(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to HPE Discover 2021, the virtual version. My name is Dave Vellante, and you're watching theCUBE. As the saying goes, follow the money. And with me to talk about HPE Financial Services and the value that it can bring to customers are two great guests, Brad, Shapiro's VP and managing director of the Enterprise Business at HPE Financial Services. And Paul Sheeran is Managing Director of Worldwide Channel and SMB for HPE Financial Services. Gents, welcome to theCUBE. Come on in. >> Thanks Dave, we really appreciate you having us. >> Hi, Dave. >> So Brad, why don't you start us off? Give us the rundown on HPE Financial Services. What's the scope of your services? Should we think of you as a bank? And maybe you could talk about some of the things that you do beyond financing. >> Yeah, that sounds great. So look, we are so much more than banking. Our mission is to create investment capacity to help customers accelerate their transformation. And maybe you could think of us as kind of like a two-in-one partner. We're part-CIO, part-CFO. We kind of refer to ourselves as the CIFO, if you will. And we've got an expertise in a number of different areas. Of course, we'll start with financial. And yes, we offer financial services, and we do an awful lot of financial solutioning. In our portfolio, it's over 13 billion of assets that have been financed. So that is a core competency for us. But we're more than that. We focus also on the technology side of things. And we have expertise in asset management. And we deal with multiple generations of technologies and all major manufacturers as well, not just HPE, but we understand technology and all different types, all different ages of technology. And lastly, we play a pretty big role around sustainability. HPE takes a leadership position when it comes to sustainability. And a lot of our capabilities around the circular economy and putting assets back into reuse play an important role in not only helping customers financially, but helping them meet their sustainability goals. >> I want to come back and ask you more about that, but Paul, I wonder... First of all, I like the CIFO. That's a great, little nomenclature. But Paul, if you're a small business, the CEO is also sometimes the CIO, is sometimes the CFO, a lot of hats. So maybe you could talk about the role that you guys play for SMBs and also channel partners. Channel's a whole different ball game. They want to make margin, they want to grow their business. So maybe you could discuss some of the differences in that channel. >> Yeah. Sure, Dave. Well, starting with the SMB customer is really critical part of our portfolio. As you said, they cover all the roles, so the CIO, CFO. And their budgets can be tight. And especially given the last 18 months, if you read some of the data out there, the budgets are really constrained, especially for the SMB customer. So we try and do, and what our mission is, is what we call creating investment capacity, giving budgets a boost, bringing that vitality to the SMB customer base, to all our customers, but especially SMB customers to help them be able to invest in their digital transformations going forward. So crucial now that all our customers are able to continue to invest in technology. And the pandemic clearly brought it home how important having a digital capability it is. So SMB budgets are tight, and what we try and do is give them that boost, give them that vitality to actually continue to advance ahead and make the right investments for the future. And then from the partners, we actually do a four and a half thousand partners around the world. As you said, partners, they're also not only looking for financial solutions, but how do we differentiate ourselves is to try and help that partner move to a digital platform. We have invested heavily in our digital tools over the last couple of years. So in terms of offering solutions, it can be literally zero touch, low touch so the partner community can plug into our platforms. We also help them on that journey as a service. So technology is moving to as a service. People want to consume technology as a service like they do in the rest of their lives. It's all about subscription. And partners need help to be able to move to another service way. Hopefully GreenLake is the answer. So we support HPE GreenLake's offering. But there's different parts along the way for partners that we look to help them. And last but not least is helping them about asset management. As Brad said, it's all about the assets and understanding how those assets are managed. And helping the partners, having a relevant conversation with their customers as to how best to put in an asset management strategy for their customers. So three areas that we look to differentiate ourselves, Dave. >> We got a lot to talk about. So I want to come back and talk about as a service as well. But Brad, I want to go back to sustainability. So is it just the right thing to do? What's the financial case? Is it good business as well, and where do you fit? >> Yeah, so we believe that sustainability is good for the environment, obviously, but it's also good for business. And when you think about what we bring to the table and those assets back into reuse. So we handle between three and four million assets a year, and over 90% of those, we put back into reuse, with about 10% going into recycling. Putting those back into reuse, the customer that has those assets, we can monetize those assets and help accelerate transformation. So we monetize the asset, and we fund that transition in that transformation so we can really help customers get more budget than they were expecting by leveraging what they would deem to be end-of-life assets, but we find another home for those assets. So it definitely helps customers accelerate the transformation, while being good for the world, good for the environment. >> And that's true, Paul, for SMBs, just maybe on a smaller scale, and definitely makes sense for the channel, right? