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Ventana Research EVP Mark Smith says a preintegrated services and integration platform helps HP match offerings from Oracle or IBM. "Bringing together data integration and data management simplifies the necessary point of data readiness for consumption by BI and/or business processes. Our research continues to find integration of disparate technologies as a top issue that IT and business has to contend with." 

HP has steered clear of the software space to focus on its infrastructure and services business, which, in the BI space is led by the former Knightsbridge Consulting group, which was acquired by HP in 2006.

Forrester Research analyst Rob Karel says the partnership could test whether a software story might help HP’s services business and give a leg up to Neoview, which has had a hard time gaining visibility amid the consumer software focus.  

“HP is limited in its ability to influence because it doesn’t really have much of a software story, “ says Karel. “Many end users make technology decisions first and on their own before they bring in services partners, and many choose Informatica, so it gives HP a foot in the door to have a services line around that product.”

Karel says the partnership provides a proof of concept that might give sense to an acquisition, should HP choose to enter the software arena. “This partnership is focused on information technology that could be expanded to other areas the BI services team doesn’t focus on,” including HP’s broad array of EDS services. “It depends whether HP wants to be in software or not. I am sure that discussion is happening and there are camps on either side.”

Jim Ericson is editorial director of  Information Management, a SourceMedia publication. You can reach him at Jim.Ericson@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jimericson.