We he made his first public statements last March Apotheker said he intended to make HP a cloud-based services company, with a strong base of analytic software.

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Some of the services are HP Cloud Compute, HP Cloud Object Storage and HP Cloud CDN.

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So while the closed data servers represent lost revenues on one hand, HP stands the most to gain from new cloud services on the other.

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With the social enterprise mPedigree Network, HP leveraged its technology expertise in cloud-based services to design and build an anti-drug counterfeiting service in Africa.

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The battle for the cloud continues to heat up with HP announcing earlier today the latest addition to its portfolio of cloud related products and services.

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Cloud services are potentially the biggest new revenue source for HP in 2012.

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The HP Cloud is based on OpenStack and is a direct competitor to Amazon Web Services.

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Besides Amazon, the strategy takes HP into new areas of competition with Microsoft, which has its own cloud services, and Oracle, where Hurd now works.

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That mindset sets Lenovo apart from other PC giants (HP, Dell) that have moved towards selling higher-margin services and cloud computing.

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The executive team is drawn from the leaders and innovators of cloud-based services and home networking, including Broadcom, NETGEAR, 3Com, Synchronoss and HP.

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