TechSmart (TS): What do you see as being the three key tech trends for 2013?

 

Thibault Dousson (TD): Touch computing, driven by Windows 8, is going to be big news this year. With Windows 8 especially, I think we’ll see early adoption firstly on the consumer side and then the corporate market.

 

Cloud computing will still be top of mind for most CIOs, with a strong focus on how to secure their data in the cloud. This will allow companies to not only give their employees real flexibility and increased productivity, but to enable customer-centric solutions that provide confidence and agility.

 

Although mobility and BYOD aren’t new trends, companies are looking for the best ways to procure – and secure – mobility-enabling kit for their employees. From a security point of view, CIOs will have to drive this through various employee purchase programmes, or face the consequences of individuals bringing unsupported devices into their IT environment.

 

 

TD: Without wanting to sound too biased here, I am a huge fan of HP’s PocketPlaylist. With no internet connection required while streaming, and no need for a data plan, the device streams unencrypted content such as movies, music, TV shows and photos to up to five mobile devices at the same time.

 

Like I said earlier, touch will really take off this year and transform itself from being a mobile feature to a familiar feature on laptops. HP actually has quite a few products focusing on touch already, namely the Envy 4 Touch, the ElitePad 900, the Envy X2 and the Pavilion Sleekbook Touch.

 

TS: So what can we expect from HP in 2013?

 

TD: Our strategy is clear: deliver HP’s full range of hardware, software and services in a way that makes the most sense to our customers. As a team, we are more motivated than ever to prove that HP is a leader in the ICT industry, that we’re evolving to meet the needs of the modern computing world and that we are here to stay.

 

 

TD: HP’s play is to build tablets that appeal to the enterprise, with all the applications they’re used to running, and all the security and manageability features in Windows that tend to make CIOs comfortable. Our advantage is that that HP knows how enterprises buy their hardware. We’ve just launched a Windows 8-based tablet, the HP ElitePad, which arrives in South Africa tomorrow, which is going to be very competitive in this space.

 

TS: In the printer space, what trends can we expect from a business and consumer point of view? Do people still need printers?

 

TD: The market for printing is characterised by intense competition and growing user mobility, with the proliferation of mobile devices suggesting a preference for the electronic page rather than the printed page.

 

Make no mistake, people are still using printers, but our approach to market goes beyond just printing. We are focused on document management and workflow as well, supporting the general move from paper to digital business processes. HP has a very successful Ink Advantage campaign that we launched last year to the consumer and SMB markets, which allows you to print double the number of pages at the same cost.