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The relationship between HPE and Microsoft is expanding in a move that will see the company sell Azure.
The development was revealed during a quarterly conference call between Meg Whitman, CEO, HPE and analysts.
Following HPE’s decision to shut the doors on its public cloud offering, the move sees the company remain in that area of the cloud market. Whitman said that an agreement had been reached with Microsoft that will see HPE sell Azure as its "preferred cloud alternative."
Helion Public Cloud will close on the 31st January 2016.
The benefit to HPE will be that it will become a preferred cloud services provider to Microsoft customers that are looking for consulting services.
HPE does, however, have services that also supports building private clouds that are compatible with AWS, HPE Helion Eucalyptus.
HPE is focused on building a strong hybrid cloud business, so offering support to the likes of Azure and AWS boosts its public cloud offering.