Techaisle Blog

In the ever-evolving technological landscape, businesses often stand at a crossroads, compelled to adapt to emerging trends and customer needs. HP, a renowned player in the personal computing arena, remains committed to adapting to changing trends and meeting customer needs. This year alone, the company has unveiled over 150 products. At the inaugural HP Imagine 2023 event, it showcased a range of products and solutions centered around three key trends shaping its offerings: workplace flexibility, the use of AI to enhance productivity and transform PCs into “personal companions,” and the importance of trust—aligning HP’s values with its customers, with a strong focus on sustainability.

HP has demonstrated its adaptability by launching two innovative products: the HP Spectre Foldable PC and the HP Envy Move. It has also introduced Managed Collaboration Services and HP Protect and Trace with Wolf Connect to address users’ productivity and endpoint security needs. Furthermore, it has expanded its collaboration offerings with the launch of the Poly Studio R30+ Bundle. The company also emphasizes enhancing partner growth and customer experiences, as evidenced by its partner ecosystem, including the HP Amplify program.

HP’s Innovative Solutions for Flexible Work Environments: The Spectre Foldable PC and Envy Move

HP’s innovation is significantly driven by what it calls the ‘era of flexibility.’ The swift shift towards hybrid and remote work arrangements in recent years has necessitated organizations to adapt to fluctuating work environments. Consequently, HP is dedicated to offering adaptable solutions, such as devices that effortlessly adjust to diverse work settings, ranging from kitchen counters to executive boardrooms. In alignment with this commitment, it has unveiled two state-of-the-art products – the HP Spectre Foldable PC and the HP Envy Move.

The HP Spectre Foldable PC touted as the world’s thinnest and smallest foldable PC, is a 17-inch, 3-in-1 device that serves as a laptop, tablet, and desktop, ensuring versatility and portability. Its foldable screen enables it to morph into a large tablet compatible with a stylus, a 12.3-inch laptop coupled with a detachable Bluetooth keyboard, and a desktop PC equipped with a built-in kickstand. This device offers flexibility without compromising performance, making it an optimal choice for mobile professionals needing a robust and adaptable computing solution.

The HP Envy Move is another innovative device, a 23.8-inch portable PC hailed as the world’s only movable all-in-one PC. This product caters to the needs of home-based workers, offering flexibility and mobility. It can be effortlessly relocated from one room to another without being bound to a power source. Its built-in handle, lightweight design, and self-deploying kickstand make it perfect for remote workers seeking a large screen without the bulkiness of a traditional laptop.

The Future of AI with HP: Personalized PCs and Collaborative Data Science Platforms

According to data from Techaisle, it is projected that the global IT expenditure of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will escalate to a staggering US$1.35 trillion by 2024. Furthermore, this spending is anticipated to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.7%, extending through 2028. Cisco is making a significant push into the SMB market, a segment where it has enjoyed steady growth. In fiscal year 2023, which concluded in July, the SMB segment was Cisco’s top-performing customer category for a third consecutive year. Cisco sees this segment as a $25 billion addressable market opportunity, captured with mid to high-tier SMBs transitioning to cloud and SaaS solutions. Notably, about 20% of Cisco’s SMB business comes from new customers every year, underscoring this segment's critical role in expanding Cisco’s reach and reflecting on the growing demand for technology amongst SMBs.

Cisco’s go-to-market in the SMB segment is partner-led, catalyzed with continuous partner-focused programs, initiatives, and marketing investments to foster robust relationships. According to the latest research by Techaisle, a significant majority of SMBs, 87%, depend on their partners for technology solutions. Furthermore, these SMBs channel nearly 89% of their IT expenditure through these partners. Cisco is, therefore, continuously enhancing its engagement with partners, revamping its marketing strategies, and adapting to the changing needs of its customers. A vital part of this strategy is the focus on the new “Scale” go-to-market initiative, aligned to engaging SMB customers and Partners in this space, as unveiled at the company’s sales kickoff meeting in August. This model offers partners and customers enhanced sales and marketing support, ensuring that SMBs receive expert advice in crucial care-about areas such as cybersecurity or hybrid work.

