Savvy acquisitions and a perfect storm of trends and economics have given HP's software unit a prominence few would have predicted five years ago. But today HP Software has a big fat data center transformation opportunity staring it in the face.

This isn't your father's ink and PC business. As HP can leverage the open source and Microsoft ecologies, play second source to IBM in many markets (and bigger player in quite a few) and double its services reach with EDS, the enterprise software share of wallet landscape globally is facing disruption and opportunity.

The big question facing HP now is how they make that disruption work for them more than it works against them. Today, in keynote presentations at the opening of the HP Software Universe conference at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas, part of the answer become clearer. (Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.)

Tom Hogan, senior vice president of HP Software, described the challenges facing CIOs as very hard and getting harder, with the need to adjust to growing risks as well as new opportunities such as mashups, social networks and Web 2.0.

HP says it has a lifeline for the IT departments and leaders over the next five years. The goal is to cut the relative size of IT budgets to revenue for HP's customers. Some of those savings need to shift from operations to innovation, said Hogan. See news from the conferences.

The IT and business growth winners over the next five years will both master efficiency while increasing innovation, he said. HP is spending on R&D and mergers and acquisitions to allow its customers to progress.

The focus on information management is a next large initiative for HP, an area where IBM has been aggressive in acquisitions and market-focused solutions. I guess we can expect R&D and M&A there this year from HP. Maybe an open source database makes sense? Makes sense to me.

Quality, risk, speed, cost, insight, alignment -- these are the areas that HP will provide means for improvement for its customers, said Hogan.