Hewlett-Packard‘s (HPQ) Helion OpenStack platform gained hundreds of thousands of potential new business users with the recent certification of Progress Software‘s Rollbase platform, designed for the development and deployment of cloud-based apps, for HP’s distribution of the open source cloud-computing platform.

Progress, which said the Rollbase global ecosystem includes “millions” of programmers, ISVs and end users, is promoting the certification as a way to make cloud-based app development faster and more secure. In turn, the company noted, companies using Rollbase will be better poised to keep their software offerings up-to-date and relevant.

“Faced with constant market disruption from newer players, businesses need to be ever more innovative. But with application development using traditional tools taking six months or longer, the market has already moved on by the time the application is ready to go―leaving businesses behind the curve,” said Karen Tegan Padir, president, Application Development & Deployment Business Unit at Progress Software. “The availability of Rollbase on HP Helion fundamentally changes this, giving businesses the ability to quickly build, deploy and manage applications that are critical to their operations, keeping pace with the needs of the business and its customers.”

Progress also said the Helion certification will simplify the deployment of apps across multiple clouds, as well as the implementation of scalable infrastructure.

For its part, HP is seizing on the certification announcement as a reflection of the growing adoption of its OpenStack distribution. “The addition of Progress and its ecosystem of millions of developers, ISVs and end users is a critical endorsement of HP Helion,” said Bobby Patrick, chief marketing officer, HP Cloud. “Together, HP and Progress help CIOs deliver on the benefits of cloud computing, by enabling their developers to spend more time coding and less time worrying about infrastructure resources—all while maintaining control and protection of sensitive company data.”