UAE, Dubai, 27th Mar 2008: ProCurve Networking by HP today announced it is offering a free network design service from its EMEA Network Design Centre (ENDC) to support its Select channel partners and their customers in the small-to-medium business segment (SMBs). Operating in up to 11 languages, the ENDC provides expertise to help resellers drive profitability by offering pre-sales technical consulting, network design proposals, and assistance with new business projects to enhance the depth of customer service and information that resellers can provide to their end-user customers.

The ENDC enables ProCurve to work as a reliable and complete network design partner to develop the right network infrastructure and customised solutions for end-user customers. The service is aimed at providing Select partners with the ability to meet their customers' current and future needs, and to ensure they can provide those customers with enhanced network reliability and performance. Importantly, as the service is complimentary for qualified partners and customers, it means that customer resources can be allocated more effectively on core business operations.

Alberto Soto Garcia, Vice President and General Manager for HP ProCurve Networking in EMEA said, "To our knowledge, we are the only networking company that offers such an intimate pre-sales technical consultancy, which is highly accessible to our Select partners, and free of charge for their customers. Planning a network can be a complex process, requiring resellers to consider many factors and variables, and employing many technical skills - ProCurve makes the process a lot easier for resellers and their customers."

"Our cooperation with ProCurve's ENDC has helped us to increase our sales," said Graham Fox, Sales Director of Computer Systems in Education (CSE), a UK-based company providing a broad portfolio of IT services specifically tailored to schools. "If we get a request from a secondary school, for example, we send details about the customer's needs to our ProCurve account manager. He is the liaison with the ENDC, and they put together a design and provide us with documentation such as the pros, the cons, and how the solution meets customer requirements. The ENDC team tells us which products will help us provide a certain solution. Then we deliver that recommendation to the customer."

Network design proposals for ProCurve's Select channel partners typically include: a comprehensive situational analysis; custom-designed drawings, and in-depth explanations and recommendations for proposed network architecture solutions based upon the customer's objectives and challenges. The ENDC designs address a full list of technical requirements, including current and future traffic levels based on numbers of users and planned application traffic; security needs; budget constraints and ability to interface with legacy equipment.

"Many Select partners can benefit greatly from the ENDC's pre-sales technical consultancy," said Paul Karadi, ProCurve's manager of ENDC and the Select Partner Program. "The service can provide essential information to resellers which might otherwise be overlooked when responding to new business projects, thus increasing productivity and sales by a multiplier effect. The speed and the efficiency with which ProCurve seamlessly works with its value-added resellers is a key differentiator to the size and number of new deals they can secure and customers they can retain."

The ENDC provides easy access to its services via its website or email and offers support in multiple languages, with plans to increase the number of languages. Further information on the ProCurve Network Design Centre can be accessed at www.ProCurve.eu/RequestYourNetworkDesign or contact ProCurve.eurodesign@hp.com. 

The ProCurve spokespeople are available to discuss the EMEA Network Design Centre (ENDC) and the cost-effective design services it provides for select customers. Please use the press contacts included above for any such requests.

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About HP
HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers - from individual consumers to the largest businesses. With a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP is among the world's largest IT companies, with revenue totaling $107.7 billion for the four fiscal quarters ended Jan. 31, 2008. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

© Press Release 2008