Wyse Technology: We're Benefiting From HP's PC Uncertainty

Wyse, which considers HP a key rival, claims that it enjoyed the biggest sales day in its 30-year history the day after HP's blockbuster revelation.

"We were pleasantly shocked by the number of channel partners and distributors who called and told us their customers were cancelling HP orders en masse," said Jeff McNaught, chief marketing and strategy officer at Wyse, in an interview at VMworld.

HP shocked the IT industry with its Aug. 18 announcement that it's exploring a potential spin-off or sale of its Personal Systems Group, which includes the industry's largest PC business.

HP didn't address whether it is seeing customer cancellations of any pending orders in the wake of its PSG announcement, but said the PSG business continues to be healthy.

“The HP business remains strong across all of our business units, PSG included. Plain and simple," an HP spokesperson said. "We remain committed to the health and growth of our Personal Computing business as we do all of our businesses, and we remain committed to our channel partners, who continue to play a critical and strategic role in HP’s go-to-market strategy now and in the future.”

Wyse, which as a thin client vendor considers itself a natural foe of PC vendors, has dedicated space on the Wyse.com homepage to information about helping HP PC customers move to Wyse products.

"HP has discovered what our many thousands of customers around the world already know -- cloud client computing is far more secure, reliable, and less costly than PCs," Wyse says on its homepage.

Wyse has posted a chart that shows a list of HP thin clients and their corresponding Wyse alternatives. Wyse President and CEO Tarkan Maner said plans are to also create a financial incentive program for HP customers that replace their clients with Wyse products.

"Our goal is not to push more technology down people's throats," Maner told CRN. "We believe that people will naturally gravitate to VDI and thin clients. Since HP customers are now struggling, we're trying to give them a new path."

HP, meanwhile, has held out the possibility that it might decide to keep its PSG business. But earlier this week Todd Bradley, executive vice president of PSG, said a spin-off would be the most probable scenario. No matter what HP decides, Wyse sees a chance to lure HP customers and is charging ahead with this goal in mind.

"HP is moving away from cloud and toward Big Data. We wish them well in their new market, but as their biggest rival, this is an opportunity for us," McNaught said. "We're going to be here long term."