HP unveils software management product road map

Computerworld - MONTREAL -- Hewlett-Packard Co. today unveiled its management software product road map for dozens of products through 2005, describing software to manage Wi-Fi and voice-over-IP networks as well as a Linux-based management server, among others.
Most of the new-release descriptions were vague, simply stating that new versions of well-known products such as OpenView Operations will appear by the end of 2005. HP makes product road map presentations each year at the HP Software Forum 2004 but doesn't publish any press releases or statements about the road maps.
One significant announcement, however, was that a new product, OpenView Operations for Linux, will appear sometime in 2005. It's expected to start out as an entry-level management server based on Linux, said Scott Fulton, director of application management products at HP.
HP has already ventured into the Linux world with its OpenView Network Node Manager running on Linux. That product was released at the end of last year, Fulton said.
A new product called IP Telephony Voice Path Analysis will be released by the end of this year, Fulton said, to address the growing need for prioritizing voice traffic over IP networks as VoIP's popularity grows. A Wi-Fi network management product will appear in 2005, he said, though he declined to offer further details.
Joe Gersch, a director of OpenView Forum International, an independent user group with 7,000 members that sponsors the HP Software Forum jointly with HP, said he found the VoIP and Wi-Fi management announcements "forward-thinking" because of the growth in both markets.
But Gersch said the products with greater long-term impact will come from a push into business process management, with the first release of Business Process Insight next month (see story). A BPI revision will appear in 2005 that automatically allocates IT resources such as servers and switches to maximize system performance, Fulton said. It will be based in part on technology from two companies that HP purchased, Novadigm Inc. and Consera Inc., he said.
In addition, HP's OpenView Network Node Manager will have its 7.5 release later this year, and a full 8.0 version will appear next year, he said. Another product HP introduced this week, Route Analytics Management System, will be updated to Version 2.5 by the end of the year, with Version 3.0 coming next year, Fulton said.