HP is making its OpenStack-based Helion cloud tech available to partners and resellers in a desperate bid to take on Amazon’s mammoth cloud. The initiative, called the Helion Network, is designed to encourage partners to create their own services to compete with Amazon.

Announced at its HP Discover event in Las Vegas, the move represents a startling turnaround for a company which has always prided itself on its top-down tech. Previously, HP’s Helion was only available as a public cloud. But HP, like many other tech firms, is scrambling to find a new business model to compete with the might of Amazon, and it hopes this new strategy will buy it the time it needs to foster a loyal customer base in the new era of the cloud.

HP is going to invest $1 billion into OpenStack over the next two years to make Helion viable, the company said. The plan is to turn the open-source project into something capable of giving Amazon, Google and Microsoft a real run for their money. The Helion Network will also throw a lifeline out to cash-starved resellers and channel companies who’re struggling in a world of dwindling margins. Meanwhile, telecommunications firms and small hosters will be able to beef up their own clouds with a technology led by one of the world’s biggest tech giants.

HP listed several benefits of the Helion Network for partners, including:

• an expanded portfolio of cloud services.
• the chance to drive new revenue streams and lower costs.
• collaborative marketing and sales efforts to boost market coverage and increase go-to-market efficiency.
• Flexible payment structures designed to help align revenues with IT investment

“Global enterprises grapple with a daunting array of cloud products and services across locations, which creates challenges that include security, data sovereignty, interoperability and quality of service,” Martin Fink, executive vice president and CTO of HP, said in a press release.

“The HP Helion Network leverages HP’s expertise gained from running OpenStack technology at scale and our ability to unite service providers and technology partners. Together, we’re building a federated ecosystem that enables organizations to deploy services on the right platform at the right time and at the right cost.”

OpenStack’s opportunity

HP is clearly betting big on the power of OpenStack to take on and beat the likes of Amazon and Google, but this reliance leads to its own questions. In an interview on theCUBE, Wikibon’s Dave Vellante asked Saar Gillai, HP’s senior VP of converged cloud, if there was a possibility of stuff not working together outside Helion or interoperability between OpenStack.

“The devil’s in the details, and everything is perfect until you get into the details,” replied Gillai. “As OpenStack matures, and in this network you will be provided that, depending on how much closer you are to the network, the more it would be seamless. If you get further in field, it may not be as seamless, but it’s still gonna be a lot more seamless being OpenStack than going to a completely different architecture.”

Sounds familiar?

Critics will immediately point out that HP isn’t the first tech firm to try something like this. For example, IBM mirrored this approach with its own SmartCloud technology. That was deemed to be a failure, and led to Big Blue buying SoftLayer for $2 billion in an effort to revamp its cloud strategy. VMware tried a similar thing with its VMware Service Provider Program, but that too was unsuccessful, prompting the company restructure the plan under its vCloud Hybrid Service instead. Then there’s European startup OnApp, which went down the same road with little to show for its efforts.

But HP believes it can succeed where others have failed. In an interview with The Register, HP’s VP of Cloud Steven Dietch said that OpenStack and its community would make the difference. That’s because there are many companies out there that have a strong dislike for Amazon, Dietch said.

“We believe we have a path forward to provide a very strong growth trajectory to everybody that wants to join us,” added Dietch.

Of course, HP will need to show some strong leadership for that to happen. “One of the promises of the Helion Network is to harness the rapid innovation of the OpenStack ecosystem. We’ve had these conversations with many service providers,” continued Dietch. “The OpenStack open source tempo is something they’re going to have to address to thrive to the future marketplace.”

HP’s Helion Network isn’t quite ready to take on Amazon’s muscle just yet though. The company says it plans to launch a pilot program later this year, with general availability to come at a later date.

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