HP has unveiled its management software product road map for dozens of products through 2005, describing software to manage Wi-Fi and voice-over-IP networks as well as a Linux-based management server, among others.
Most of the new-release descriptions were vague, simply stating that new versions of well-known products such as OpenView Operations will appear by the end of 2005.
HP makes product road map presentations each year at the HP Software Forum 2004 but doesn't publish any press releases or statements about the road maps.
One significant announcement, however, was that a new product, OpenView Operations for Linux, will appear sometime in 2005.
It was expected to start out as an entry-level management server based on Linux, director of application management products at HP, Scott Fulton, said.
HP had already ventured into the Linux world with its OpenView Network Node Manager running on Linux, he said.
That product was released at the end of last year.
A new product called IP Telephony Voice Path Analysis would be released by the end of this year, Fulton said.
It would address the growing need for prioritising voice traffic over IP networks as VoIP's popularity grows. A Wi-Fi network management product would appear in 2005, he said.
Joe Gersch, a director of OpenView Forum International, an independent user group with 7,000 members that sponsors the HP Software Forum jointly with HP, said he found the VoIP and Wi-Fi management announcements forward-thinking because of the growth in both markets.
But Gersch said the products with greater long-term impact would come from a push into business process management, with the first release of Business Process Insight next month.
A BPI revision would appear in 2005 that automatically allocated IT resources such as servers and switches to maximise system performance, Fulton said. It would be based, in part, on technology from two companies, Novadigm and Consera, that HP purchased.
In addition, HP's OpenView Network Node Manager would have its 7.5 release later this year, and a full 8.0 version will appear next year, he said.
Another product HP introduced this week, Route Analytics Management System, would be updated to Version 2.5 by the end of the year, with Version 3.0 coming next year, Fulton said.
