HP is trying to make up for this summer’s dismal forecasts by finding contracts wherever it can — even offshore.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm announced a total of $1.5 billion in
contracts this week, the largest being a marquee $500 million
relationship with Nokia .
The two companies extended their original 2001 pact for an additional
five years, with Nokia writing $100 million checks each year to HP. The
computer and printer maker said it would continue to use its Adaptive
Enterprise expertise to manage the IT infrastructure and operations for
Nokia’s messaging, groupware and network activities. In addition, HP will begin
to shift Nokia’s IT infrastructure environment to a service-based model.
HP has been working fastidiously to shore up its overseas presence as it
battles IBM’s Global Services division. The company’s entire Services
division managed to grow 12 percent over last year, with the
biggest gains in HP’s Managed Services group. The company’s Customer Support
and Consulting and Integration also showed positive gains. And even though
it is doing well, HP’s Services division should get a boost relatively
soon as the company closes in on its acquisition of IT services provider Synstar.
HP said it also has new hardware and software customer wins in the public
sector, health and education markets in the European and Asia Pacific
regions.
The customer wins include:
- a product and services contract with the
Central Norway Regional Health Authority; - new Superdome servers and storage
components for China’s postal service; - an agreement to shift the application
framework for India’s Income Tax department from IBM to HP-UX; - a $2.3
million intranet project for India’s Central Reserve Police Force; - a
contract to build the technology infrastructure for Indonesia’s 2004 General
Election; - a multi-year project to create 70 million identity cards for the
Italian Ministry of the Interior; - a $1.5 million Superdome project for
Korea’s Health Insurance Review Agency; - a $2 million project to put eight HP
Superdome servers in Korea’s Ministry of Information & Communication to
revamp the core banking system for Korea’s Post Office; - a $1.3 million staff
portal for the National Institute of Education in Singapore; - a pact with the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology to implement IT
Infrastructure Library; - a storage contract with Slovenia’s National
and University Library; - a $2.5 million IT infrastructure upgrade for the
Supreme Court of Korea; - a $20 million co-project with Taiwan’s Ministry of
the Interior; - a $12 million contract to upgrade to Superdome
servers, storage, workstations, desktops and printers for the Taiwan Tax
Bureau.
The overseas contracts — especially the Superdome ones — are a welcome
break after HP’s business-critical server revenue plummeted a hefty 8
percent to $828 million, with sales in its Alpha and NonStop server lines
down 32 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
In a related announcement, HP said it has drafted a pact with the Puerto
Rican government to build a research and development center and
establish a new branch of HP Labs on the island.
The new facility would primarily focus on the pharmaceutical industry, as
Puerto Rico is home to a large number of drug manufacturing companies. HP
has been exploring how to tap into the multi-billion dollar industry with
anti-counterfeiting and medication-dispensing technologies.
The company said other areas of research in Puerto Rico could include
utility computing and advanced micro-mechanical devices.
Besides its Palo Alto headquarters, HP has facilities in Bangalore,
India; Bristol, U.K.; Cambridge, Mass.; Haifa, Israel; and Tokyo.
