HP celebrates 25 years of business with its partners this year, and says that it recognizes that the channel has had to adapt to changing business environments.

According to Jos Brenkel, vice-president: solution partners organization, HP EMEA: 'Today's channel model has nothing to do with number of shipments. But it has everything to do with driving revenue and optimizing profit margins, hence the conference's theme: 'Masters of the Game'.'

According to Jim McDonnell, senior vice-president: solution partners organization, HP, in Q3 this year, partners drove somewhere around 11 percent of growth for HP, totalling US$15 billion.

Also at the conference, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, spoke at length on the need for innovation, but said that innovation had to happen in the right areas.