HP Wednesday said it has acquired a U.K.-based software
management and licensing firm to compliment its global services division.
As part of the deal, FH Computer Services (FHG) will become a
wholly-owned subsidiary of HP and will operate as a regional customer
support site for HP Services. Financial terms of the deal were not
disclosed.
“The license management service that will now become part of HP’s overall
customer support offerings is part of our response to that need and is
reflective of our Adaptive Enterprise strategy which helps businesses become
more responsive to change,” HP senior vice president for customer support
Mike Rigodanzo said in a statement.
The transaction is one in a string of smaller purchases that HP has made of late to support its major contracts, including the
acquisition of German based IT services firm, Triaton.
Essex-based FHG is no stranger to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer
and printer maker, having previous relationships with Compaq Computer.
The
company boasts some hefty contracts, including an entertainment company that
did a roll out with some 200 servers, 161 sites in 43
countries in six weeks; and an audit of an international investment bank
that involved some 9,000 PCs, 15 UK Sites and 3 European Sites in 11 months.
Still, HP would love to take more IT services contracts away from the
likes of IBM , which has significant market share in Europe
as well as Electronic Data Systems and Sun Microsystems.
HP’s Services division, which boasts 65,000 employees serving 168
countries, has previously scored more than $1 billion in major new contracts
in the last 18 months from clients such as Novell, the U.S. Postal
Service; and a $600 million contract with the Bank of Ireland.
For the last
four fiscal quarters, HP said its revenue totaled $74.7 billion. The company
said its annual IT services revenues in Western Europe alone hovers around
the $5 billion range.
“HP has been very successful getting themselves to the table for these
mega-deals, one has only to look at the P&G deal and the deal with the Bank
of Ireland for evidence of that,” Forrester Research vice president and
Research Fellow Julie Giera told internetnews.com. “They are building
a reputation for being able to capably manage the large, international data
center.”
The location aspect is important because Giera said companies focus on a
“near shore” option, where computing is moved to a country close to the
customer, but less expensive than their home country as would be the case
with the U.K.
“Expect more outsourcers to follow suit,” Giera said. “Since the offshore
firms do not have the capability to buy hardware and manage infrastructures,
nor do they have the experience to hire and assimilate their customers
personnel, this model — while successful in the short term — may exclude
the offshore firms from doing business on a larger scale. Big companies
outsource big and want service providers that can support that.”
