HP earmarks $2 billion to finance hybrid cloud projects

HP Financial Services, a subsidiary of leading information tech hardware company Hewlett-Packard, announced it will be making up to $2 billion available to "help clients finance their way into the cloud."

According to Forrester Research, business IT investment was up between 8.9% and 11% in 2010, but based upon recent trends, growth in 2011 is expected to slow to only around 8%.

Forrester predicted this growth will be led by big enterprise purchases, then followed by small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), and the leading companies that will be buying will be in the manufacturing, utilities and telecom sectors more so than in government, retail, or media and leisure. Still, they expect 2011 to be a down year for IT spending with a rebound in mid-2012, and HP is looking to offer enterprises the option to deploy hybrid cloud solutions that can meet complex demands even if they happen to be more costly.

"In this hugely competitive global economy, having the financial flexibility to drive new projects is critical," said Irv Rothman, president and chief executive officer, HP Financial Services in a statement on Monday. "We are committed to helping our clients drive innovation and agility by transforming their legacy systems to advanced cloud solutions."