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Just got back from Interop -- brain's still a bit foggy for the usual trans-Atlantic reasons -- but one thing that sticks with me is the emphasis put on cloud computing. Everyone I spoke to had an angle on it, whether they're wireless vendors, networking vendors, or server vendors.

All see the shift of applications into the cloud as a definitive shift in the way that computing services will be delivered to us in future.

While we seem to have been here before, with the application service provider frenzy at the top of the dotcom craziness, this time it appears that more prerequisites for software as a service, or cloud computing, or utility computing, or grid computing -- choose your favourite terminology -- are in place, in particular the prevalence of high-speed wide-area networking. People are taking this trend very seriously indeed, with industry veterans saying that they've never seen anything take off so quickly.

I spoke to Interop's general manager Lenny Heymann, and he put it at the top of his top trends list too. People were looking to get a sign of where the industry is, he said. While he admitted that the recession has resulted in a smaller show, there's a lot of energy and innovation, he said.

What was also notable was that Cisco decided to display only a cursory presence, which resulted in other big players -- you know who they are -- make noises in private about whether they might be there next year. But, as one big player said to me, if you're there it costs you half a million dollars and you can't show a return on that investment. If you're not there, everyone thinks you're going down the pan and your share price suffers. So you have to be there....

And before you ask: Las Vegas is still Las Vegas...

Just finished a day at HP's advanced data centre – er, centre – at Isle d'Abeau, near Lyon. It was useful to catch-up with HP's thinking with respect to data centres, and a chance to talk to one of its key customers, agri-business company Syngenta. The big story for HP, now the world's biggest server maker, is in fact not hardware but services, so this was where the Silicon Valley stalwart put its emphasis.

HP is keen to be perceived as a services company, a continuation of its big launch of services back in 2001, when it made its first bid to become a major competitor to IBM. Yes, that's 2001: Rome wasn't built...

To that end, as well as the jaw-jaw, we also got a tour of the data centre, a large modern facility that's sold as Tier 3+ -- which makes it almost immune to disruptions. After admission via a biometric security gate, we saw lots of shiny water pipes, generators, batteries, and even the winking lights of a server or two -- through thick plate glass, natch. You can't help but be impressed at the massiveness and complexity of it all -- which is of course the point.

So HP's broad message is that data centres have become hugely complex mechanisms, especially with virtualisation, with legislative demands, and the costs and constraints of power and cooling – added to which are the environmental issues to which all companies need to pay more than lip service. So, if you're a large enterprise, why not outsource it all to HP?

The message was reinforced by the perfectly on-message (from an HP perspective and for no sinister reason that I could detect) presentation from Syngenta's Mike Meysner, who described in detail how his company decided that it didn't want to be in the business of owning servers and managing a large IT infrastructure plant, and so outsourced the lot to HP.

What HP didn't say was interesting too. HP doesn't want to admit that the Oracle-Sun tie-up could have adverse effects on the sales of hardware to underpin Oracle's eponymous database. European marketing manager Lucio Furlani did admit, however, that “things can change – in the longer run the industry will go through more consolidation especially towards the end of 2009.”

It's also the case that this nirvana of outsourced services (how many times have we heard that pitched over the last 30 years?) needs a greater understanding between a number of key players within the enterprise, not least facilities and IT managers, each of whom will have to cede territory as part of the process of making IT more efficient and so help drive down costs. It won't be easy.

But it is the case, I feel, that HP has placed itself well to attract what looks likely to become a growing number of enterprises moving in this direction, now that the big IT bang of the 1980s and 1990s that distributed technology evenly across the organisation has started to reverse itself. HP does face some formidable competition in the shape, inter alia, of Oracle and IBM, so while it won't be plain sailing, the market is large enough for big pickings to be had.

So Oracle, having bought Sun, wants to retain Sun's hardware portfolio. How much sense does that make?

Look at it this way. Server and data centre managers love the way that servers have become commoditise and standardised. They all work the same, use the same chips, and run the same software. They're interchangeable, they're cheaper, and they're more reliable because of that standardisation, not least because it's easy to find well-qualified people to run them. Fewer chances for finger-poking f**k-ups.

Now look at what Sun's selling: mainly proprietary hardware, though admittedly with more of a nod towards standard hardware than before. And Oracle? Proprietary software. Put the two together and you can sell closed (and so expensive, high-margin) appliances, runs Oracle's thinking.

No-one, not even IBM, is making that model work. Sun couldn't: that's why it's balance sheet bled red ink for years.

So what are the odds of this plan working? You tell me, but I wouldn't bet a wooden threepenny bit. If you have to ask...