Microsoft has a big win in the public cloud wars. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which was half of the original HP just a few weeks ago, will soon start offering Microsoft Azure public cloud services to its customers.
This is significant because for a few years HP offered its own public cloud service. Then just last month the company announced it would shut down the service. Today during HP's conference call with financial analysts, the CEO announced a new partnership with Microsoft that will include both public and a kind of hybrid cloud.
Here is a relevant excerpt from the announcement:
“In line with this approach, we have reached a strategic agreement with Microsoft and you will hear more about it during Discover next week. Microsoft shares our view of a hybrid approach to enterprise IT and we also both see the opportunity to simplify hybrid infrastructure for our customers. Moving forward, Microsoft Azure will become the preferred public cloud partner and HP the preferred provider of Microsoft infrastructure and services for hybrid cloud offerings.”
HP is essentially going against Amazon. Amazon's online services as a fully-fledged operating division within Amazon is big enough to generate more than $2 billion in revenue and more than $500 million in operating income in a single quarter. Many companies are now collaborating to try to outdo Amazon and are using software and hardware in internal data centers as strategic forces.
Having a legitimate public cloud and no services to maintain will help Hewlett Packard. The courtesy of a hybrid cloud business wouldn't hurt either.
