HP flies security flag from florid stage

Before the anthems of a seven-piece band launched from behind HP's stagy podium, us journalists spent our Monday afternoon playing a news version of speed-dating. In blocks of 30 minutes, one atop another in a room packed with 10 other interviews going on at once, we quizzed HP executives on the latest in storage and security.

HP announced its Secure Advantage Portfolio, a new castle keep devoted to protecting data through advanced encryption, a new Identity Center dashboard and anti-phishing toolbar, servers, storage and services.

"This lets customers fine-tune their level of security commensurate with their appetite for risk," said  Montserrat Mane, a security practice principal for HP Services. "This model is multidimensional, blending standards from industry, ISO and HP's own best practices."

During the afternoon's interviews, one HP official after another invoked the name of ITIL, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library best practices guidebooks. ITIL received its "V3 refresh," as HP called it, within the last year. The company referred to it often to explain how best practices are driving the HP offerings.

To nobody's surprise, the new security offerings have little to offer the HP 3000-only shops. But for a customer with more HP platforms than the ones which run on MPE/iX, the Secure Advantage can step up protection, for customers with an appetite for costs and little appetite for risk.

HP's appetite for costs appeared to have increased at HP CEO Mark Hurd's keynote speech, starting at 5 PM after the speed-dating ended. The Technology Forum hosted the meeting in the massive Mandalay Bay Events Center, a 10,000-seat arena with tiered seating. The Mandalay hosts concerts and prize fights in the Center, but no blows of contention were flying Monday evening. Where such arenas in the Interex era hosted combative questions, yesterday's presentation was the love-fest Encompass president Nina Buik had promised.

Instead of hard questions flying , acrobats flew up and down wires from the catwalks to the stage where Hurd stood, looking bemused and in command. Striking policy announcements and profound product introductions were not on Hurd's teleprompters. He told the story of how HP has been working to change its IT expense ratio from 80 percent maintenance to 80 percent innovation — and how HP could help its customers do that, too.

HP had one significant restriction, however. "We had to do it all with our stuff," Hurd said. "You all don't have that problem, although I hope you do."

"Our costs were increasing in IT faster than our revenues were increasing," Hurd added. "That's not easy to do, but we were managing it," he quipped. "The only way we knew out of this was to interrupt it."

HP spent considerable money and time to flip those numbers from maintenance to innovation. "Don't take anything I say about this to mean that this was easy or free," Hurd said.

The key to success in HP's endeavor "was not technology," he added. "It was leadership, process and governance."

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HP flies security flag from florid stage

Before the anthems of a seven-piece band launched from behind HP's stagy podium, us journalists spent our Monday afternoon playing a news version of speed-dating. In blocks of 30 minutes, one atop another in a room packed with 10 other interviews going on at once, we quizzed HP executives on the latest in storage and security.

HP announced its Secure Advantage Portfolio, a new castle keep devoted to protecting data through advanced encryption, a new Identity Center dashboard and anti-phishing toolbar, servers, storage and services.

"This lets customers fine-tune their level of security commensurate with their appetite for risk," said  Montserrat Mane, a security practice principal for HP Services. "This model is multidimensional, blending standards from industry, ISO and HP's own best practices."

During the afternoon's interviews, one HP official after another invoked the name of ITIL, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library best practices guidebooks. ITIL received its "V3 refresh," as HP called it, within the last year. The company referred to it often to explain how best practices are driving the HP offerings.

To nobody's surprise, the new security offerings have little to offer the HP 3000-only shops. But for a customer with more HP platforms than the ones which run on MPE/iX, the Secure Advantage can step up protection, for customers with an appetite for costs and little appetite for risk.

HP's appetite for costs appeared to have increased at HP CEO Mark Hurd's keynote speech, starting at 5 PM after the speed-dating ended. The Technology Forum hosted the meeting in the massive Mandalay Bay Events Center, a 10,000-seat arena with tiered seating. The Mandalay hosts concerts and prize fights in the Center, but no blows of contention were flying Monday evening. Where such arenas in the Interex era hosted combative questions, yesterday's presentation was the love-fest Encompass president Nina Buik had promised.

Instead of hard questions flying , acrobats flew up and down wires from the catwalks to the stage where Hurd stood, looking bemused and in command. Striking policy announcements and profound product introductions were not on Hurd's teleprompters. He told the story of how HP has been working to change its IT expense ratio from 80 percent maintenance to 80 percent innovation — and how HP could help its customers do that, too.

HP had one significant restriction, however. "We had to do it all with our stuff," Hurd said. "You all don't have that problem, although I hope you do."