HP customers benefit because the roadmap simplifies their transition from point asset management and service desk products to an integrated management platform.

As the storage hardware market continues to grow, storage management is one of the fastest-growing areas of storage service with compound annual growth of over nine percent. While compliance, data security and other high profile factors have an impact on storage management growth, the biggest single factor is businesses trying to cope with the growing complexity of their storage environments.

We have a long-standing professional relationship with the Minerals Management Service. There's no animosity but we do disagree on owing on certain leases. If we are unable to resolve it, we'll see judicial review. To sum it up, we upheld our end. Now we expect the government to do the same.

HP takes a federated approach with most of the emphasis on the reconciliation engine. Federation allows customers to leverage their existing product implementations and helps IT organizations build towards a complete picture in a stepwise manner, [which is] a good thing since no right-thinking CIO will launch a multi-year, mega-integration project where benefits are only derived at the end.

While the HP story has been strengthened with Peregrine's asset discovery capabilities, the acquisition of most of its relationship discovery partners leaves them vulnerable.

The market is consolidating and they're getting squeezed in the middle.