Clive Brindley has been appointed as software country manager for HP SA, effective immediately.

Brindley joined HP in 2007 and previously served as a solution architect and pre-sales manager in the business technology optimisation business unit within HP software. In August last year, he was promoted to channel and commercial IT performance suite sales manager, SA.

“I am very excited about this opportunity; it is a great honour to be part of an amazing global organisation that recognises talent and has a key focus on promoting from within,” he says.

Brindley has worked within the ICT infrastructure management domain for over 15 years, focusing on delivering service management solutions to customers worldwide. He spent seven years working within the European market, says HP in a statement.

Brindley has various industry accreditations, ranging from BS7799 lead auditor (BSi), to ITIL v3 expert (service manager) qualifications.

Source:http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52215:hp-appoints-sa-software-head&catid=69

Seal Software Group, a provider of solutions to discover, capture, extract and manage contracts, today announced that Andrew Isherwood, has joined the Seal board as a non executive director as Seal continues to enjoy year on year growth and expansion in new and existing markets. Andrew has previously acted as an advisor to Seal and is also an investor, testament to his belief in the future of the Seal Group.

Andrew, a veteran of Hewlett Packard with more than 25 years service, has held key roles in the United Kingdom, Europe and worldwide. Currently a SVP, Andrew previously served as VP, leading the worldwide sales, services and support organisation for software. Prior to this he was vice president and general manager for the HP software business in EMEA, where he led a highly successful team in driving revenue, growth and profitability. Prior to this, Andrew managed HP’s enterprise business in EMEA, responsible for the sale of HP products and services into the company’s top 5,000 accounts. Andrew holds a degree in business studies from the University of London and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Upon the appointment, Andrew commented, “This is an exciting time to be joining such a fast growing and dynamic software business. The market demand for the solutions that Seal provide has never been stronger and I’m looking forward to working with the rest of the board to capitalise on this opportunity.”

Ulf Zetterberg, Founder and CEO, Seal Software Group added, “Andrew’s experience and knowledge in leadership of a global sales organization will be invaluable to Seal. Andrew will provide both strategic and tactical support as we execute our plans for continued, fast paced growth to be the leading contract management solution provider. We welcome Andrew to the Seal board and look forward to working closely with him the months and years ahead.”

Source:http://www.itnewsonline.com/showrwstory.php?storyid=7504

At its Global Partner Conference on Wednesday, HP announced a series of new incentives designed to assist and encourage partners to sell more software and related services, including a new promo to encourage HP converged infrastructure partners to partner with HP software partners.
While HP is strongly affirming that it is a hardware infrastructure company and not a software company, it also sees its software as critical to its solution sets, and as a strong opportunity more of its hardware partners need to leverage.

“Software licensing by ESSN partners grew twice as fast as the overall licensing business in 2011,” said Bill Veghte, HP’s EVP of software, and its recently appointed Chief Strategy Officer. “That’s an opportunity for you, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

To that end, Hayley Tabor, newly appointed VP of worldwide partnerships and field excellence at HP, announced HP would make significant investments in FY 2012 to assist partners to sell more software and the services around it in attached and delivering solutions.

“We will take our best practices in HP software and leverage those to external partnerships,” she said.

That will include taking HP’s onboarding process for HPs new hires to their internal software sales teams, which walk them through the process of developing new hire productivity, and making it available to partners.

“Tools used internally in HP software are also being made available to partners in a programmatic way,” Tabor said.

All cloud curriculum is also now being made available to partners so they can train their external teams, and 18 certifications will be made available in the next 90 days, she added.

“This is all about investments, sharing tools, sharing assets,” she said.

Tabor also counselled software partners to make use of HP’s newly announced HP Interchange, a social media tool to facilitate partner collaboration.

“It’s a way to connect all of you to drive solutions to our customers,” she said. “You asked us to do that. It will allow you to expand your opportunities to bring HP’s converged infrastructure partners together with software partners.”

Finally to encourage such collaboration, HP announced a special promo targeted at the hardware partners.

“It’s a converged infrastructure partner promotion which allocates more than five million to accelerate growth with converged infrastructure partners over the next six months,” Tabor said.

“As a converged infrastructure partner, if you bring in an opportunity and partner with an HP software partner, HP will provide a 10% bonus on the opportunity,” Tabor said. Partners get a 5% rebate of license sale of any net new software lead that closes. And HP Software will set aside an additional 5% in an investment fund for converged infrastructure partners to invest in HP software, for use in marketing or training.

The latter half of Tabors presentation in the keynote was plagued by a fire alarm in the hotel, which allowed Bill Veghte to get in a good one-liner.

“This promotion is so amazing, the competitors pulled the fire alarm to disrupt,” he said.

Source:http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=27527