In a month when all the buzz about the on again, off again (and apparently on again) Ballmer-Yang waltz dominated the news, the HP-EDS deal may quietly emerge as the most significant technology consolidation we’ve seen in quite a while. Om Malik postulates that the real play here is not aimed at IBM, rather it is about establishing a dominant position on the cloud, just as utility computing reemerges as the ‘next big thing’. While I haven’t looked at the details of this proposed merger, I think the ‘cloud’ angle - as presented by Om - makes a lot of sense. I’ve link to Om’s post above; it is worth reading.