HP Realigns Software Divisions

Bye-Bye Bluestone

• By Chris McConnell
• 07/16/2002

Hewlett Packard Co. made a public statement yesterday signaling its intent to focus its software development efforts on system management software and drop its flagging integration software business.

In a written statement, HP said it “re-assessed its middleware investments that focused on delivering application infrastructure solutions and has decided to discontinue the HP Netaction Application Server, HP Netaction Web Services Platform and HP Web Services Registry.” The Netaction line of software grew out of HP’s acquisition of Bluestone Software in 2000, which was supposed to usher HP in the growing J2EE integration market. An HP spokesperson declined to comment further.

Observers anticipated HP would halt its efforts in the J2EE and Web Services space as it rolled out the latest version of its Unix operating system, HP-UX 11i, last month. Accompanying the hoopla was an endorsement of BEA Systems Inc.’s market-leading WebLogic application server platform. HP also announced a partnership with BEA to mutually support WebLogic and HP-UX.

Yesterday’s statement reiterates HP’s partnership with BEA and mentions its relationship with Microsoft Corp., whose .NET initiative could lead the way in Web services adoption.

Instead, HP said it would focus its attention to systems management software, including HP OpenView, HP Utility Data Center, and HP OpenCall. HP OpenView is one of the major enterprise management “frameworks,” which monitor and manage a diverse set of systems. OpenView holds about 5 percent of a market dominated by IBM Corp.’s Tivoli Division and Computer Associates International, Inc. HP Utility Data Center is workload management software and HP Opencall is middleware for telecommunications carriers.