HP Discover 2014: News Preview

HP Discover 2014 kicks off June 10 in Las Vegas, bringing with it a passel of announcements surrounding new products, services and solutions aimed at companies big and small. Here are just a few to start things off, with more announcements expected throughout the week.

Last week, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) revealed a number of new PCs for the enterprise crowd in varying form factors, including several standard HP Elite notebooks and a detachable two-in-one model. Not to be confused with the HP Split x2, the HP Pro x2 612 is a similarly designed laptop/tablet hybrid geared toward business users. The x2 612 features a 12.5-inch diagonal display and Intel Core i3/i5 processors including a vPro option. Users can lock down the PC with the included HP BIOS and HP Client Security software, as well as additional features such as HP Sure Start and Smart Card Reader. The HP Pro Tablet 612 is available either standalone or with one of two attachable keyboards to give enterprise users the choice of going hybrid or sticking with a standard tablet setup. The Pro x2 612 and Pro Tablet 612 are expected to release by the end of September.

HP also announced the new HP Elite700 series, the company’s latest addition to its Elite family of products for enterprise users. Similar to other members of the Elite family, Elite700 laptops are built with multiple mobile security options including Sure Start and HP Client Security. What makes the new models different are their thin designs: all three EliteBook 700 models measure in at only 21mm each. Various models are available with either an AMD or Intel processor. HP is releasing several EliteDesk 700 models as well, including microtower and small form factor configurations. The Elite 700 series of products will be released beginning now through September.

In addition to its new enterprise products, HP is working to develop new converged infrastructure solutions and services for its customers as the company looks to help organizations protect their data center technologies. Through the new initiative, HP is working to create a new enterprise architecture that is easily manageable yet scalable to the individual architecture of its clients. According to HP, these enhancements will enable software-defined data centers to support cloud delivery models and build on converged infrastructure, including high-performance computing (HPC) offerings and enhancements to the all-flash HP 3PAR StoreServ and HO StoreOnce Backup applications.

“As customers look ahead, they need business outcome-driven infrastructure that enables the ‘New Style of IT,’” said Bill Veghte, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Group, HP, in a prepared statement. “With the products and services we are launching at Discover, HP is reducing complexity for customers while speeding time to value.”

For the supercomputer set, HP unveiled the HP Apollo family of HPC solutions and the HP Helion Self-Service HPC. The Apollo HPCs have been designed to provide high-powered computing no matter the size of an organization,  with redesigned cooling features to allow for extreme performance at rack scale, according to HP. The Helion HPC functions as a private cloud solution based on the existing HP Helion OpenStack cloud platform, providing a self-service portal with HPC resources through an application interface.

Remember to keep an eye out on The VAR Guy throughout the week as we roll out the latest news directly from HP Discover 2014, including more details on the HP Apollo and HP Helion Self-Service HPCs.