Microsoft and HP Team Over Cloud Services

Microsoft and HP have joined hands in a global, four-year initiative aimed at offering communications and collaboration applications from the former via private and public cloud services all around the world.

Through the new agreement, the duo will offer a series of private and public cloud solutions that should prove of help for companies looking into scaling new users fast, shift IT resources from maintenance to innovation and more.

The two companies will put together engineering resources for the deployment, support or enhancement of new solutions.

These will be available all around the world, starting with Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States this month.

The solution offering includes:

Private cloud: HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Real-Time Collaboration deliver Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 productivity applications as a service from HP datacenters around the world.

Public cloud: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft’s Office collaboration and productivity tools, will be delivered by Microsoft through the cloud.

Hybrid solution: HP will resell Microsoft Office 365 with HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Real-Time Collaboration.

Brandt Faatz, vice president of Workplace Services, HP Enterprise Services, notes that the partnership is aimed at addressing demanding functionality and service level requirements that large organizations have.

“This alliance with HP not only broadens Microsoft’s geographic reach, it gives customers maximum flexibility to choose a cloud computing solution that meets their organization’s specialized messaging and collaboration needs,” Mark Hill, vice president of Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft, explains.

This is not the first time HP and Microsoft partner to offer new solutions to various organizations around the world. The two companies have been working together for more than 25 years for delivering technical innovation together.

The new solutions are meant to help companies in their pursuit of an Instant-On Enterprise, which includes all that is needed for serving customers, employees, partners and other people.