PALO ALTO – Hewlett-Packard wants to simplify security for small companies that don?t have IT resources or security knowledge.
HP has teamed with Symantec to help businesses avoid virus and spyware attacks but will also offers services for patch management and data backup. HP is charging $20 per month per employee for the new product the company calls Smart Desktop Management Service.
HP said the service will help small and midsize businesses keep critical business processes running and will back up the most important data for customers. But HP was unclear about its commitment to pay up if it lost any customer data.
“It’s a good question, but I don’t know the answer,” said Kevin Gilroy, senior vice president and general manager for HP’s small and medium-size business unit. “The question that is interesting is how you put a value on that data.”
But the importance of data protection, integrity and availability to small and medium-sized businesses is evident in the statistics from a recent University of Texas study of companies that suffered from catastrophic data loss due to disaster. The study showed that 43 percent never reopened and 51 percent closed within two years.
