Data centers the HP-way

This week we ran some analysis of HP's massive data center consolidation project. I flew down to Palo Alto to meet up with the top brass at HP's campus. A reporter from InfoWorld and I were in attendence and we spent a lot of time talking about how HP sees the future of the data center shaping up.

The following week, I spoke with Kristi Browder, president of the HP user group Encompass. The organization is hosting the HP Technology Forum in a couple weeks and Browder said the data center consolidation is going to be a big part of the conversation at the event.

Beyond the specific data center consolidation project, HP is demonstrating a process-oriented strategy for helping customers deal with data center issues -- as opposed to a "solution-oriented" strategy (NOTE TO PR PEOPLE: I hate the word solution].

Sitting in that roundtable discussion a few weeks back, there was a distinctive lack of bullshit -- an uncommon occurance in many vendor meetings. HP is taking its own medicine, coming up with new ideas and the user base is really excited. And that's really good news for a company that seemed unfocused just 18 months ago.