Under chief executive Leo Apotheker, HP is doing some serious pushes to expand its share of the software and cloud markets – and the company is willing to invest a lot in order to achieve this goal. HP Financial Services, the leasing and asset management subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, announced it is making $2 billion available towards this purpose.

CRN reports:

“HP said that while many customers and solution providers are realizing the opportunities surrounding cloud computing, many struggle to align their budgets and coordinate the RIO goals associated with making the move to the cloud.”

Hewlett-Packard cloud customers will be able to take the form of leases, and will have access to ale and lease-back of existing infrastructure, deferred payment plans as well as other specialized financing offerings.

This morning, SiliconANGLE held an interview with Rob Taylor, VP of Data Center Services at HP. The discussion focused on the transformation of the cloud, as well as the hybrid cloud in particular. At its annual HP Discover conference held this week, the company announced the HP Cloud Discovery Workshops and Hybrid Cloud delivery services.

At the same conference, Apotheker revealed quite a bit on his company’s outlook in several other fields, including IT-as-a-service, big data analytics and its mobile platform, webOS.

Another company that has been working around the hybrid cloud is Intel. The chipmaker unveiled AppUp, a subscription-based hybrid cloud data storage offering for small businesses. The offering consists of a server reference architecture called the Intel Hybrid Cloud Platform, management software and a catalog of apps users can subscribe to.

VMware is also making moves in the hybrid cloud sector, pushing its virtualization initiative to support more customers in this arena.  There’s also Xiotech, which received the “Breakthrough Product of the Year” and “Attendee’s Pick” awards at Microsoft Tech-Ed 2011 for its Hybrid ISE offering.