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HPE Top Brass Continue To Deftly Steer Iconic Tech Giant

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) continues to reinvent itself and evolve. Since it was spun off from HP in 2015, it has sold off certain businesses while acquiring others, all in a quest to adapt to the times and in some cases anticipate the future. Recently, it has announced a bold effort to lean-in on providing as-a-Service to its hardware customers so as to begin capturing share in a market where it has historically lagged – software on an as-needed basis.

While today’s large tech incumbents such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google were quick to offer public cloud services in incremental units to the business world at large, HPE was slower to catch on. Better late than never, HPE realizes that as-a-Service has become the norm and will continue to be in strong demand by customers.

Notably, HPE sells an insane amount of hardware each year and will continue to vigorously support that business line. For the latest fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2019, in aggregate HPE generated $7.1 billion in revenue; for the latest fiscal year reported ending October 31, 2018, HPE generated $31 billion in revenue and gross profit of $9 billion.

Stewardship of the iconic HP brand is an incredible challenge and it has taken some of the smartest business minds of the modern era to steer the giant ship in the right direction. In 2015, when the HP board decided to split the company in two, it was Meg Whitman at the helm and at the time, she was overseeing an organization generating well in excess of $100 billion annually while employing over 300,000 professionals.

Regarding strategic actions being taken a year prior Meg commented, "We are gradually shaping HP into a more nimble, lower-cost, more customer and partner-centric company that can successfully compete across a rapidly changing IT landscape."

And it’s this mindset that continues to today, which drives HPE’s smart, strategic, big push into providing software in increments as needed, when needed.

Antonio Neri is now the CEO of HPE. He began overseeing innovative initiatives across the organization long before the 2015 spin off. Prior to assuming the CEO role, Neri served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of HPE’s General Enterprise Group. He has also overseen HP’s Technology Services business, as well as HP’s Server and Networking business. In fact, Neri got his start at Hewlett Packard over 20 years ago as a call center associate. Neri stepped in to replace Whitman, who stepped down from her leadership role in February of 2018.

Recently, Antonio commented “Our vision for our company is to deliver everything we do as a service,” further adding, “We are at an inflection point in the market. Everyone recognizes that customers want technology delivered as a service, but they also want it on their terms. HPE’s unique approach to as-a-service, which empowers customers with choice, flexibility and control, is driving HPE GreenLake’s tremendous success.”