Trends in business IT include allow users to choose the software and services they need from a self-service catalog, and for IT organisations to act as service brokers, bringing together internally provided and externally sourced services in a consistent manner.

And providing users with a single point of contact for all service-related issues is a well-established practice.

New versions of two HP products address these areas.

The updated HP Propel (pictured above) is what the company calls "the industry's first single 'front door' to IT", incorporating patented technology to provide access to public cloud, private cloud and on premises services, as well as physical products such as a phone SIM or a desktop printer.

It aggregates catalogs from multiple sources, and automates service delivery.

While it simplifies employee onboarding, it also covers "a myriad of services during the lifecycle of an employee," HP Software general manager Branko Bugarski told iTWire.

"Making it simple at the front makes it more complicated at the back end," he said, but Propel had its roots in HP's services business, and the company's experience with outsourcing deals means the software provides out-of-the-box integration with cloud and other providers.

HP has already had local success with Propel, for example in the government sector. "It seems to hit the sweet spot that customers need," he told iTWire

Propel is licensed software that is delivered on a project basis, and is therefore applicable to organisations with substantial IT departments, Bugarski explained. There has been significant interest from managed service providers, he added.

Features of the new version include an improved user interface, orchestration capability suitable for a global supply chain, and integration with service management systems including BMC Remedy, ServiceNow and HP Operations Orchestration.

Turning to the area of service desks, HP Service Anywhere has also been updated.

Service Anywhere is a SaaS product, but with prices in the tens of thousands of dollars it is not one that would appeal to most small businesses. The likely market is the high end of midrange as well as enterprise scale organisations, though HP's managed service provider partners may take it to a broader market.

A key part of Service Anywhere is that it uses analytics to improve self-service capabilities - it's more about avoiding trouble tickets rather than dealing with them more efficiently, Bugarski told iTWire.

Thus it can be seen as a 'big data service desk' or a 'ticketless service desk', he said, reducing the load on support staff by providing tools for self-service and peer support.

The new version includes improvements to the user interface, analytics and recommendations, as well as an updated IT service management module and a new application portfolio management component that helps determine which applications are most suited to cloud deployment and the type of cloud that is the best fit for a particular application.