In a move that appears to be aimed at the new alliance between IBM and Apple, Hewlett-Packard Co.  and Microsoft this morning announced an alliance to provide joint services for companies using the popular Microsoft Office 365 software-as-a-service offering.

In his keynote at HP Discover in Barcelona, minutes after the announcement, Mike Nefkens, HP VP of infrastructure services, said HP Enterprise Services for Office 365 provides comprehensive service accountability, managed service solutions, tightly integrated support processes and expanded data center location options, which in some cases may allow companies to keep regulated data within national borders to meet local regulatory requirements. One of the first offerings from this agreement will be Exchange Online running on HP servers in HP data centers and serving Office 365 corporate users. It will grow to include a complete line of products that span the range from initial advisory engagement through transformation, management, analysis, reporting and support. The service is available immediately.

Watch live coverage of HP Discover 2014 from Barcelona on theCUBE  Wednesday and Thursday and join the parallel Twitter conversation on CrowdChat to discuss the events. 

While HP didn’t mention IBM-Apple in its announcement, the Microsoft deal appeared to be a response to a partnership that promises to bring IBM Big Data and analytics capabilities to Apple iPhones and iPads and to make Apple a major competitor to Microsoft as a  business mobile platform of choice.

If this new alliance is a comeback, then the two mostly complementary IT giants could be searching for other ways to partner. Even in the cloud, HP Helion is primarily an infrastructure-as-a-service offering whereas Microsoft Azure is mostly a software-as-a-service host for Microsoft’s extensive library of business software. The two now have a common enemy in IBM-Apple, which could be a strong motivator to expand their alliance further.

Image courtesy Microsoft Corp.