HP Software takes on the Idea Economy

The Idea Economy is being touted pretty heavily here at HP Discover in CEO Meg Whitman’s keynote. Paul Muller (@xthestreams), VP of Strategic Marketing in HP Software took us on a journey of how HP Software is thinking about solving today’s problems and preparing for the future state. Unlike many of the other presentations the journey is just as important as the projects. It helps organizations, partners, customers and providers align their vision and understand how best respond to the changing business climate.

The combination of non-digital natives looking at new technology in one way while millennials are approaching technology in a completely fresh way creates a bit of a challenge. Millennials often create and support disruption. Quite a different approach from their non-digital natives. According to HP’s Muller, a full “25% of organizations will fail to make it to the next stage through disruption.” If you’re an existing legacy enterprise, how do you embrace the idea economy while at the same time running existing systems? This presents a serious, but real challenge for any established enterprise today.

Muller then took the conversation of ‘bi-modal IT’ as a potential answer to the problem. Bi-modal IT is being discussed as ‘hybrid IT’ or two-speed IT to address the differences between running existing core systems while innovating with new products and services. In addition to the technology challenges, bi-modal IT creates a number of other challenges that involve process and people. Side note: Look for an upcoming HP Discover Performance Weekly episode we just recorded on the subject of bi-modal IT with Paul Muller and Paul Chapman, CIO of HP Software. In the episode, we take a deeper dive from a number of perspectives.

HP Software looks at five areas that people need to focus on:

1. Service Broker & Builder: Recognize that the problem is not a buy vs. build question any longer. Today, both are needed.
2. Speed: The speed in which a company innovates by turning an idea into software is key. Most companies are just terrible at this process. DevOps plays a key role with improving the situation.
3. BigData & Connected Intelligence: Understand the differences between what customers ask for vs. what they use. BigData can provide insights here.
4. User Experience: What is the digital experience considering the experience, platforms and functions?
5. Security: Securing the digital assets are key. 33% of successful break-ins have been related to a vulnerability that has been known for 2 years. (Stuxnet).

HP leverages their Application Lifecycle Management process to address each of these five areas with data playing a fundamental role.

There was some discussion about the maturity cycle of companies regarding BigData. Trends show that companies start with experimentation of data outside the enterprise in the cloud. The data used is not sensitive or regulated. When it’s time to move into production, the function is brought back in-house. The next step in the maturity cycle are those that then move production BigData functions back outside into the cloud. Very few folks are doing this today, but this is the current trend.

And finally a core pain point that is still…still not managed well by companies: Backup and Disaster Recovery. This is nothing new, but an area ripe for disruption.

Overall, it was refreshing to hear more about the thought leadership that goes into the HP Software machine rather than a rundown of products and services.