A digital music player from Hewlett Packard... courtesy of Apple. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. At this month's consumer electronics show... it was one of the big surprises. Hewlett Packard has decided to sell an HP branded Apple iPod and tie in with Apple's iTunes music store as well. HP VP Chris Morgan...

"We will roll out HP branded versions of those products. They'll be coming out in the summer time frame. We'll begin loading the iTunes connection solution into our consumer PC products later this spring." Does it preclude Apple from continuing to sell the Windows version of the iPod? "No. Apple can certainly continue to bring to market what they already have brought to market. There's no constraint in that respect. But I think one of the strong reasons for the partnership is that HP really can bring a much broader reach and a larger mass market opportunity for the solutions. We're in 110 thousand retail outlets around the world. A very, very strong consumer presence."

CEO Carly Fiorina says HP had been exploring building its own digital music player... but decided it couldn't build one better than the iPod. Hewlett Packard is also taking a strong stand against the illegal copying of music... pledging to use its technology to help protect the digital rights of artists and recording companies.