Joseph Hanania

A familiar and friendly figure, Mr. Hanania's Compaq was the larger of the two companies, even if the takeover was from the HP side. Now customers and channel partners alike will be watching to see how he steers the Middle East's largest IT company forward after nine months of eager anticipation.

All parents know that nine months is a long time to wait, but behind the scenes HP and Compaq have been preparing for this happy event.

'We continue our journey from a position of strength,' Mr. Hanania told a press audience at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai. 'We are already market leader in key sectors in the region including services, storage, printing and imaging, servers and PCs. My job is to ensure that the complementary strengths of HP and Compaq are integrated to meet the needs of our customers'.

His new top management team is already in place. Mr. Hanania will run enterprise systems himself, while Christop Schell heads personal systems, Amr Hassan imaging and printing, and Mike Smith is to head HP Services. The new team appears united and comfortable with the new regional strategy that they have assembled since the Compaq merger was formally announced on May 7.

'There are more management appointments to come,' says Mr. Hanania. 'The merger is moving quickly to execution, and we have a detailed three-year road map that we want to share with clients'.

Mr Hanania told AMEInfo that he saw the biggest growth potential over the next three years in the storage market which translates into demand for HP servers. 'Storage is a key area of growth. We have a leading position with data centers and data warehouses, and will continue to take this position further'.

Despite the hiatus surrounding the merger, HP has continued to close major contracts over the past few months which will help to drive the newly merged group forward. In particular, the new HP will create a complete IT system for the new Emaar Bank, and an e-funds and ATM application for Mashreqbank in the UAE.

Meantime, in Saudi Arabia a huge B2B religious portal is being built for the ministry of the Hajj and there are big new projects for Saudi Aramco and STC. Other large wins include projects for MTC in Kuwait, Petroleum Developments Oman and France Telecom in Lebanon.

So business has certainly not been standing still. But what is the biggest challenge for Mr. Hanania right now?

'Finding the time to implement all the changes and setting priorities for the next two months,' he says. 'But business is all about people and it is the people in this company that make me sure that we will succeed'.

The competition also holds little concern for Mr. Hanania who argues that they have been ineffective in exploiting the opportunity presented by the merger process, and should therefore be not much to worry about now. The impression above all is that HP is getting is act together quickly, and presenting a united front.

Mr. Hanania says his management team will be fully reviewing HP's channel partners and 'seeing which parties have the biggest value'. Clearly not all partners can survive the merger, as there are conflicts in some areas, and HP has its work cut out in deciding the best way to move ahead.

'I think that further consolidation in the IT industry is inevitable, and there will be more deals like HP and Compaq,' says Mr Hanania. 'We will have the benefit of being ahead on this one'.