Hewlett-Packard Teams With Viador, Promotes High Standards

Hewlett-Packard will use Viador Inc.'s E-Portal Suite as thecornerstone of its enterprise information portal initiative, the two companies announced yesterday. HP and Viador will offer a joint implementation service for customers building enterprise portals using the Viador technology.

The consulting operations of the two companies are combining their portal expertise to create a joint portal implementation methodology, says John Santaferraro, E- intelligence marketing manager at HP. "This is our entree into the EIP arena," he says.

HP and Viador already offer a proof-of-concept service, priced at $10,000, which provides customers with a prototype portal system. Later this year the companies will offer services for building and deploying a complete EIP system in six weeks or less. Those services will be provided on a hosted basis: Once the portal system is complete, customers can bring it in-house or continue to have HP and Viador host it. Pricing for the development and deployment services will be based on the number of users, the amount of data to be accessible, server size, bandwidth and other system attributes.

HP yesterday also continued its promotion of high standards in the area of network quality of service with the HP ProCurve Networking strategy, which creates a logical framework for moving a network from the provisioning stage to controlling traffic; prioritizing; and, ultimately, reserving and guaranteeing bandwidth. HP ProCurve consists of the company's WebQoS, TopTools for Hubs & Switches, and free software upgrades.

Separately, Intel will disclose today that it is making available a software development kit for network device and solution vendors designed to help users better manage bandwidth in heterogeneous environments. The kit will guide vendors in implementing the Common Open Services Policies protocol in policy servers, traffic managers, network appliances, and network clients, such as hubs, switches, and routers. The protocol, which is supported by Intel, is being evaluated as a standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Systems based on COPS should let companies collaboratively specify, maintain, and enforce policies, such as levels of security and quality of service, across different network equipment and services on the Internet or a corporate intranet. The kit is due the first quarter of next year.