HP and Microsoft have announced a three-year agreement this week to invest $250 million to significantly simplify technology environments for businesses of all sizes. Under the terms of the expanded partnership, the two companies will increase the "global investment by 10 times to drive new opportunities for the 32,000 HP and Microsoft Frontline channel partners".

But there is some lack of clarity as to what this means.

"Partners will support customers in modernizing their environments through a combination of software and hardware infrastructure-to-application packages and services," say the companies, but the push to virtualisation and the cloud in the deal may show that they want to cover private and public clouds, but, just like everyone else, are not sure how it will pan out.

HP and Microsoft will collaborate on the Windows Azure platform, with HP and Microsoft offering services, and Microsoft continuing to invest in HP hardware for Azure infrastructure. Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer, Microsoft says: "Our extended partnership will transform the way large enterprises deliver services to their customers, and help smaller organizations adopt IT to grow their businesses. Microsoft and HP are betting on each other so our customers don't have to gamble on IT."

But it looks like the two are holding onto each other to prevent other parties making any other big deals. The most obvious partner benefits include: new hardware and software bundles, hopefully with quicker time to revenue with simplified and shortened sales cycles resulting from "Smart Bundles" and all-inclusive packages as well as new offerings that provide add-on application and service sales opportunities. And of course, financing options through HP Financial Services, which is going to be the real key to partners trying to deliver growth this year.

For further information on IT Europa’s subscription news service packages click here