Linux: HP Forms New Organization to Drive Companywide Linux Strategy; HP Strategy Provides Customers Platform of Choice - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, March 8, 1999

Hewlett-Packard Company Monday announced it has established an operation to help drive HP's companywide strategy to contribute systems, software and services support to the open-source community.

The new organization, the Open Source Solutions Operation (OSSO), is part of HP's Internet and Application Systems Division.

The announcement was made at Linux World Expo, which ran through March 4.

"HP sees Linux as a significant force in the industry and expects it to emerge as the platform of choice for select environments, particularly as it relates to the Internet service provider and electronic-commerce software-development markets," said Nigel Ball, sponsor of the operation and general manager for HP's Internet and Applications System Division. "With our focus in these areas, Linux will play a key role in HP's operating-system strategy."

This announcement is part of a series of scheduled announcements that will underscore HP's commitment to open-source solutions. Earlier this month, HP announced its offering of Linux support on HP NetServer systems and future IA-64 architecture-based systems. HP is the first major systems vendor to offer support and integration services for Linux.

Under the direction of the OSSO, HP is working to drive Linux adoption in enterprise and Internet software-development environments by providing the tools, technologies and solutions to facilitate application development on Linux for easy deployment on Linux, Windows NT or HP-UX(1) systems.

To help maximize the developer's productivity on HP-supported platforms, HP will provide Linux-compatible APIs on HP-UX and common GNU development tools on HP-UX, Linux and Windows NT.

HP is facilitating efforts spearheaded in the open-source community to support Linux on the PA-RISC(2) architecture (see today's related announcement). This HP organized, open-source community effort builds on HP's intent to support Linux across the NetServer family and to port Linux to HP platforms based on the IA-64 architecture.

In addition, HP Firehunter service-level management application is now available on Linux.

HP also plans to provide a complete line of services, including electronic support, as well as Web-based training targeted at system administrators and software developers.

HP is a member of Linux International, a non-profit organization consisting of industry influencers dedicated to supporting the continuous development of Linux.

(1) HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.00 and later (in both 32- and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers are Open Group UNIX 95 branded products.

(2) PA-RISC stands for Precision Architecture-reduced-instruction-set computing.