HP: Australia leading the way in virtualisation across APAC

Singapore-based Jim Wagstaff, vice president of enterprise servers and storage for Asia Pacific and Japan at HP, is currently in Australia to attend HP’s biggest ever Partner Sales Academy with over 200 partners attending.

“I have been spending some time with the Australian partners and have been impressed with the quality of our A/NZ partners,” Wagstaff told CRN. “They are all upbeat and are seeing a lot of opportunity in the market.”

Wagstaff said it is encouraging to hear partners talk about providing complete solutions, with virtualisation at the top of the agenda.

“The adoption of virtualisation in the production market is happening more rapidly in Australia than the rest of APAC. Australia and New Zealand are at the cutting edge of virtualisation. The education process has taken hold quicker in Australia and our partners have taken to the virtualisation message very quickly.”

In terms of continuing trends in the storage landscape, Wagstaff cited security and business continuity as areas where the channel is still gaining traction.

“One of my main priorities is the engagement and reinvigoration of our channel in terms of education, coverage, the simplification of our rebates and greater rewards for selling the whole portfolio,” he said. “The HP Australia team has done a great job of putting that all together.

“We are pleased with our level of engagement with partners in Australia and at HP we believe our partners are critical to our growth and future success,” added Wagstaff.