HP has announced a ‘private Cloud beta’ to introduce developers to their new HP Cloud Services. This is broken into two actual named services, HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage. This breaks the cloud functionality up into the two traditional bits of cloud computing: putting stuff in the cloud (storage) and doing stuff in the cloud (computing). I just wonder if it’s the right move, at the right time, done right.

With this announcement, HP is further declaring their shift to software services under CEO Apotheker. Moreover, these services are targeted squarely at developers and companies to build upon and deliver their own products with HP as the underpinning, again a shift away from HP as the provider of an end product for consumers. This isn’t a bad thing, but it presents a problem: product differentiation. There are already cloud storage solutions available, Amazon S3 for example, though Google Storage is in Lab state and other competitors are around though perhaps not as well known. Why is HP entering what looks to be a pretty crowded field? If they have a long term plan, given the turmoil they’ve been suffering through, wouldn’t it be a good idea to be as transparent as possible right about now?

If HP Cloud Object Storage and HP Cloud Compute are meant to integrate tightly, it makes a certain amount of sense. If you truly have a need for heavy computing, it’s reasonable to levy HP’s servers to get the job done perhaps at a fraction of the cost it would take to buy the hardware yourself. And their storage is right there waiting for you to use too. But one gets the impression that Object Storage is intended to be leveraged as a separate entity altogether. And as evidenced by yesterday’s vanishing act with Google Docs, albeit temporary, the further your data is away from you, the more easily it can become out of reach when you need it the most.

Still, kudos to HP for announcing something they are actually going to offer. It must be nice not to have to constantly remind folks about the products they are killing off.