HP has transformed its position in the networking space from a year ago and is now ready to do the same with Big Data, according to the head of its Middle East operations.
The company has now reached around 11 percent market share in networking, which places it at number two in the market, far ahead of those below it.
“The advantage this year over last year is that customers are now taking HP very seriously when it comes to software defined networks,” said Eyad Shihabi, MD & Enterprise Business Lead, Middle East, HP. “I think networking will continue to be very strong for HP.”
This success can be attributed to the vendor pioneering the rise of software-defined networking (SDN), according to Ernest Sales, VP & MD, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, HP.
“In storage and networking, this year we bring equipment which is better than our competitors in any way you want to compare them, and that was not the case a year ago,” Sales said.
“SDN has been a very big standard for us in the networking space. We are the only company today that has a controller in SDN that can allow us to program the network in one single place. We are very unique in the SDN arena.”
From a situation of holding a lot of discussions on the new technology, CIOs in the region are now fully aware of the benefits and opportunities it creates.
“There had been a lot educational discussions, but now we just say here is the offering and opportunity, and many are interested in doing a pilot,” Sales said.
“We are the number two in the market, and then everybody else has either 1 or 2 percent market share. I think next year we’ll be in an even better position. We’ve just launched a new full portfolio for Wi-Fi and we will for sure be very strong.”
HP is now expecting to see the same interest in Big Data, which until now has seen more hype than adoption.
The vendor has launching its Big Data platform, HP HAVEn, and believes it has the solution to take a lead in this field.
“Next year, I think we’ll be having a very similar discussion to this one on HP HAVEn, our Big Data platform,” Shihabi said. “It uses Vertica technology, which all the big players in the market of Big Data are using today. It’s 100,000 times faster than the competition. The speed is just fantastic. “
He added: “We have seen Vertica blow up everywhere in the world. Once customers see what it can do, boom, they want it.”
Whilst many compare the trends of cloud and Big Data in terms of their impact on the enterprise, Big Data is moving at a much faster pace, according to Shihabi.
“People have been talking about cloud for five years and up until a year or two ago people were still experimenting,” he said. “It took five years but now people are using it.
“With Big Data, it’s going much faster because it brings in real tangible results to the business. It’s a very quick turnaround to make them more competitive. The companies that have piloted or shown interest, the speed of adoption is phenomenal.”
