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HP Fuses Server, Storage Units

A year after Compaq and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) banded together, the company has combined all of its server and storage operations into a new hardware business unit, called Enterprise Storage and Servers (ESS) (see HP Merges Storage, Server Groups).

The move mimics IBM Corp.'s (NYSE: IBM) decision to join its previously independent server and storage divisions into a single Systems Group in January 2003. Great minds think alike? (See IBM Merges Storage, Server Groups.)

Peter Blackmore, executive VP of HP's Enterprise Systems Group (ESG), which oversees ESS, said in an interview with Byte and Switch today that the company wants to get "efficiencies and energies" by combining its server and storage groups [ed. note: what, no synergies?].

"As you get to an organization that is simpler, you have one operations group, one hardware group, one software group," he says. "You get efficiencies and energies, and you can accelerate growth -- and in a flat market like this one, we're hungry for growth." Most of HP's storage sales, he noted, are in conjunction with sales of its Windows or Unix servers

He also said that an organizational structure that is geared toward integrating two large companies -- to perform such tasks as phasing out product lines -- was "not the one you want, once you've done all that."

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