HP Rumored To Launch Competing Cloud Service Soon

The new battlefield is in the cloud. There's SkyDrive, iCloud, Amazon's service -- the list goes on and on. Where's HP in this mix? That's a question that the new management must be asking themselves, as a New York Times report suggests that HP will begain offering a "large and powerful cloud computing service similar to Amazon Web Services" within two months time, with their version having a business-oriented slant. Zorawar Singh, HP's senior vice president and general manager of cloud services, said the following: "We’re not just building a cloud for infrastructure. Amazon has the lead there. We have to build a platform layer, with a lot of third-party services. We won’t pull (Amazon’s) customers out by the horns, but we already have customers in beta who see us as a great alternative."


There aren't any pricing details available yet, but HP's services should provide more "personalized" sales and service, unlike Amazon's self-service model. It's assumed that the new launch will provide competition in a space that needs it, giving developers and businesses alike more options when it comes to storing files in the cloud and running businesses from there. Will HP be able to rival Amazon, Oracle, IBM and the rest? Tough to say, but it'll be necessary to keep steam after curtailing PC efforts in the consumer realm and ditching webOS entirely. Additionally, it remains to be seen if the cloud market can stand any more fragmentation.