HP invests US$1bn into shift to cloud market

Hewlett-Packard plans to invest more than US$1 billion over the next two years to develop and offer cloud-computing products and services.

The company said it will make its OpenStack-based public cloud services available in 20 data centres over the next 18 months.

OpenStack, a cloud computing project that HP co-founded, provides a free and open-source cloud platform for public and private cloud services.

It enjoys the support of a consortium of more than 200 companies and over 900 code contributors.

"Customer challenges today extend beyond cloud. They include how to manage, control and scale applications in a hybrid environment that spans multiple technology approaches," Martin Fink, executive vice president and chief technology officer, HP, said in a statement.

HP last week also inked a deal with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn to make servers aimed at companies that provide cloud computing services.

The moves mark an attempt by the one-time hardware giant to shift emphaisis away from one-off equipment sales to ongoing subscription-based income streams.

However it is moving into an increasingly competitive market.

Amazon Web Services and Google recently slashed prices of most of their cloud computing services as other companies join the fray.

Cisco laid out plans in March to offer cloud computing services, also pledging to spend US$1 billion over the next two years, while Microsoft said it will increase its cloud storage offering for business users 40-fold.