UPDATED 13:45 EDT / JUNE 06 2011

Day 1 Unfolds at HP Discover: webOS, Mobile at the Helm

As Day one of HP Discover 2011 unfolds before thousands of attendees, two main courses are center stage, enjoying a great deal of attention: webOS and mobile. Prior to this big event, Hewlett-Packard and its CEO Leo Apotheker have been very vocal about the company’s colossal ambitions regarding webOS. After being sidelined because of iOS and the Android craze, HP is now ready to take webOS to new heights.

In an interview with Apotheker, he mentioned webOS’s need to focus on the right apps, and dedicating this to developers. He furthered, “We are focused on getting the right applications on our devices. When you look at how people use these devices, in general people use 10, 12, 15 devices and not more. Actually, we are trying to create an environment where developers to get the kind of exposure on our catalogs the way they would like it to be.

“So, A, we are trying to get the right applications. B, we are trying to get the right portfolio of diversity of applications. And, three, we are creating a whole new approach based on the magazine type of an approach so that people can kind of reason, find out what we have. It’s going to be a magazine called Posit, which will be available online.”

A related direction for HP is taking the mobile route. The enterprise is keen on penetrating the mobile health monitoring realm. During the Discover event, HP made the important announcement that they are equipping doctors and nurses with Palm Pre 2 smartphones for a year-long clinical trial against the deadly Malaria. Gabriele Zedlmayer, VP at H.P. in the office of Global Social Innovation said, “H.P. recognizes the transformative power of applying mobile and cloud technology to advance health care in both developing and developed markets.  Positive Innovation for the Next Generation will be the company’s partner in achieving their goals.

HP, in the midst of repositioning its focus to managed cloud services, is now aiming at enterprise virtualization and database challenges through the release of three new Converged Infrastructure or CI systems. This update promises superior efficiency in hardware, software, storage and services. The company also unveiled their data center containers with 12-week delivery time via HP High Performance Optimized Data Centers.

Competition is sizzling hot as arch rival Dell is also holding a conference during the same timeframe as HP’s Discover 2011. Dell Storage Forum 2011 event will highlight storage and its importance to cloud-based mobile software initiatives. Both parties are recently involved in device launches across laptop and mobile spaces, and are seeking ways to monetize their transition to the cloud.

These recent developments around HP seemingly aim to make the company very mobile-centric, with a focus on software, remote-access and virtual desktop services. In all fairness to the ex-SAP chief, Apotheker has given HP reasons to grace the headlines on a daily basis, be it through innovations or controversies. Still, the organization he’s heading, for less than a year now, still looks formidable despite its latest slips.


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