If it looks like an iPod...

yeah, it's still an iPod, even if it's bathed in that awful "HP signature blue" and has been branded with an HP logo.

The apocalypse is upon us. HP and Apple joining forces to get digital music to the masses. Here are some excerpts from the Associated Press story:

Now, with a freshly inked deal with Hewlett-Packard, the world's No. 2 computer maker, Apple may have scored its most significant marketing coup yet. It also gets a crucial boost onto Windows-based computer desktops.

HP's decision to scrap its own development plans for a portable music player and online music store in favor of the shiny iPod and its iTunes pay-per-song Internet store paints another coat of luster on the consumer electronics' sensation of the moment.

In less than a year, iPod and its iTunes support sheath have broken open the world of digital music, drawing dozens of rivals into the market as the music industry surrendered its Internet inhibitions.

Apple has now sold more than 2 million iPods, making it the top seller of hard-disk portable audio players with more than 50 percent market share. ITunes has dispensed more than 30 million songs at 99 cents a pop.

Coated in HP's signature blue hue, the iPod will get a new name under the Hewlett-Packard brand. But everyone will know it's an iPod.

"We looked at the music space and said, `There's a great digital music player and a great music store out there, so it's logical for us to partner,'" HP CEO Carly Fiorina said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The drawing board for an HP-developed portable player and online music store was shelved after Apple called about a possible deal — and the game plan changed hastily just as attendees converged on Las Vegas, Fiorina said.

The deal means the iTunes music jukebox program will be pre-installed on all of HP desktops and laptops beginning this summer, a plus for Apple, whose computers are limited to a niche of less than 5 percent of the worldwide PC market share.

"The second largest manufacturer of Windows computers, for digital music at least, is standardizing on the Apple platform, and that has never happened before," said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media.

HP's pricing has not been announced, but Apple's iPods start at $299. Apple's new, cheaper, compact model is not part of the HP deal.

"This is a big step for Apple," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. "We're trying to grow the market for iPods and iTunes and to reach more Windows users, and HP brings a lot of Windows customers."

Other executives say Apple wields tremendous influence when it goes to the bargaining table with other companies.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has a record of product and marketing innovation, a top-tier brand and a charismatic chief executive in Steve Jobs who last year persuaded record label executives to get over their copy-protection worries and make more of their music available on the Internet with fewer restrictions.

The one thing that is nice about this is that HP (and their scary CEO Carly Fiorina) had the cojones to come out and admit that Apple is doing the right thing with the iPod, and that there is nothing else that even comes close. The fact that they scrapped plans for their own player shows that they haven't completely lost their minds, though that whole Compaq purchase is still questionable.

We're still reeling at the thought of cheap-ass HP Pavilions at the Wal-Mart being bundled with iTunes. Man, the web-fingered Cletuses will not know what to make of that…