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    HP Plays Cloud Financing Card

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    Five Key Principles for Continuous IT Cost Optimization

    For most organizations, the single biggest impediment to moving to the cloud is that they have often already invested millions of dollars in existing systems. As a result, despite the operational cost benefits, many are putting off moving to the cloud until it’s time for the next major system upgrade.

    Hewlett-Packard wants to accelerate that whole process with the launching today of three finance programs that are all designed to reduce the amount of money organizations need to pay up front to move to the cloud.

    The three options consist of a program through which HP uses its capital to fund the retirement and upgrade of IT infrastructure, an ability to acquire HP equipment that is only paid for when actually activated, and a new monthly payment schedule option for next-generation HP Moonshot and HP Converged Infrastructure systems.

    According to Gerri Gold, HP vice president of global sales, business development and asset management services, each of these offerings is designed to alleviate a financial issue that currently retards the adoption of cloud computing systems. In terms of retiring systems, Gold says HP has billions of dollars in capital on hand. By comparison, most customers have limited access to capital. Furthermore, most of them don’t have the same kind of access to secondary markets in order to sell used systems in a way that gets the highest value for them. By having HP manage that process, Gold says one of the single biggest impediments to moving the cloud is greatly reduced.

    In terms of flexibility, Gold says HP is also trying to allow customers to avail themselves of financing options that better reflect the way IT infrastructure is consumed in the age of the cloud. Part of the goal of HP’s New Style of IT initiative is to allow organizations to acquire HP infrastructure well before it’s needed, but only pay for it at the time it is provisioned.

    HP is clearly trying to leverage its balance sheet to drive a bigger share of the cloud computing market its way. At a time when cloud computing is having a material impact on the total cost of enterprise IT, affecting both the bottom and top line of many organizations, HP is betting that attractive financing options will swing more than a few cloud deals its way.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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