HPE Debuts ProLiant Easy Connect Platform for SMBs

By The VAR Guy

HPE is looking to capture a larger share of the SMB market with the launch of the ProLiant Easy Connect Managed Hybrid solution, the first in a new series of plug and play devices for small and mid-sized businesses sold exclusively through the channel.

The Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) ProLiant Easy Connect is a subscription-based server that combines on-premise storage with the ability to manage files remotely via the cloud. The device is meant to help SMBs quickly and easily spin up a hybrid cloud server that is both secure and manageable from anywhere, according to McLeod Glass, vice president and general manager of SMB solutions and Tower Servers at HPE.

“Small businesses want to focus on growing their core businesses, not spending their limited resources on deploying and managing IT,” he said. “This new solution is part of a broad HPE initiative, inspired by the unique needs of small and mid-sized businesses, to deliver innovative solutions that are easy for our channel partners to sell and easy for our customers to use.”

According to a study from AMI Partners, the lack of user-friendly cloud solutions has actually caused many SMB users to switch back to on-premise solutions. To counteract this trend, HPE is working with Zynstra, which specializes in cloud management software and virtualization solutions, to make their latest piece of hardware easier to set up and manage for SMBs without advanced IT capabilities.

“The cool thing about this is it delivers value to the end customer and the partner as well,” said McLeod. “The SMB market is a very important market for us. We’re looking for innovative ways to solve their problems and partners are very important in that [journey].”

Currently, partners can choose to offer either a 12-month subscription plan or a three-year subscription plan, according to McLeod. A pay-per-month plan will also be made available in the near future.

HPE plans to make the ProLiant Easy Connect Hybrid solution available to partners in the United States and UK beginning on April 28^th. The company did not comment on planned availability for the rest of its global channel partners.

HPE did not comment on product details regarding the rest of the Easy Connect family of solutions.

This post was originally published at: http://thevarguy.com/smb/hpe-debuts-proliant-easy-connect-platform-smbs