Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft announced last week that they are partnering up and investing $250 million over the next three years to "...significantly simplify technology environments for businesses of all sizes."

What's wrong with this picture?

Neither of these companies, nor the massive infrastructure that supports them, benefits from simplifying technology environments one iota. So, what, they are slitting their own throats? Getting ahead of an inevitable market shift that is happening with or without them? Or engaging in the time-honored tactic of trying to steal a rival's thunder (although you might point out that VMware is also an HP partner, not a rival... good news for HP all the way around, perhaps)?

Consensus thus far seems to be that this is basically a move designed to allow Microsoft to insinuate it's System Center management software into additional deployments. That's smart, but probably unnecessary; no one really competes very well with Microsoft management tools in Microsoft shops already. And virtualization management might be the final frontier in that space, anyway... the vast power that technology has made available through virtualization is still more roadblocked by an inability to quickly and easily distribute it by need than by any other factor. The clearest winners in this deal may be SMBs, which could find the Smart Bundles product the most effective way to get into virtualization available to them.

That provides little to recommend the deal to enterprises.