By Lee Johns 

Our new colleagues at LeftHand Networks have big smiles on their faces today. And with good reason too. CDW has named LeftHand its "Partner of the Year" for 2008. The award recognizes LeftHand Networks for "its unique marketing programs and solid field engagement, as well as its strong sales growth at CDW." All of us in the HP StorageWorks business are excited about the merging of our two organizations and the innovations in industry-leading SAN solutions we'll be delivering to customers. You can read more about the award here: http://newsroom.cdw.com/news-releases/news-release-11-24-08.html.

I would like to highlight that when making acquisitions it is important to consider all aspects of a companies viability and strategic fit. LeftHand Networks brought to HP:

• Great technology and products for iSCSI SANs.
• A strong presence in midmarket customers in North America.
• Leadership virtualization technology
• A product architecture running on industry standard servers that provides unique possibilities for HP

However as we talked with them we realized one of their strongest assets was their shared passion with HP for the reseller community and the innovative apprach they have taken to be the best partner they can be. This award from CDW rightly recognizes them for their innovation outside of their product engineering.

You can learn more about our LeftHand Networks portfolio by going here: www.hp.com/go/LeftHandNetworks

OH, and don't ever let anyone tell you that an old dog can't learn new tricks.

Lee Johns, Director of Marketing for Entry Storage