HPE Discover 2017: Under Antonio Neri, HPE Will Expand Its Focus on the Edge and Intelligent IT

C. Drake

Summary Bullets:

• At its Discover event in Madrid, HPE communicated its vision and strategy and to an industry eager to comprehend the impact of Meg Whitman’s decision to step down as CEO.

• In addition to its goal of making hybrid IT simple for enterprise customers, HPE, under its incoming CEO, Antonio Neri, will strengthen its focus on IoT, what it terms “intelligent IT”, edge computing, converged OT control systems, and analytics.

For HPE, last week’s Discover event in Madrid was an opportunity to communicate its vision and strategy to an industry eager to comprehend the impact of Meg Whitman’s announced decision, the week before, to step down as CEO. In her time as CEO, Whitman oversaw the company’s transformation from a provider of traditional data center infrastructure to a business focused on enterprise cloud and hybrid IT solutions. This transformation saw the creation of HPE at the end of 2014, followed by a further slimming down of the company via the disposal of non-core businesses. At the same time, HPE acquired several new companies, including wireless-network infrastructure provider, Aruba Networks and all-flash hybrid storage array provider, Nimble Storage.

Dear HPE, When it Comes to Big Data, All Software is “Core”

B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

• HPE is no longer burdened by application delivery management, IT operations management, big data, enterprise security, and information management software, all of which it termed to be “non-core.”

• Unfortunately, with the sale of these offerings to Micro Focus, HPE has dropped the very thing that would have driven forward its newfound remaining portfolio, namely business value.

Not even a full year has passed since HPE broke off from Hewlett-Packard Company and re-launched as HPE last November, creating a standalone company equipped with a pretty impressive software portfolio covering the cloud, data center infrastructure, and workplace applications. That was a lot to take in, given the storied history of Hewlett-Packard Company. But I think the data and analytics industry looked favorably on the idea of HPE as an enterprise-oriented firm, especially one in possession of software assets like Vertica, IDOL, and Haven.