I just returned from a long trip to the US that included a two-day study tour at HP's headquarters in Houston with senior IT managers and CIOs from different companies. Obviously, I can't go into any confidential details but I can share some general impressions:

• There is a growing interest in desktop, application and server virtualisation.
• Power management and green issues generally are also increasingly important.
• People are looking into consumerisation - letting staff buy and use their own PCs and providing secure 'walled gardens' for corporate applications on them.
• Ever present, more in the background because it is a universal concern, was issues around managing big fleets of PCs and the attendant inventory, security, maintenance and support challenges.

We had long days of presentations, demos and discussion. Some of the highlights for me were:

• HP's Halo video conferencing system. I've seen video conferencing before but this was much, much better. The whole system is designed to give you the sense of being in the same room and it really works.
• HP's future notebook strategy and product design. Can't say anything about it except "Wow!" Last year, they demoed a notebook that became the 2133 Mini-Note. I saw it then and bought one as soon as it came out. I'm already saving up for the next round of new laptops!actual microsoft exam answers
• We had a long talk about how HP had consolidated its data centres (85 large and 600 small-ish ones worldwide) into just six. It's an extraordinary story and it shows HP 'eating its own dog food'.

[@more@]I just returned from a long trip to the US that included a two-day study tour at HP's headquarters in Houston with senior IT managers and CIOs from different companies. Obviously, I can't go into any confidential details but I can share some general impressions: