14 DAY TRIAL // The existing Microsoft –HP partnership is about to evolve to its next stage with the two companies having scheduled a joint announcement for today, January 13, at 8:15 a.m. PST. The Chief Executive Officers from both companies will host a teleconference announcing the next step in their collaboration. Details on what exactly the two giants are planning to make public are extremely scarce at this point in time. Neither company wished to offer at least a taste of what they will be announcing later today.
According to the official note available to members of the press, the duo’s announcement will focus on a “new joint agreement and joint investment to prepare customers for the next generation of business computing. The companies have a 25-year partnership focused on helping organizations of all sizes around the world utilize technology to improve productivity and reduce costs.”
The new agreement Microsoft and HP will unveil today is bound to have an impact to corporate customers and their IT infrastructures. Still, it is all speculation at this point in time. The following executives are scheduled to attend the teleconference: Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft; Bob Muglia, president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft; Mark Hurd, chairman and CEO of HP; and Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers and Networking, Enterprise Business at HP.
Just last week, at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Ballmer announced that Microsoft and HP had inked a new agreement to have Bing set as the default search engine for new HP computers. “Microsoft and HP will team up on the search and Web portal experiences. Bing will become the default search engine, and MSN the default home page, on HP PCs in 42 countries around the world, which is certainly very, very exciting from our perspective,” Ballmer noted.