From the 'pre-keynote news' files:

LAS VEGAS. HP's Ann Livermore Executive VP at HP (NYSE:HPQ) will be taking the stage at Interop at 8:30 AM local to formally announce a new $180 unified communications partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).

No the keynote hasn't begun yet, and Interop isn't open yet today either (press room opens at 7:30 AM), but the release is now out.

In a nutshell, Microsoft and HP are expanding their existing partnership inked in 2006 for enterprise software and expanding it to unified communications. As part of the expanded partnership the two companies will collaborate on products and services including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office Communications Server and from the HP side HP ProCurve networking gear.

Livermore is set to be joined onstage by HP ProCurve chief Marius Haus this morning, Haus's last big announcement was the ProCurve ONE platform in January. ProCurve ONE is HP's program for enabling applications to run on its switch blades and Microsoft is one of the program's key go to market partners.

I met up with Carl Blume, Manager Solutions and Alliances Worldwide Marketing for HP ProCurve late Monday at Interop and he gave me an update on the status of ProCurve ONE (though I'm sure Haas will have his .02 later this AM in the HP keynote too). Blume told me that the program now has 16 member vendors and products are now shipping.

In terms of the core strategy for ProCurve ONE, originally, I personally had thought of it as a Cisco UCS type of competitor, but Blume argues otherwise.

"The key selling point is that you can run the app in the switch itself," Blume said. "We're not going after the hosted app market. We like that because it lets customer put apps  in the location where it makes sense.ProCurve ONE is not about putting blade servers into the network, it's about putting server intelligence into the switches."

I'll be in the keynote in a few hours and we'll see what Livermore and Haas have to say to the live audience about the direction of their business and the Microsoft partnership. One thing is for sure, networking is not taking a back seat at HP, it's now front and center (stage).