HP launches converged cloud business unit

IDG News Service - Banking on the trend toward cloud computing, Hewlett-Packard has created a stand-alone organization to oversee the company's hosted computing services and software offerings.

Saar Gillai will oversee the new unit. Gillai, whose title is now senior vice president and general manager of the HP Converged Cloud unit, will report to HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte.

HP first launched its Converged Cloud line of offerings last April. The company took the strategy of combining both software and cloud services into a unified set of packages. HP pitches these integrated offerings to organizations that want to combine public cloud services and their own internal IT resources into a single unified architecture, hence the marketing term "converged cloud."

"When we looked at what organizations needed to do as they incorporated the cloud into their IT, we [saw] that they will need to leverage a mix of different of cloud environments," said Frances Guida, HP manager of cloud services, in an interview about the services prior to Monday's announcement. "They will have private clouds and public clouds as well."

HP's goal "is to deliver a cloud with a common architecture that spans all of these models," Guida said.

According to HP, the new unit will define the combined architecture for services and software. It will also handle marketing and certification for the portfolio.

Prior to his new roll, Gillai was HP's vice president and general manager of cloud networking, where he drove the development, marketing and sales of HP's earlier cloud offerings. He also served as the chief technology officer of HP networking technologies.

HP is not alone in ramping up new hybrid cloud offerings. Dell has introduced a cloud computer service tailored for retail businesses. Dell will offer integrated packages of point-of-sales (POS) machines, back office systems and managed cloud services.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com