The world's biggest software maker and the world's No 1 PC maker, which have co-operated in this area for some time, said they would invest $250 million over three years in marketing and supporting the new venture.
The two hope the combined effort will make it easier and more cost-effective for companies to buy and operate server systems, essentially combining Hewlett-Packard's hardware and Microsoft's software. "The cloud is a significant inflection point in how our customers will be building their next generation applications," said Bob Muglia, the head of Microsoft's server and tools business, in a telephone interview. "We (Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard) have decided to double down and commit to building the next generation architecture," said Muglia.
Cloud computing - broadly the practice of storing information and running computer programmes in remote data centres that are accessible over the Internet - has long been expected to revolutionise business computing, but actual take-up has been gradual.
Microsoft launched its Azure cloud computing service earlier this month, giving customers the option of storing data in Microsoft's data centres and providing software developers a platform for creating cloud-based applications. Rivals such as Amazon.com Inc and Salesforce.com Inc have been selling cloud-based services for some time.