HP will acquire Eucalyptus Systems, a cloud startup.
The companies have not disclosed financial terms of the deal though Information Week and other sources have speculated it could be around $100 million.
The move is said to be an acquihire, an effort to obtain cloud computing talent HP needs to enhance its own cloud service offerings.
Eucalyptus develops open-source software for creating private and hybrid clouds for business use, particularly those compatible with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company’s official website explains:
“Eucalyptus is open source software for building private clouds that are compatible with AWS APIs. Our cloud software pools together compute, network, and storage resources within your IT environment to create on-demand, self-service private cloud resources.”
Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos will now become HP’s Senior Vice President and general manager of HP’s Cloud business.
HP says that Mickos’ main role will be building out the HP Helion portfolio. HP Helio is based on OpenStack technology and Mickos’ prior work history made him ideal for the company’s plans. Prior to heading up the Eucalyptus startup, Mickos was CEO of MySQL, the open-source database software.
HP CEO Meg Whitman says in a statement on the acquisition of Eucalyptus:
“The addition of Marten to HP’s world-class Cloud leadership team will strengthen and accelerate the strategy we’ve had in place for more than three years, which is to help businesses build, consume and manage open source hybrid clouds. Marten will enhance HP’s outstanding bench of Cloud executives and expand HP Helion capabilities, giving customers more choice and greater control of private and hybrid cloud solutions.”
Though HP Helion was originally built as enterprise software for very large organizations, today HP insists that businesses of all sizes can benefit from the flexibility and affordability of its cloud solutions.
Gigaom reports the company is certainly seeking to compete with providers of larger business solutions like Red Hat and IBM. But HP is also clearly looking to expand cloud services for smaller companies too.
In doing so, HP would also be following the lead of numerous big players in the market who have started adapting cloud services for smaller customers.
Recently, Google announced retooling of its enterprise cloud services as Google for Work including better accessibility for small businesses.
Amazon and Dropbox also recently announced more cloud storage options at costs targeted to fit even smaller business budgets. Amazon’s Zocalo workspace also offers not only storage but a collaborative workspace for up to 50 users per account.
Photo Photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
I guess technology brands like HP is starting to see the future in the cloud. This is good. I think that it is a good move for any type of technology-oriented business.