A few weeks ago HP's Meg Whitman braced tech watchers with sobering warnings that earnings for one of the pioneering companies of Silicon Valley may fall 10% next year, and may not grow for another two years.

But HP's head of cloud computing says don't let that talk fool you: HP will be a big player in the cloud, says Zorawar Biri Singh. "I wouldn't confuse the last couple of weeks with any statement on the cloud," he says. "It's a big deal for us."

Singh acknowledges that HP has "made a mess of" its ...