Out of a list of in excess of 640,000 names, Microsoft has pointed out that Hewlett-Packard is the Redmond Company's most comprehensive partner. In this context, the two companies announced yesterday via a press conference the forming of a three-years joint marketing alliance through which HP will deliver solutions tailor fitted for Microsoft People-Ready Business vision. The expansion of the Microsoft and HP solutions portfolio will focus on the area of messaging & unified communications, collaboration & content management, business intelligence, business process integration and Microsoft core infrastructure.

"With the recent announcement of the largest product launch to business customers in our company's history with Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system, we are bringing to market more than 30 new products and services in the next year that will further enable People-Ready Businesses," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "Through our collaboration with HP, our more than 20,000 joint customers will have access to an expanded set of solutions and services to tackle their most pressing business problems."

Microsoft and HP additionally revealed that they plan to invest over $300 million over the duration of the marketing alliance. Microsoft's software implemented on HP hardware will be pushed globally by both Microsoft and HP and their adjacent partners. The joint solution has the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 as the core components.

"Extending our strategic alliance with Microsoft further strengthens HP's enterprise strategy, which is focused on empowering CIOs to align IT with business by delivering more cost-effective, scalable, secure ways of enhancing employee productivity," said Ann Livermore, executive vice president of the Technology Solutions Group at HP. "HP itself is a great example of the power of Solutions for the People-Ready Business, as we are using many of the technologies in the portfolio to empower our people to conduct business at any time, from anywhere."