KEY POINTS:
E-Passport software developed by its programmers in Christchurch has helped global IT giant Hewlett-Packard to win business around the world, prompting one of the company's top executives to pop down to check out the talent.
"There are some very talented software developers in HP Services in New Zealand and we want to make sure we can use them on a worldwide basis," Tony Redmond told the Herald during a whistle-stop tour of the country.
Redmond is vice-president and chief technology officer for HP Services, the business consultancy arm of the sprawling company which does everything from selling printer ink to managing massive IT networks for governments.
He is one of six group CTOs who report to the company's executive vice-president and chief strategy and technology officer, Shane Robison, who in turn reports to CEO and president Mark Hurd.
Despite having his head in the technology stratosphere, Redmond is more super-exec than uber-nerd. A key part of his job is driving the business strategy behind HP's plans for world domination. He and the other CTOs work together out of the company's "office of strategy and technology" where they plot mergers and acquisitions as well as invent cool new stuff.
"It's our belief that inventing technology is all very well but unless you can take business advantage of it then it's really not too much use to you," he says. "That's the reason why we've very deliberately put technology and strategy together."
For HP, clever business strategy can encompass everything from maximising the potential of its strong partnership with Microsoft, through to cashing in on the growing post-9/11 demand for improved government identity management tools such as passport systems.
The Christchurch development work is a case in point, with the company finding a global spinoff to work it has done here as part of the Government's project to introduce chip-carrying e-passports.
"I am already using the Christchurch development group to build components specifically around national identification systems.
"We were able to take some stuff that was built in Europe as the basis of the Microsoft national identification framework, transition it here to New Zealand and the guys down in Christchurch were able to take that code, rewrite it to make it much more scalable, much more flexible.
"HP's been able to use that code around the world. Last week we had a very nice win in the Slovak Republic which is based off that code."
But while Redmond may be a business strategy maestro, he also has a geeky core. He is quick to show off HP's latest pre-release top-end corporate cellphone, and has has written 10 books on various aspects of electronic messaging within the corporate environment.
"I find sitting down and writing is a great experience. It's a great way to be able to force myself to go through that technical discipline of understanding the technology, simplifying the technology and then communicating the technology.
"As well as that it allows me to have an interaction with customers. I'm not just a talking head, I'm someone who comes in and actually knows a little bit about a particular technology. And by the way, it fills hours and hours of what would otherwise be very boring time spent in hotels or in aeroplanes."
