Mark Corrigan, recently appointed Head of Azlan’s Enterprise and Access Networking business unit, talks about his plans to encourage closer working partnerships between Azlan and its vendor and reseller partners

Mark Corrigan has been around in the channel for more than two decades (so many of you reading this probably already know him). He has worked in various business development roles covering networking, security and latterly virtualisation solutions and helping distribution businesses to create high performing teams that get results and when the opportunity to join Azlan came up, he had no hesitation in accepting.

‘I started in the industry more than 20 years ago now and even then, Azlan were the organisation you looked up to and I have always had that perspective ever since. To me, Azlan sets the standard for what value-added distribution should deliver. The other reason I came here is the scale of the opportunity. Azlan has established Cisco, IBM and HP business in enterprise networking and there is a great opportunity to enhance and develop that core business by working with complementary vendors such as Juniper, Brocade, APC and ZyXEL to build a complete, solutions-based approach. Looking to the future we will add additional vendors that enhance our portfolio.’

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HP appoints new UK&I channel boss

HP has named Pascal Bourguet as Channel Director UK and Ireland of its PSG division. Bourguet was previously head of PSG’s consumer sales team. Paul Hunter, vice president of HP PSG in the UK and Ireland, said: ‘Pascal has done an outstanding job of leading the retail team to help drive the UK PSG business to even greater success in 2012.’ Former HP PSG sales manager Alex Ebeid has taken over Bourguet’s previous role.

Microsoft and HP team up on public and private cloud services

HP and Microsoft have announced a new four-year partnership to deliver public, private and hybrid enterprise cloud solutions built around Office 365 and its on-premise equivalents. Microsoft solutions will be offered via HP’s cloud data centres. Brandt Faatz, vice president of Workplace Services at HP Enterprise Services, stated: ‘This alliance with HP not only broadens Microsoft’s geographic reach, it gives customers maximum flexibility to choose a cloud computing solution that meets their organisation’s specialised messaging and collaboration needs’.

Azlan appoints Nigel Dunn to head HP Business Unit

Azlan, the enterprise division of Computer 2000, has appointed Nigel Dunn as Director of its HP Business Unit. Dunn, who has previously worked as General Manager of Azlan’s HP Value Storage Business and has a strong history with the company having worked at Frontline and Datech.  More recently, Nigel has worked with Tech Data in a consultative role on strategic initiatives in Europe.
 
Dunn will take full responsibility for all for day-to-day business on HP ESSN (servers, networking and storage) solutions, working with the existing Azlan HP team to drive business development initiatives and growth programmes for HP and its partner network.

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HP gets go-ahead of Autonomy takeover

HP has won approval for its purchase of leading UK business information software house, Autonomy for £7.1 billion. The deal strengthens HP’s position in the enterprise information management systems market. ‘Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making’, Meg Whitman, HP chief executive said in a statement.

HP Air Print

Kate gives a demonstration of how easy it is to print from your iPad straight to the latest HP Airprint printer

View the video by clicking on the article title.

HP Air Print

ipad to HP Printer through thin Air – watch the Airprint in action

INTRODUCING HP AND AIRPRINT

Print from iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to HP web – connected printers via WiFi.

Finally, the wait is over. You can now enjoy the freedom and ease of being able to print stuff you love – photos, recipes, maps and tickets – via your WiFi network. And the best part is, there’s no setup required.

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HP to Evaluate Strategic Alternatives for Personal Systems Group

Company to explore separating PSG through spin-off or other transaction

On Friday 18 August, 2011 HP announced that its board of directors has authorised the evaluation of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group (PSG), including the exploration of the separation of its PC business into a separate company through a spin-off or other transaction.

PSG has a proud history of innovation and technological leadership as well as a strong operating track record and industry-leading profitability. PSG is the leading manufacturer of personal computers in the world and had annual revenues of approximately $41 billion in fiscal year 2010. PSG enjoys leading global market positions in consumer and commercial PCs.

HP is implementing a plan to fundamentally transform the company. An important component of the plan is focusing its investments, resources and management attention to drive higher value solutions to enterprise, small and midsize business and public sector customers. HP believes that the exploration of alternatives for PSG will help the company accomplish its strategic goals and pursue profitable growth and enhanced shareholder value. A post-transaction HP would continue to help its customers manage the information explosion and address their most critical needs through a portfolio that spans printing, software, services, servers, storage and networking.

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SMEs still growing says HP report

HP’s latest SMB Index, has found that SMEs have grown by six per cent on average over the last six months, despite the problems in the broader economy. The survey, which polled 1,000 companies with fewer than 50 staff, also found that 48% of SMEs are turning to social media to help grow the business and reach new audiences. It also found that over two-thirds of respondents are optimistic about the year ahead, expecting to grow by as much as 13 percent.