HP Haven Big Data Platform Is Gaining Partner Momentum

Hewlett-Packard's Haven big data platform is rapidly gaining partner momentum with more than 120 partners already signed up to sell at least one piece of the portfolio just three months after the formal launch.

Among the system integration giants that are selling and supporting the Haven platform are Accenture Analytics, Deloitte Consulting LLP and Capgemini, along with India-based IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services and NEC Asia Pacific.

For example, Accenture, which has 16,000 analytics professionals on its payroll, has used the Haven platform to develop a security solution that can help customers more quickly respond to information security threats.

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"The momentum is awesome," said John Knightly, vice president of market development for HP Software, speaking about the rapid adoption of Haven. "I can't tell you how much excitement there is around this. This is one of the few times in my life I'm not looking over my shoulder. We have a tiger by the tail on this one!"

Jeff Smith, director of technology and alliances for International Integrated Solutions Inc. (IIS), an HP enterprise partner and No. 200 on the SP500 with $90 million in sales, said as much as 40 percent of IIS's sales pipeline is big data related with the HP Vertica software in particular driving significant sales growth, said Smith. "We've got a healthy Vertica business that drags a ton of hardware," he said. "It plays to our (data center infrastructure) strength selling a hardware platform with a software layer on top of it," he said.

All of IIS's big data deals are, at minimum, six-figure deals with some breaking the $1 million mark, said Smith. He expects even more dramatic sales growth around Haven in 2014. "The further you move up the big data stack, the more margin there is," he said. "If you are willing to transform and move up the stack, that is where the big margins and services are for partners."

Those partners that do not move aggressively to embrace platforms like Haven with a strong foothold in both big data and cloud markets are going to find themselves struggling or out of business altogether, said Smith. "This is a transformational time in this industry," he said. "If you are not in the big data and cloud business, then you are going to be out of business.

NEXT: HP Moving Quickly To Provide Big Data Channel Sales Incentives

HP is moving quickly to provide big data channel sales incentives around Haven that are far superior than any and all big data competitors, said IIS's Smith. "HP has always been way ahead of the pack from a technology perspective, but under [HP CEO] Meg [Whitman], they are changing compensation, partner incentives and field sales models to drive growth around big data, cloud and security.

"We are starting to see Meg's five-year plan being operationalized in a big way," said Smith. "What I love about Meg is she is not driven quarter to quarter by Wall Street, but rather has built a strategy and is executing against that strategy. HP is going to be the provider of choice for big data and cloud. They have the technology assets to do it, and now the sales model is being put in place."

Distributor Arrow Electronics is also seeing significant partner interest and adoption around HP Haven, said Greg Schumacher, director of the converged infrastructure practice with distributor Arrow Electronics North American Enterprise Computing Solutions segment. "We are seeing a significant number of partners, both on the software side through the applications they are developing [and] around the hardware side pushing AppSystem [for Vertica]," he said. One Arrow partner, for example, just closed an $800,000 deal for AppSystem for Vertica, said Schumacher. "This kind of technology is taking off at our enterprise-level customer base," he said.

HP has put significant technical and sales resources around the Haven opportunity, said Schumacher. "I see the same level of commitment around Haven that we would have seen a number of years ago around [HP] Blade [server] technologies," he said. "HP is making this a cornerstone of their business with field sales capabilities, [sales] assistance and education," he said. "They are really covering all the bases on this one."

The significant integration work that HP has done around Haven is opening the door to much more rapid adoption of the platform by customers looking to adopt complex big data solutions, said Shaun Connolly, vice president of corporate strategy for Hortonworks, a provider of the Apache Hadoop software that is part of Haven. "HP is making it a lot easier for enterprises to adopt [big data] solutions rather than assembling it themselves," he said.

With the enterprise relationships that HP has put in place around Haven kicking into high gear, Connolly said he predicts there will be a big uptick in channel sales around big data. The agreements with systems integration giants like Accenture and Deloitte have the potential to pay off in deals that are 10 times bigger than those being driven by regional systems integrators, said Connolly. "The pump is primed," he said. "We are very bullish on [big data] adoption for 2014."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 23, 2013