In a move to bolster its cloud service prowess, HP acquired open source cloud software startup Eucalyptus Systems last week.

Essentially, HP hired Eucalyptus’ entire workforce (which is less than 100 people), along with their CEO Marten Mickos as the Senior VP and head of HP’s cloud computing wing. Mickos will be working directly with HP CEO Meg Whitman, reports a statement on the HP website.

“The addition of Marten to HP’s world-class Cloud leadership team will strengthen and accelerate the strategy we’ve had in place for more than three years, which is to help businesses build, consume and manage open source hybrid clouds,” explains HP CEO Whitman. “Marten will enhance HP’s outstanding bench of Cloud executives and expand HP Helion capabilities, giving customers more choice and greater control of private and hybrid cloud solutions.”

Although the Forrester Wave report for Private Cloud Solutions ranked HP as the leader, Helion still falls behind AWS and IBM as far as revenues go.

“We are absolutely the experts on compatibility between clouds — private clouds, public clouds and hybrid clouds,” points out Marten Mickos in an interview. “We have developed open source software that is used to move computing workloads between each kind of cloud.” Mickos is expected to lead the HP Cloud organization and help HP Helion grow, based on OpenStack® technology.

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(Image credit: Gary Sauer-Thompson)