HP to Acquire Talking Blocks

Acquiring Talking Blocks furthers the HP Adaptive Enterprise strategy to help enterprises measure, architect and manage change by creating a tighter linkage between business and IT. Talking Blocks' standards-based Service Oriented Architecture helps companies integrate disparate internal systems and the systems of external business partners as well as manage Web services use in highly flexible environments.

Serving as a foundation for integrating management information, Talking Blocks' Service Oriented Architecture manages the relationships of services and their users and controls their interactions in a secure manner. Enterprises can use this technology to reduce the costs and complexity associated with managing their heterogeneous IT resources.

The acquisition also builds upon HP's leadership position in driving standards for, and the company's existing investment in, Web services management. HP recently helped eliminate a key barrier to the development and deployment of Web services with the release of its HP Web Services Management Framework, a domain-, platform- and vendor-neutral management interface jointly developed with industry partners. Talking Blocks' technology will enable HP to quickly deliver a proven, feature-rich Web services management platform that will support the HP Web Services Management Framework.

"Enterprise customers demand more flexibility from their technology investments, and HP is helping them move to an IT architecture in which all IT 'functions' are offered as services that expose management information about themselves - regardless of origin - and then interact with each other so that they can quickly adapt to change," said Nora Denzel, senior vice president, HP Software Global Business Unit.
"Talking Blocks' proven Service Oriented Architecture and its expertise in the Web services management space accelerate HP's ability to deliver this agility to our customers and is the next step in helping our customers transform into adaptive enterprises through management software."

"Talking Blocks will be a perfect fit with HP," said Mark Potts, chief technology officer, Talking Blocks. "HP is the leader in delivering highly adaptive and cost-effective solutions for IT infrastructures, and Talking Blocks' combination of exceptional talent and technology bring a strong synergy to complement HP's Adaptive Enterprise strategy. "

Among the strengths of the Talking Blocks Service Oriented Architecture is its ability to connect and integrate Web and legacy services, and, ultimately, the services and systems that comprise business processes.
This makes the technology an ideal basis for the "infrastructure" design principle of the HP Darwin Reference Architecture, a standards-based framework for architecting and integrating a heterogeneous IT environment.

With the acquisition of Talking Blocks, HP plans to take advantage of a number of technology and market opportunities by enabling enterprise customers to:

* Reduce the expense of custom integration development through
Talking Blocks' platform-neutral, standards-based technology that supports plug-in integration with other services, including legacy services;

* Quickly and cost-effectively eliminate the need for duplicate
development by enabling reuse of services;

* Seamlessly and securely integrate services both inside and
outside the firewall for optimum compatibility and integration;

* Accelerate enterprise customers' realization of the value of
true enterprise-class Web services outside the firewall; and

* Automatically register, catalogue and manage access to Web
services; route, track and meter usage; and assure they meet  defined
service level agreements.

"A services oriented approach to application integration through Web services is a key component of Kaiser Permanente's Enterprise Collaboration Architecture, and Talking Blocks' Service Oriented Architecture is critical to the use of Web services to manage non-functional requirements such as scalability and reliability," said Steven Burke, senior manager, Web Services Oversight Group, Kaiser Permanente. "HP's acquisition of Talking Blocks, recognized for proven technology and standards contributions, is not only strategic to industry-wide adoption of Web services management standards, but also leads the way for the enterprise deployment and management of Web services at Kaiser Permanente."

Upon completion of the transaction, which is expected later this month, Talking Blocks products will be available through HP OpenView software channels and will be leveraged by HP's Enterprise Systems Group and HP Consulting and Integration Services.

Today's announcement marks the latest in a series of milestones HP has achieved in charting a new generation of management software to manage and control an adaptive enterprise and keep IT supply perfectly synchronized with changing business demands, according to Denzel.

HP management software and services range from monitoring and alerting managers to system-level problems to providing a 360-degree view of the enterprise and capabilities to automatically optimize IT asset utilization.
More information about HP Adaptive Enterprise solutions is available at http://www.hp.com/go/adaptive.

Contactpersonen voor
de redactie:

Jos Baltes
030-283 3237
jos.baltes@hp.com
of
H&K/MCS, Marieke Leenhouts
023-562 8208
mariekel@monogram.nl

Hewlett-Packard Company
Startbaan 16
1187 XR Amstelveen
www.hp.nl

Over HP
HP levert wereldwijd relevante technologie van vitaal belang voor werk en prive. Het aanbod van HP omvat IT infrastructuur, global services, personal computing en access devices, en imaging en printing oplossingen voor consumenten, grote, middelgrote en kleine organisaties. De laatste vier kwartalen behaalde HP wereldwijd een omzet van $ 70,4 miljard. Meer informatie over HP is te vinden op www.hp.nl. (c) 2003 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.