HP to launch Australian Government cloud service

HP has revealed plans to launch a cloud computing service that specifically targets Australian government agencies.

The technology press has been invited to a launch event, scheduled for June 28, to be fronted by Alan Bennett, who was today appointed vice president of enterprise services for HP South Pacific.

Bennett's previous role at HP was in the government and defence sectors.

HP also announced the appointment of a chief technology officer (CTO) for the region, who would be "responsible for leading HP's cloud computing strategy in the South Pacific". Archie Reed was appointed to the CTO role today and will be based in Sydney.

HP has been actively developing cloud compute products and services to target the public sector in other international markets. It already offers roadmap and design services around utility models, and also opened a lab in England late last year to demonstrate the possibilities of cloud computing to agencies.

iTnews has previously reported the vendor was developing differentiated cloud computing services for the Australian Government and corporate customers - both to be served from its new Eastern Creek data centre in Sydney. The $119 million facility is expected to be completed this year.

The vendor is yet to indicate which facilities it will use to serve its cloud computing instances to government clients in the interim.

Leaks have revealed that the vendor intends to launch an Amazon-like public cloud compute service at the VMworld conference in August, raising speculation it may split from traditional software partner Microsoft for its cloud computing stack.

HP will face local competition from existing cloud players such as Telstra, who made a bid to attract government agencies onto its 'Network Computing' cloud service earlier this year with an invitation-only free trial of up to 45 days.