At the recently concluded HP Discover 2013 event, theCube hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante managed to talk to Tom Joyce, SVP & GM for Converged Systems at Hewlett-Packard.

Joyce manages this new division that is basically attempting to bring together all efforts pertaining to servers, storage, networking and software development. For such a big task, the required management software needs a ground-up framework. Improving the business environment is not just a tagline for customers. HP is avidly following suit. Joyce nominated their VP of engineering, Philip Tamer, the visionary man responsible for building a better management environment. This ought to valuate HP’s most precious assets, its staff, while propagating information seamlessly across all business networks.

HP Workplace Software Management Services provides the automation and distribution framework required to deploy applications and application service packs, as well as security patches, throughout an organization.

Some say that soon we’re going to think very differently about servers, and it is not going to be a product-centric approach anymore. Vellante wanted Joyce’s view on the market, and he pointed out the revolutionary new server technology that is HP Moonshot. “With Moonshot,  it’s more about how you can drive more specific workloads,” says Joyce. HP Moonshot web servers are designed and tailored to deliver optimum performance for specific workloads. Today, customers think of IT in terms of optimizing their workload and  business flow.

Converged Systems

Returning customers are looking to buy everything fully converged and fully configured, so that it can be easily installed and used in a matter of weeks. They understand the need for private cloud technology in the data centers, but they demand it be fully automated, so they do not have to deal with the process themselves.

HP offers an integrated suite of mobility and convergence solutions that deliver enterprise-class security, increased mobile productivity, and enhanced communications. The company looked at ways to build converged systems around HP Vertica, in order to help its customers adapt more rapidly, according to their own needs. The HP Vertica Analytics System ensures real-time analytics, optimized on a Converged Infrastructure. As Joyce aptly explained, “You got to make it easier for the customer to adopt your technology.” And that’s exactly what these converged systems are trying to do.

With the rolling out of Moonshot, HP can do more with Vertica, as well as with and other programs in their portfolio. This is becoming a superintegrator.

• Infrastructure-as-a-Platform

The notion of infrastructure as a platform, not a box, is getting a lot of traction these days and open source is definitely a hot topic. Joyce agreed that open source is a module that gives everyone a lot of leverage, and admitted that HP has made a big commitment, in particular to OpenStack. For this event, HP has announced Cloud OS, which is not a product, but an open stack distribution, and it has been adapted for the cloud system.

As a GM, Joyce is also pressured to generate revenue. In terms of expanding the business, there are a lot of areas that HP could very well develop (security appliances, video surveillance appliances), but their target market opportunities come first and foremost from the customers’ feedback and their declared intent to change their businesses. Therefore, HP’s focus is now on 1. Private Cloud, 2. Virtual infrastructure and 3. Big Data.

Joyce’s development plan for business growth is frightfully simple: Make the product easier to work with and the people will find it easier to sell it.