ProCurve, HP's networking infrastructure division, plans to invest and grow in Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, and hopes to take 25 percent market share around the world by the end of 2006.
"We identified Russia and the Middle East as very important for development," said Wenceslao Lada, vice-president and general manager of ProCurve for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, on Thursday.
"This will mean a tripling of investment in Russia and a doubling of investment in South Africa, and will continue over the next two years to gain the critical mass necessary for supplying customer needs," Lada told ZDNet UK in an interview at the ProCurve Press Summit in Dubai.
HP pitches its range of ProCurve equipment at companies who want to put more control at the edge of their networks, rather than concentrate the 'network intelligence' in the centre.
ProCurve currently has 12 percent market share in Russia, but plans to increase this to 25 percent market share by investing in recruitment, marketing, channel recruitment, and customer support — a strategy that HP says worked well in Scandinavia.
"Recruitment of resellers has advanced our opportunities by allowing us to go into much bigger accounts, especially in Scandinavia. Currently we hold a 50 percent market share in Finland, and that is partly due to a combination of working in channels for many years, and recruiting new resellers," said Lada.
"There will also be investment in customer support. In the Middle East this year we opened a call centre in Dubai, and will continue to invest here," said Lada.
The ProCurve team plans to take on the competition — especially 3Com and Cisco — through a mixture of investment and focus. "Based on our market intelligence we are going to dedicate more people than 3Com in Russia in 2006," said Lada.
Lada said that ProCurve plans to take market share from Cisco by focusing on the reseller sector: "Cisco is a $20bn company with a wide remit. ProCurve is specifically just for networking.
"We are going to market through channels, and that will have two components. Firstly, the value-added business reseller that sells a managed service, which will be more product development supported by service organisations and customer support. The second model will be focused on reselling hardware."
HP also hopes to increase ProCurve's current global market share of 17 percent to 25 percent by the end of 2006, by following the same strategy globally as in EMEA.
"Globally, resellers will provide 50 percent of our revenue, and help us to reach our target of 25 percent of the global market by the end of 2006," according to Lada.
