Hewlett-Packard has announced plans to expand their Software as a Service offerings this week under their Business Technology Optimization umbrella. The BTO offering covers a variety of IT service management applications, from availability and performance monitoring to project and portfolio management.

This is part of a more general trend by vendors to branch out into services as well as providing hardware and software-beginning with managed deployment and consulting services and gradually expending into more outsourced offerings to take the rudimentary work of managing infrastructure out of the client's hands. HP has the jump on this; despite persistent rumors, Dell has yet to come out with anything comparable.

My favorite quote from the press release:

"The value of IT management software is not derived from its deployment," said Ray Paquet, managing vice president, Gartner. "Rather, the benefit comes from its use. Software-as-a-Service helps organizations quickly unlock the value to the business."

Of course, the value of IT management software can be in its deployment, but only if you're the vendor or consultant handling it. If you're a CIO, though, you might give HP a look so you can get to the "quickly unlocking value" part of the proposition.