HP and Box.com Partnership on the Cloud

HP computers now also offer its PC buyers with cloud data storage and collaboration services. This was the result of the recent partnership of HP with Box.com, a cloud company that offers data center storage and collaboration services that are cloud-based.

HP’s move is an admission that computer and business IT computing is now towards services model and no longer just product-centered business.

SVP and general manager of HP America’s personal systems group, Stephen DiFranco said, “Our customers are entering a new era of data management and storage, and they need a simple, cost-effective way to collaborate and share information in the cloud. HP’s broad range of PCs plus Box’s scalable service provides the desirable security, functionality and features to meet the needs and budgets of our customers.”

Gartner Research firm analysts define this technology trend in terms of the companies’ projected expenditures. Gartner predicts that company enterprise spending on public cloud platforms will balloon from 3% from 2010, which is about $74 billion to 19% in 2015. If this trend will be unchanged then the public cloud spending will outrun all the other revenue forecasts using a factor of five.

Leo Apotheker, former CEO of HP had already in mind to maneuver away from selling HP PC’s. This is out of his admission that personal and business computing has now moved towards a different direction from the traditional PC to mobile devices.

HP already announced that they would close down their PC division, which was far from what was expected. In the following month after the announcement, HP got rid of Apotheker and took Meg Whitman instead.

In October this year, Whitman became HP’s new CEO, and the first action he took was to overturn the earlier statement made by Apotheker to close the PC division and instead confirmed his plan to retain it.

Whitman said, “HP and PSG (Personal Systems Group) are better together. At the end of the day, the cost and the risk of a separation are simply greater than any value we could create by spinning PSG off.”

HP’s attachment to its current PC business remains unpopular because of the declining market. It now calls for more convincing power from being a large buyer of PC components plus profitable deals from services that are tied-up with minor PC sales.

This is where HP and Box.com’s partnership will come in as HP becomes an enterprise service provider and orchestrator of cloud services.