Microsoft News Tracker

As forewarned, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard yesterday announced an alliance for sales of IT services to enterprises:

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and HP (NYSE “HPQ,” Nasdaq “HPQ”) today announced a three-year agreement to deliver an expanded portfolio of solutions for enterprise customers around the world. HP is the first premier global partner to deliver comprehensive solutions for the People-Ready Business, Microsoft’s vision for how people, armed with the right software, are the key to driving business success.

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“Extending our strategic alliance with Microsoft further strengthens HP’s enterprise strategy, which is focused on empowering CIOs to align IT with business by delivering more cost-effective, scalable, secure ways of enhancing employee productivity,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president of the Technology Solutions Group at HP.

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To help enterprise customers worldwide realize greater value from their existing IT assets, capitalize on next-generation technologies, and achieve a more agile, adaptive enterprise, the new HP & Microsoft Solutions for the People-Ready Business portfolio will focus on five high-growth areas of IT investment: messaging and unified communications; collaboration and content management; business intelligence; business process integration; and core infrastructure.

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Building on a more than 20-year alliance, Microsoft and HP plan to invest at least $300 million over three years to cover collaborative efforts in solution development, testing, validation, deployment, and joint sales and marketing.

Microsoft is not exactly short of partners selling Microsoft based IT services to big business, so there’s not much novel about this announcement other than a little public stroking of HP for buying into the “People-Ready” schtick plus the renewal of long standing vows.