Computerworld

HP fights back as public Cloud exit rumours gather pace

“We thought people would rent or buy computing from us. It turns out that it makes no sense for us to go head-to-head."

HP will not exit the public Cloud market, despite widespread reports that the tech giant would down tools amidst the mounting competition from industry rivals Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

According to reports in the New York Times, HP’s disappointing launch of HP Helion has led many of the company’s high-level executives to question the merits of continuing down the Cloud path.

“We thought people would rent or buy computing from us,” said Bill Hilf, the head of HP’s Cloud business, in an interview with the New York Times.

“It turns out that it makes no sense for us to go head-to-head.

“We had a lot of guys who knew how to sell boxes, and they’ve had to learn how to have conversations about downloading apps and developing software.

“Meg has put out a charter that will make truly engineered systems that we build top to bottom for customers.”

But despite the comments, HP has reaffirmed its commitment to the market, which comes during a time of increased uncertainty for the company as it gears towards its well-publicised split on November 1.

“HP is not leaving the public cloud market,” a company statement responded.

“We run the largest OpenStack technology-based public Cloud out there. This has to do with not competing head-to-head with the big public Cloud players.”