OREANDA-NEWS. June 16, 2011. Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) today announced plans to work with HP on smart community technology and business opportunities globally. Toshiba and HP plan to work together to identify and develop opportunities to help realize their shared smart community vision and to capitalize on the work both companies are strategically focused on in the areas of cloud, networking and intelligent infrastructures.

Today, most information systems that support social infrastructure, including utilities, water supply, transportation, telecommunications, medicine and public services, operate in a closed loop environment within each individual industry or field of application. In future smart communities, cloud computing is expected to realize all-the-time, everywhere synergistic collaboration among IT systems and services, and with that even more convenient and comfortable lifestyles, by simultaneously contributing to energy conservation and realizing a greener planet.

"We believe that a synergistic convergence of Toshiba's rich expertise in social infrastructure applications and solutions with HP's advanced IT infrastructure, solutions and cloud services will open up ways to provide outstanding excellence in the ever-growing smart community business field," said Mr. Toshiharu Watanabe, Corporate Executive Vice President and General Manager of Smart Community Div., Toshiba Corporation.

"Powerful demographic changes are forcing organizations to find smarter ways to manage and deliver critical resources and services such as energy, healthcare, education and transportation," said Brian Cohen, Vice President, Enterprise Sales Strategy and Global Accounts, HP. "HP has developed and is researching technologies designed to fundamentally transform today's infrastructures to deliver secure, seamless, context-aware experiences for consumers, communities and businesses. Our collaboration with Toshiba is intended to support our growth in delivering these solutions."

Toshiba established a dedicated Smart Community Business Division to promote its smart community business in October 2010. The division reports directly to the president & CEO. The company aims to expand its smart community related business, including smart grid and building facilities, from 300 billion yen in FY2010 to 900 billion yen by FY2015.

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world's largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world.