Automation patterns…any figures?

Market Watch reports:

Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday said it will invest $1 billion to consolidate and automate its data centers, a move that will lead to the elimination of 9,000 jobs over a “multiyear” period.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printing giant /quotes/comstock/13*!hpq/quotes/nls/hpq (HPQ 45.59, +0.01, +0.02%) said annual savings in its enterprise-services division would range from $500 million to $700 million once the transformation is complete. H-P plans to halve the number of data centers its operates to around 50.

Data centers are used to store computerized information of businesses, government agencies and other organizations.

At the same time, H-P said it would hire more than 6,000 workers in sales and other areas of its enterprise-services unit.

The shift toward automation will allow H-P to better deploy assets obtained via the acquisition of EDS in mid-2008, according to the company.

“We see the possibility of taking enterprise services to an entirely new level based on applying H-P industry-leading technology to the services business,” said Cathie Lesjak, H-P’s chief financial officer.

From the HP website:


Tier I: Proof-of-concept testing, porting services, Web testing, solution benchmarking, product/solution demonstrations and training, customer briefings.

Tier II: Solution benchmarking, product/solution demonstrations and training, customer briefings.

Tier III: Product/Solution demonstrations and training, customer briefings.

Are Tier 1 and Tier 2 jobs becoming Tier 3 jobs for people? The trend in this sector has HP a bit behind competitors.