

HP CEO: We will build a cloud - bdb
http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/20110314/leo-apotheker-hewlett-packard-will-build-a-cloud/

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jbarham
AWS is so far ahead that it's not even funny.

E.g., go to IBM's cloud site
(<http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/cloud/index.html>) and behold the content
free page w/ generic stock photos. Click on the pricing page on the getting
started page and it tells you "This page is no longer available".

With AWS by contrast the "Sign Up Now" button is prominently displayed on the
home page and in mere minutes you can have your test server up and running for
which you _pay nothing for a year_!

IBM and HP can't get out of the mindset of selling expensive hardware w/ even
more expensive support and consulting contracts. Until they do, they are
doomed in the cloud space.

~~~
raganwald
Also the mindset of playing the "Ask a salesperson for a quote" which is code
for _"We have no fixed pricing, it will cost whatever you can afford to pay
because our business is a resource extraction operation and we will strip-mine
your budget."_

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wmeredith
HP CEO: We will build a $buzzword!

Snark aside... Why don't they build ink that costs less than human blood
instead? ([http://reflectionof.me/relative-prices-of-different-
liquids-...](http://reflectionof.me/relative-prices-of-different-liquids-1))

~~~
astrodust
I can't wait for them to Sun up and get their own language going:
HPJavaC++#ObjectiveWebOSCloudpad. Enterprise Edition.

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raganwald
This isn't exactly a dupe, but if you change "HP will build a cloud" into "HP
will ship WebOS on every PC next year," you will probably get the exact same
discussion we had the last time Mr. Apotheker opened his mouth to brag about
stuff he wasn't shipping:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2304768>

The best comment came from JoelSutherland:

> _"HP will stop making announcements for stuff it doesn't have. When HP makes
> announcements, it will be getting ready to ship."_ \- Leo Apotheker, Jan 27
> 2011

> Source: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12291529>

If you agree, give him some karma love.

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famousactress
It's kind of wacky that he sites selling servers to most of the cloud hosts
today as an indicator that it's a market HP ought to be in. Not paying resale
margins on servers is an advantage, but not a reason. A reason may be.. say,
you're Google or Amazon and you've had to build out the ability to quickly and
deploy apps on the internet _anyways_. Is that something HP has any real
mindshare or experience in?

~~~
wmf
Many companies outsource their IT to HP; if HP doesn't have a cloud it could
lose those customers when they decide to "go cloud".

~~~
nkassis
That's a good point. Even if they think it's hype, their clients don't think
it is and they will look bad if they don't join the bandwagon. Large companies
have a harder time being opinionated.

~~~
raganwald
My cynical take is that their clients do know it's hype, however if you're an
executive who has bet on HP, this announcement means you can't be second-
guessed. If somebody angling for your job asks "Why are we with HP? Why don't
we go to the cloud?" you will respond smoothly, "We are going to the cloud
with HP, in the fullness of time, after all the relevant details have been
examined and the considerations carefully weighed, ..."

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sashthebash
HP already had cloud services in 2006 called Flexible Computing Services when
I worked there as an intern.

These services still exists (maybe with a different name), I have friends
working in those departments.

But Leo is new and HP is big, he probably didn't know about them ;).

~~~
nkassis
And neither did I, is this anything like the other cloud services people know
off?

Also, if I was CEO the first thing I'd change is the damn website. That's
probably why he hasn't heard of it, it's almost impossible to find anything on
that site.

~~~
sashthebash
I think it is targeted at larger companies and HP is also not only providing
the infrastructure but additional software by the hour as well.

The HP website is so chaotic due to the many sub-organizations and regions
fighting for attention (I worked in the HP web team in 2007/2008).

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endlessvoid94
Again, another latecomer announcing "future plans". So far behind.

~~~
jmtulloss
Latecomer? AWS is one of the oldest cloud hosting platforms out there and it's
what, 6, 7 years old? The majority of the others are less than 5. This space
is just heating up.

That's not to say that HP won't fail spectacularly here, but to suggest that
it's too late for a company with billions of dollars to make a move in the
space seems a bit rash.

~~~
tomkarlo
This is really not a nascent market any more when you have some of the largest
Internet companies using cloud services heavily, like Netflix.

The incumbents have huge scale advantages and accumulated experience. Also,
they have a huge base of open source, freely available libraries out there to
allow interaction with their cloud. (I feel like there is one for every AWS
service in every commonly used programming language.)

These are huge advantages that HP will have tremendous trouble overcoming if
it just comes out with a "me-too" cloud service a year from now.

If HP announced their cloud service TODAY, and you were choosing which company
to put your web service with, would you really consider them over the existing
services with a significant track record and third-party support?

~~~
jmtulloss
For enterprise hosting, yes, I would. They are giants in the enterprise server
industry, no reason for them not to be the same in the enterprise cloud
industry (which has barely started to heat up).

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geekfactor
_> He announced the plan after laying out a strategy combining the cloud,
connectivity and software that “enables and joins them together.” He portrayed
it as a natural move for HP, which is a powerful player in the server
business. “Today seven out of 10 cloud providers are already our customers,”
he said._

... so of course we knew we had to compete with them!

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flyt
This explains why it's so overcast in Palo Alto today.

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pdaviesa
Is anybody else bothered by the use of the term "cloud" when speaking about
hosted services? These services don't live "on the cloud" - they just reside
on someone else's remote server, really no different than if you had a remote
data center yourself. For something to really live "on the cloud" it literally
needs to reside on the network, not stored on a server somewhere but
constantly moving/shifting/replicating out in the aether of connections that
is the Internet with the ability to pull up the service through a local
terminal on demand (think Skynet).

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Animus7
When I see the picture of a suit-and-tie type next to something about joining
the latest tech gravy train, I can't help but smell the burning platform.

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jcromartie
Does anybody else thinks this makes HP sound like they have no idea what they
are talking about?

> what it calls an open cloud marketplace for the enterprise

and

> a strategy combining the cloud, connectivity and software that "enables and
> joins them together"

It's like every awful enterprisey whitepaper ever written.

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tybris
Not sure why, but I found this headline hilarious.

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Scorponok
I think I found a picture of HP's cloud:
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Sz5ESDttTuE/S7jLPZqcm-I/AAAAAAAAAI...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Sz5ESDttTuE/S7jLPZqcm-I/AAAAAAAAAI8/dJFpwn2Lhog/s1600/mushroom-
cloud-hb.jpg)

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prpatel
I'm still waiting for my "MAKE-IT-RAIN-CLOUD".

