help desk component is €24.90 ($20.26) per employee per month. It includes support calls for desktop applications, as well as remote management and diagnostics of desktop PCs, including non-HP systems.

For €48.50 per month, customers receive a HP Proliant Server with an 80GB hard drive running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Small Business Server 2003. The price includes the hardware itself and remote management services. Customers must sign up for a minimum of three years. A similar server with two hard drives and RAID is €62 per month, Mateo said.

The VOIP component is €17 per line per month, with services hosted by France Telecom on Alcatel's PBX equipment. A DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) connection from France Telecom's Oléane business is €59 per month.

The service could prove popular because it takes aim at a key pain point for smaller businesses -- the need for affordable support services, said Stewart Green, strategy director for Centerprise International Ltd., a U.K.-based distributor and IT services provider.

"It remains to be seen how they actually package it and push it out there. Three years is quite a commitment (for the customer). The other big concern with (smaller businesses) is their longevity and their ability to pay -- or lack of it," he said.

Eamonn Kennedy, a research director with U.K. analyst company Ovum Ltd., said Ready Office could be a good way for small businesses to try new technologies, such as VOIP, that they might otherwise not be able to afford.

But smaller businesses, like large ones, have individual needs, and he wondered if Ready Office would meet its customers' diverse needs. Mateo said HP is considering versions of Ready Office for specific verticals, including software for manufacturing companies or law firms, for example.

HP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina first announced Ready Office almost a year ago, at the Telecom World 2003 show in Geneva. Apparently, the service is taking longer than planned to reach the market: France Telecom originally said it hoped to offer the service in March.

HP is trying carefully not to exclude its channel partners from the effort, which are its most important avenue for reaching smaller businesses. They will be enlisted to assess each customer's IT infrastructure before they can join the program and may provide other services, Mateo said.