By Krishna Roy

Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of NT systems management specialist NuView, is a bigger coup than was first thought. Not only will the move give HP a leading edge NT systems management product in ManageX, but it will give HP full inside details on its nearest hardware rival’s highly prized long term NT server strategy by virtue of the close relationship NuView shared with Compaq. HP considered NuView so crucial to the future of OpenView that it was prepared to out bid five other industry heavy weights including Microsoft to make this little known privately held $1m start-up its own. We hear HP finally paid almost $100m in a straight cash purchase to secure the one product company, which has a mere 20 staff, in the belief that the deal will enable it to dominate the NT systems management marketplace within the next six months. Armed with this NT know-how, and more importantly insider knowledge on Compaq’s server strategy plans, its aim is to increase its penetration of its network/systems management suite, OpenView, by providing users with a credible closely linked NT-specific management option. HP’s overall game plan is to integrate ManageX with every component within OpenView. It could be a tall order. The company will need to improve on its previous track record if it is to achieve this.

Poured scorn

HP’s history with OpenView has been one of poorly integrated products and features, as typified by long delays in the release of the unified Unix/NT code lines. Clearly, this does not bode well for the timely release of a fully integrated, re-designed OpenView which will embrace both Unix and NT environments, which HP is promising to deliver within the next 12-18 months. In many senses, HP’s OpenView strategy is beginning to look like CA’s strategy for Unicenter. As it rushes out to purchase disparate pieces of systems and network management technology in a bid to make it a credible enterprise-level systems/network management platform, users are finding that, at best, they are merely able to bolt on to OpenView these acquired products as part of the core IT/Operations module. Analysts have poured scorn on HP’s NT strategy, arguing that this latest acquisition does little more than pay lip service to users who want to use the same systems management platform to manage their Unix and NT-based environments – the very thing that this most recent acquisition is supposed to address. The Meta Group believes a common interface, let alone a common repository, between ManageX and OpenView will never be achieved. But Rahul Mehta, former CEO and founder of NuView and now a consultant to HP’s OpenView ManageX division, assured us that the integration between ManageX and all OpenView components is no great feat as both products are based on DCOM (distributed common object model). Version 3 of ManageX to be released this month. This will mark the third standalone release of the product since it was first launched in March 1997. HP says the new release will have two major enhancements: it will be more scalable and it will ship with a series of ready-made application modules that enable users to build ActiveX or DCOM-based applications for NT server specific environments. Within the next 3 months there should be console to console integration between ManageX and OpenView. This will enable OpenView users to access console information held by ManageX through OpenView interfaces. In the next 6-9 months, HP is promising a single NT/Unix agent. This will automatically manage both NT and Unix systems management. Currently, there are three NT agents – two within OpenView and one within ManageX. The OpenView systems management function is provided by the IT/Operations modules. A fundamental problem with OpenView is that its primary strength is in network management – as exemplified by Network Node Manager, a suite of tools designed to monitor Unix-based network environments. In many ways Network Node Manager is unrivaled in scalability and robustness as a Unix network management platform but we hear that cracks have been seen to appear by users who have tried to deploy it as an enterprise-wide systems management solution. This is primarily because there is no single repository within OpenView. The IT/Operations module, for example, will talk only to an Oracle database while many of the desktop tools use SQL Server. It therefore makes it very difficult for IT administrators to get an overall picture of the health of the entire corporate system network. As one user told us, The one outstanding frustration we have with OpenView is that there is no common repository. HP says it is making concerted efforts to build OpenView around a common repository which will be based on Microsoft’s Common Information Model – but that will be some time in coming. HP has made some major marketing blunders with OpenView this year, none greater than with its decision to bundle – at no extra charge – on all HP-UX servers and workstations CA’s Unicenter TNG. Under the July announcement, HP also said that it would integrate many of the HP management tools with Unicenter TNG, including HP’s System Administration Manager (SAM), ClusterView, TopTools, and NetServer Assistant. It also said it would resell the Unicenter TNG product, provide consulting and implementation services through its Professional Services Organization (PSO) and support the product through its Response Center Organization (RCO).

Lot of confusion

It was a decision which caused a lot of confusion. As one user told us, It looked like HP was endorsing a rival product and we all began worrying about our investment in OpenView. The move showed that HP is not a unified company: the announcement came out of the hardware division; the software guys knew nothing about it. HP has recently gone some way towards addressing this perception in announcing that it has set up a dedicated global software sales unit. Until recently, HP has been a collection of independent business units that often set policy and product strategies which are beneficial to the individual business units regardless of possible internal conflicts. Hardware sales will always drive HP’s software strategy: OpenView currently represents less than 2% of HP’s revenues, while computer hardware brings in over 80%, and is also the source of service and support contracts (as is evident in the CA-Unicenter agreement). It seems logical that the HP Computer Organization – the hardware group – will rally its HP-UX line sales efforts around Unicenter as its chosen direction for enterprise management, relegating OpenView to a network management role, at best.

This article originally appeared in M&A Impact.