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That cloud computing is a mechanism for fostering communications and collaboration is not a new message from Hewlett-Packard.

But it is seemingly more relevant as the industry toils to make sense of this latest high-tech trend.

The cloud is about communications and collaboration, says H-P's Russ Daniels

Cloud computing is clearly capturing the attention of data-center managers at corporations large and small. Most still wonder, however, when to migrate their applications and how the cloud differs from the traditional hosting options they have long considered

Company CTO Russ Daniels argues that viewing cloud computing simply as a mechanism for business process outsourcing is a mistake.

The difference, he said Thursday at the Structure 09 conference in San Francisco, is its ability to capture a huge amount of data at a low cost. This enables cloud to be “more about communicating and collaborating than automating business processes,” he said.

It isn’t a brand new marketing pitch from H-P. The company has long linked its cloud effort with the slogan: “everything as a service.”

But the emphasis is an interesting turn of the screw as the industry tries to hone its understand of the benefits and challenges of this new paradigm. If the emphasis can be shifted to cost and collaboration, the possibilities might be better understood.