Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard collaborate on a ton of technology initiatives, so who really cares that they're spending another $250 million over the next three years to better integrate corporate software and hardware? That was the reaction from reporters this morning on a conference call with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and HP CEO Mark Hurd.

And Hurd, for one, wasn't having any of it. "This is breakthrough stuff for us," he said. "It's different stuff than we've done before."

The money will be spent across a range of areas -- including email servers, database management, and cloud computing -- to make HP's hardware work smoothly with Microsoft's software in a wider variety of settings. The official news release is a smorgasbord of IT lingo, but Hurd said the idea is to offer bundles of hardware and software that have been tested and designed to make things simpler for corporate customers.

Hurd called it "the biggest alignment of infrastructure that we've ever put behind any kind of enterprise offer that we've had." He declined to discuss the implications for HP's alliance with Oracle, whose database offerings compete with Microsoft's SQL Server. However, he said, Oracle remains a "very important partner."

Ballmer, for his part, said the deal means Microsoft and HP "are going to do a heck of a lot more together."

More Coverage: ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, CNet's Ina Fried, and the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.