Microsoft and HP to sell Clouds together

Cloud Computing can be deployed not only in platforms like Amazon, Google App Engine or Windows Azure. The Cloud becomes a popular solution, needed by large enterprises, service providers and large SaaS companies. And the competition on this market is so high that even such giants as Microsoft and HP prefer not to play alone. Today the companies announced the alliance for creation and sale of cloud-solutions. The partnership is valued at $250 million. Microsoft and HP already have an experience of creating the Windows Azure cloud, that runs on HP gear. Microsoft-HP cloud solutions will obviously provide a high level of integration between hardware and Windows-based software environment.

Nevertheless, the partnership between Microsoft and HP - is not so much an attempt to capture the market, but an attempt to defend their position against the rivals. Last year Cisco made a revolution in Cloud Computing, when it launched the new innovative line of servers specifically targeting cloud systems, and then formed an alliance with VMWare and EMC to create optimized cloud-solutions that integrate servers, networking equipment, storage systems and virtualization software.

In addition, last year, Oracle acquired SUN and now has all the resources in order to offer an integrated hardware/software solutions for cloud-computing. Another giant, IBM, has also recently concluded a series of alliances with major network equipment manufacturers to strengthen its positions. IBM and Oracle are also rumored to aquire Citrix, the virtualization software developer.

See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms