HP notified its employees of the program, known as Net Results, earlier this year. As part of the program, HP plans to train 5,000 sales and service workers on .Net as well as certify 3,000 of its consultants to work with the Microsoft initiative, according to a July e-mail to HP employees from services chief Ann Livermore and Enterprise Systems Group head Peter Blackmore.
The deal underscores HP's progress on one of its pre-merger promises: a tighter relationship with Microsoft.
Prior to the merger, Compaq Computer was one of Microsoft's closest partners, even testifying for the software giant during its antitrust trial. HP, however, had a more distant relationship.
Both HP CEO Carly Fiorina and former Compaq CEO cum HP president Michael Capellas had said the new HP would leverage Compaq's relationship in an effort to forge closer ties. That appears to be happening.
"Our relationship has significantly improved," Microsoft group vice president Jim Allchin told CNET News.com earlier this month.
Asked if the Compaq influence was the leading factor, Allchin said, "I suspect that's a large part of it."
Evidence of the closer relationship can be found in several recent announcements: HP will be one of the first to offer PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, and HP's services unit also recently won a deal to manage Microsoft's internal help desk, an expansion of a deal Compaq had prior to the merger.
Not all the moves HP has made since the merger closed indicate a tight relationship. For instance, the company also moved recently to bundle office software from Corel, rather than Microsoft's Works package, on its new consumer Pavilion PCs.
Wylie Wong contributed to this report.
