One year after Hewlett Packard and Compaq Computer began their torturous struggle to join forces and 90 days after closing their merger, the new HP is making its first post-merger move in the service provider space. The company laid out a telecom strategy this week that was highlighted by the creation of a combined Network Service Provider Business Unit (NSPBU.)

The new business unit will address service providers through four horizontal domains: the network domain, operations support, consumer and enterprise services, and devices and access. In turn, the network and operations domains will provide solutions across four service segments: network services, mobile services, hosting and managed services, and rich media services.

“We have chosen to group our solutions in such a way that we can address whatever business our customers choose to be in and we see network and operations [requirements] cutting across all customers,” said Joy King, director, worldwide marketing and communications for Hewlett Packard’s NSPBU.

Because Hewlett Packard and Compaq were both seen predominantly as IT companies, much of the focus concerning the merger was on markets other than telecom such as access devices, peripherals, personal computers and servers. With a dedicated business unit for the service provider market, which includes media and entertainment companies, the focus will change despite a dismal market.

“In every situation where significant change occurs, there is opportunity for leaders to emerge that can help,” King said. “And we believe the markets will come to know HP as a leader of change in the industry.”

Some of that change will be through HP’s efforts to drive the industry toward open standards. At the time of the announced merger, said Neil Strothers, senior analyst for Cahners In-Stat Group, “HP’s and Compaq’s heritage of openness could serve the combined companies in the new telecom environment.” The new HP will try to take advantage of that.

“We want to help service providers and network equipment manufacturers evolve from proprietary to open, common industry standards,” King said. “IT companies talk about open systems, but service providers aren’t as committed to open systems as they are to open telecom standards. There’s a difference.”

Compaq Telecom, a division within Compaq that served the telecom market and had good success providing home location directories and other location-based solutions, software stacks and management systems, will be rolled into the new HP business unit. The new HP will combine Compaq’s TeMIP (telecommunications information management) platform with its OpenView network management technology. The company also will consolidate its numerous SS7 protocol stacks and other software stacks into the HP Opencall developer portal.

King says HP has a unique marriage of telecom and IT expertise and solutions that its competitors lack. One of the NSPBU’s goals will be to exploit what it sees as an advantage in order to help service providers extend the power of voice.

“People believe voice is a thing of the past and data and multi-media are the future, but voice is still very much a part of a service provider’s revenue,” King said. “It is important for IT vendors like HP to understand the infrastructure and architecture of voice and help our partners leverage it moving forward.”

Through assets of the old Compaq Telecom and its partnerships with Motorola and others, much of that leverage could be applied in the wireless market.