HP today announced new solutions and technology along with an expanded entrepreneur program to enable small and midsize businesses (SMBs) aimed at driving growth, improving employee productivity, and protecting assets.
SMBs, a $234-billion market, face daily challenges that include controlling costs, managing employee productivity and gaining access to credit. HP says these new offerings are designed to address those challenges. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]
HP also has expanded its investment with 40 new training centers in its global program, HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE), which empowers SMBs to create new revenue streams. Since 2007, HP has invested more than $20 million into the program, resulting in the creation of more than an estimated 20,000 jobs and more than approximately 6,500 new businesses.
SMBs, a $234-billion market, face daily challenges that include controlling costs, managing employee productivity and gaining access to credit.
New SMB-attuned products include:
Business protection The explosive growth of data and email is creating increased risk and complexity as well as recurring disaster recovery expenses for SMBs. Solutions designed for business protection include:
Revenue opportunities Leveraging data to gain insight and make decisions is increasingly crucial to establishing a competitive advantage. Until now, this has been too complex and costly for many midsize businesses. New solutions designed to address that include:
The explosive growth of data and email is creating increased risk and complexity as well as recurring disaster recovery expenses for SMBs.
To help companies finance the new solutions, HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and life cycle asset management services division, is offering two financing options for businesses in the United States and Canada on HP equipment priced between $1,500 and $250,000. The new financing option offers a zero percent, 12-month lease with $1 purchase option or a zero percent, 36-month lease with fair market value purchase option.
I have to admit, I've been a bit confused about HP's SMB intentions over the past few years. There has been quite a bit of back and forth about how aggressively to pursue this opportunity. It looks like they have made up their mind in favor of hot pursuit, which makes sense given that this may be the leading adoption edge of the cloud and mobile era.
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