While all eyes were on the nice design and aching coolness over at Apple, Hewlett Packard CEO Leo Apotheker was outlining a bit more detail to HP's own Cloud strategy – and backing it up with billions in cash.
Apotheker said that the company is looking to establish an open marketplace which will offer HP's own Cloud system, along with applications and services from service providers and developer partners and he's backing up this push towards a developer platform with a cool $2bn of funding courtesy of HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and asset management subsidiary, to develop Cloud applications for the sort of enterprise customers that are HP's bread and butter.
Apotheker dramatically urged developers:
This $2 billion will be made available (based on local financing capabilities and practices) for qualified customers acquiring and deploying solutions from HP’s Cloud solution portfolio. It could take the form of:
- Leases and other specialized financing solutions
- Sale and lease-back of existing IT infrastructure
- Deferred payment plans
- Low rates and flexible financing options
Irv Rothman, president and chief executive officer, HP Financial Services, explained:
Meanwhile HP will launch a public Cloud service - “soon” - which may or may not be taken as an advance on the “in the near future” timescale offered up previously. Specifically, at the HP Discover conference in Las Vegas, Apotheker said that there will be a:
He added that HP was fully on board with the importance of the Cloud:
Apotheker said that the WebOS platform will play a key role in HP's Cloud strategy:
