HP Ends Amazon EC2 Support for Public Cloud Offering

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) seemed to be trying to make as little noise about it as possible, but the Palo Alto-based technology giant has ended support for the Amazon Web Services EC2 API within its Public Cloud services portfolio. HP slipped this fact into the release notes for HP Public Cloud 13.5.

Based on what has been reported elsewhere on the web, HP made the decision because of customer requests, including feedback from developers. That’s an interesting decision for HP, considering AWS is still the de facto leader in the public cloud space. So not supporting something as popular as EC2 must raise a few eyebrows out there.

Of course, Amazon (AMZN) is also a major competitor to HP in the public cloud space, so perhaps the move does make a certain amount of sense for the company, which is trying to improve its public cloud offerings and market share while also trying to find flaws in its biggest competitor’s armor.

HP hasn’t exactly shown itself to be king of the hill when it comes to its cloud strategy. Its cloud earnings still aren’t where they should be, and it has been a cause for concern for several months (at least). At the same time, HP is partnering with others in the cloud space that it doesn’t compete directly against. Of course, Amazon doesn’t fit into that category.

That’s all well and good. AWS competitors, both direct and indirect, have struggled with the decision as to whether to support the cloud giant’s APIs, and there have been a variety of different approaches. HP previously supported AWS EC2, but the team in charge of HP Public Cloud have obviously decided it’s not worth doing.

This probably won’t have much of an effect on AWS, which continuously has proven to be the leader in the public cloud space, but it could have a negative impact on HP Public Cloud customers and developers. It’s unlikely all of them have forsaken AWS EC2, so eliminating support for its API could end up proving to be a poor decision by HP. Playing nice with its competition as it continues to grow might be a better move.

Additionally, HP also announced it was no longer going to support AWS Eucalyptus tools, which will only feed the fire and force customers to make a choice.