With the cloud computing paradigm showing no signs of stopping, big IT vendors like HP, IBM and Oracle are clamoring to provide lucrative end-to-end cloud computing solutions for enterprise customers.
The one who wins these big solutions are often the ones with the best customer relationships and partner ecosystems. For HP in Singapore, they are setting their sights on three industries: digital media, government and finance.
So said Kelly Tan, vice president and managing director at HP Singapore, at last Friday’s HP cloud strategy sharing session with the Singapore media.
Piggybacking on their strong channels in these verticals, HP is going to target these industries with AP4SaaS, a cloud platform that is new to Singapore. AP4SaaS is a cloud platform where enterprise customers can share their ecosystems with other similar enterprises in the same verticals globally.
For example, this means that a big bank in Singapore can tap on software vendors of other banks in the world through this platform.
Started up about two years ago as an R&D project in HP’s Innovation Labs, AP4SaaS was first launched as a product in June 2010 in Europe, and is now just starting to be rolled out here locally.
By getting “tenant clients” to come aboard this platform, HP believes it can seed a vibrant ecosystem here.
“These key customers will bring their ecosystem and they can share their experience globally,” said Kelly.
For me, this was the most interesting takeaway out of the event. I’ll wager that HP already has some good prospects in mind for these verticals, but time will tell if the platform will convince customers to come onboard.
HP didn’t give details of how AP4SaaS would be implemented here — for example, pricing, number software vendors expected, etc. — but hinted that they would supply the media and bloggers with more information later in the year.