The concept of “digital transformation” has become a staple in corporate discussions over the years. While some may write it off as a fad, many, particularly SMBs, understand its importance. For these businesses, digital transformation involves adopting digital technologies to streamline operations, improve customer relationships, and position themselves as agile and innovative entities in their respective fields. Techaisle data reveals that 71% of SMBs are investing in digital transformation, and 37% have a holistic digital strategy. SMBs, once perceived as technologically behind, are actively embracing cloud solutions to meet their IT requirements. These technologies have become crucial to their digital transformation journey, enabling them to automate various operational aspects and gain a competitive advantage through essential business process automation tools, orchestration, and integration or advanced offerings like custom AI and analytics applications hosted on cloud platforms.

SMB buyers are acutely aware of the threat cyber attacks pose to their businesses. The Techaisle SMB and Midmarket Security Adoption Trends survey of 2,035 IT and business decision-makers from SMB and upper midmarket firms found that nearly 30% of SMBs (1-999 employees) consider cyber attacks to be among the top three issues facing their business, with an additional 26% stating that it is the most pressing/critical IT issue facing their firms. However, less than half of the respondents were more optimistic, choosing one of three responses: “it is a critical issue, but we have established best practices to control cyber attacks,” “it is one of many different issues, and we are satisfied with our status,” or “cyber attacks are not a significant issue.”

Drilling down, we see that small businesses (1-99 employees) are less inclined to see cyber threats as a top-one IT issue or a top-three business issue; this likely arises from the fact that SMBs have less mature IT operations (meaning that many factors that are controlled in larger firms could represent top IT issues) and that they face a wide array of daily business challenges. The data showing that small businesses are likelier to have established best practices to control cyber attacks probably isn’t grounded in market reality: small businesses that handle security internally lack the resources needed to deploy optimal defenses.

However, those relying on a capable third party may reasonably claim to use best practices. Most worrying from this data, though, are the top two bars, indicating that 22% see cybersecurity as “one of many issues, and we are satisfied with our status,” with another 12% claiming that “cyber-attacks are not a significant issue.” There are small businesses – for example, individuals billing larger businesses for hourly labor – for whom cyber attacks wouldn’t represent a critical issue. However, the data shows that one-third of small businesses are unconcerned about cybersecurity. In contrast, independent studies show that most small businesses fail within six months of being breached. Techaisle thinks these businesses likely struggle to find financial justification for investments in meaningful cyber defense and instead persuade themselves that this is not a real business problem for them. Techaisle suspects that many of these firms are tuned into vulnerabilities associated with digital business practices and might be persuadable concerning the value of cybersecurity if issues and remedies were clearly and convincingly presented to them.

Core midmarket (100-999 employees) and upper midmarket (1000-4999 employees) businesses take a more proactive view of these issues. Approximately two-thirds of respondents in each group view cyber attacks as either their most critical IT issue or a top-three business issue, with the core midmarket group evenly split between these positions and the upper midmarket more likely to identify cyber as a top IT concern. More than 80% of these organizations are focused on establishing effective cyber defenses and should be viewed as prime candidates for effective solutions.

Should SMBs worry about cyber attacks?

The data above begs a related question: Is the lack of concern demonstrated by small businesses rooted in reality – is it the case that one-third of respondents don’t have much to fear from cyber-attacks?

According to recent survey data from Techaisle, the use of Generative-AI is rapidly increasing within SMBs and midmarket firms. The survey found that AI has become a priority for 53% of small businesses, up from 41% in April 2023. Among core-midmarket firms, 87% prioritize AI, up from 75% in April 2023. Similarly, 89% of upper-midmarket firms prioritize AI, compared to 87% in April 2023. Overall, 60% of SMBs and 84% of midmarket firms are either using or planning to use Generative-AI within the next six months.

The survey also found that between 40% and 45% of midmarket firms have developers and architects specializing in AI/ML, DevOps, hybrid cloud, and app modernization. Additionally, between 35% and 45% of these firms plan to increase their investments in Edge computing, Containers, Open-source technologies, app development, and analytics. Most notably, 72% of midmarket firms are increasing their in-house hiring for Generative-AI.