HP this week announced a suite of products and services aimed at overcoming the challenges presented by the convergence of some of today's hottest business trends, mobile computing and social media.

The four software products and three services are designed to help enterprises leverage traditional systems of record, while creating an improved and extended presence and engaging better with customers, partners, and even employees.

IT-driven systems of record, while they serve up useful information, are usually commodities and in themselves don't create business differentiation. The new offerings, however, provide systems of engagement, which change the way enterprises interact with those people now using tablets and smartphones in increasing numbers, as well as through social media. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

"Unless we worry about a system of engagement, then we're in trouble," said Paul Evans, HPs Worldwide Lead for Application Transformation. "It's a question of how to create a competitive advantage. We still require traditional apps on the back end, and will still look for the opportunity to reduce cost, but our focus is going to change to systems of engagement. We've had a lot of clients say, 'How do I do that?' It's not a traditional skill."

Evans also pointed out that time-frames have collapsed as well. "Apps have to be built in a time-frame that clients aren't used to. It's got to be a quality app, and it has to be well-tested. But it also has to be done in six days."

New offerings

In an effort to meet this mounting challenge, HP is now offering:

• HP Application Lifecycle Intelligence (ALI), which improves collaboration among delivery teams and reduces cycle times. While traditional systems of record are built and maintained every six months, ALI can automate the process and reduce the time to days.
  
• HP Unified Functional Testing, offered with Perfecto Mobile, allows developers to emulate and test the user experience of mobile applications across devices as well as different networks. This is to ensure that all users have the same experience no matter what mobile carrier they're using.

  We still require traditional apps on the back end and will still look for the opportunity to reduce cost, but our focus is going to change to systems of engagement.

  
  
• HP Anywhere, which enables clients to manage IT on the go. Mobile-based applications perform operations such as portfolio request management, defect tracking, service health monitoring and the composition of an executive scorecard, where IT managers can look at all of attributes in real time.
  
• HP Enterprise Collaboration enhances knowledge sharing and accelerates application development through a social collaboration environment that enables real-time, context-based conversations traced back to actions and work items. This allows developers to communicate in new ways that take previously unstructured conversations and puts structure to them.

Additionally, among the new services are:

• HP Testing for Mobility Services, designed to accelerate time to market of mobile applications by reducing test cycles and automating testing across multiple devices with solutions from HP Software and Perfecto Mobile.
  
• HP Enterprise Mobility Services for SAP Applications, which allows mobile users to obtain data from mission-critical SAP applications. By extending its mobile solutions to the SAP NetWeaver technology platform and the Sybase Unwired Platform, HP now offers an end-to-end enterprise mobile solution that enables client's access to key enterprise information such as application development, integration, and testing.
  
• HP Applications Transformation Experience workshop offers enhanced capabilities to exploit new enterprise mobile applications and cloud computing technologies.

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