HP's New Cloud Products Offer a Flashback to 2009
Hewlett-Packard unveiled four new cloud products in what I view as somewhat of a comeback tour for the hardware giant after staying on the sidelines for much of 2010. However, the four new products, which range from an infrastructure …
Context & Ripple Effects
HP is re-entering cloud computing after spending most of 2010 on the sidelines while rivals shipped services, and the GigaOM framing — a flashback to 2009 — points at the playbook HP was known for then: competing on hardware volume, as in its low-cost computer push at CES 2009. The four new products lean on that same instinct, packaging cloud offerings around infrastructure HP already sells.
The timing matters internally too: five days earlier HP confirmed five new board members, including former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, a governance reset that coincides with the product push. Separately, unconfirmed leaks describe a Topaz webOS slate positioned against Apple's iPad and expected to offer cloud storage — which, if accurate, would make these cloud products the backend for HP's device plans rather than standalone bets.
First-order effects
- HP's enterprise customers gain infrastructure-flavored cloud options bundled with the servers and storage they already buy, putting HP back in a category its 2010 absence had ceded to software-first providers.
Second-order effects
- If the rumored Palm/Topaz tablet ships with cloud storage as leaked specs suggest, these new products become the consumption engine for HP's own devices — tying cloud revenue to hardware attach rather than selling services head-to-head with pure-play providers.
Third-order effects
- The launch is an early test of whether enterprise hardware incumbents can convert installed-infrastructure relationships into recurring cloud revenue, a structural question that shapes how every large IT vendor organizes its cloud portfolio versus software-born competitors.
The trend: Enterprise hardware vendors are returning to cloud computing by layering services onto their installed infrastructure base, turning capacity they already sell into a recurring-revenue product.