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Sustainability now is key. Certainly key for our channel partners is moving from a nice-to-have to a must-have. So absolutely, totally agree. >> Yeah. And it's almost like gain sharing. I mean, sometimes we sell used equipment on eBay. It helps fund future business or future transformation. So let's get into the transformations. Everybody talks about digital transformation. Coming into the pandemic, everybody talked about it, but there was a lot of complacency. We've all seen the wrecking ball and the acceleration we talk about all the time, but what role does HPE Financial Services, and do you have any specific solutions that support digital transformations? Any examples there? Maybe Brad, you could start it off. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I'll start off, and then Paul, feel free to jump in. Look Dave, what I would say is the pandemic taught us that every company is a technology company. And where HPFS comes in is we're looking to provide the investment capacity, which is the lifeblood of a company's digital roadmap. So if you don't have the investment capacity, there is no transformation. So when something like the pandemic comes up, and you can't budget for a pandemic, and revenues are down and budgets are getting squeezed, you really need a partner to help you with that. How do you uncover that investment capacity? So we we've talked to lots of customers. We've also done some research, and the ESG group and analysts basically found that 73% of organizations, not surprisingly, either delayed or canceled projects around IT transformation because of all the uncertainty. So what we're looking to do is leverage all of our capabilities in a timely fashion. Last year, we announced the idea of payment holidays and deferred payments so you could keep your transformation going and not have to pay for it for a full year. And now we look at it as we're coming out of the pandemic. And what we're looking to help customers with is one, help them transition their existing infrastructure into a modernized consumption model like GreenLake. Also looking to accelerate the velocity of the transformation programs by leveraging our capabilities around asset upcycling, as well as our accelerated migration program. And last, looking at our existing customers really doing some financial engineering with them, so they can stretch their budgets more and expand the budget to be able to handle new projects. >> Yeah, I mean, Paul, I think Brad nailed it. You're right, their transformations are strategic. They had to fund VDI initiatives or endpoint security or find some cash to buy laptops to support people at home. People were pulling out their servers and sticking them in their trunk and driving to their home because they couldn't get laptops for awhile. And so what are you seeing now, Paul, particularly in the channel. And of course, again, SMBs were squeezed. Maybe they don't have the liquidity that some of these large public companies have. A lot of people just shored up their balance sheets during the pandemic. Maybe the SMB doesn't have as much advantage to do that. But what are you seeing in regard to the sort of bounce back of spend in more strategic areas like transformation? >> Well, I think what we're seeing right now and what we're hearing, especially for SMB customer, is cash is king. It's all about cash preservation. It's about making sure that... You'll hear some studies where some SMB customers only have three or four months left of cash in their kitty to keep their businesses running. So that is really top of mind now. Would they have to invest? If they don't want invest, they're going to be dead in the water to stay ahead of the competition. So what we're looking to do is really help those customers preserve that cash and reach and look for different ways about how to boost their budget. There's actually nothing better than an example. Brad laid out very nicely in terms of what we can do. Bringing it to life, not so much an SMB customer, but there is UNAD. And UNAD is a university in Columbia based in Bogota. And their mission is very simple, it's all about excellence and learning. But as they went into the pandemic, they needed to invest in their distance learning platforms to really help their students. And like most businesses, cash and budget was being squeezed. Revenues were tight. So it would've been very easy to postpone that investment. Well, what we did with UNAD and working with UNAD under IT team was firstly to understand their existing IT estate and really see what assets are being utilized, what are not being utilized, what assets have reached or ended their useful life. And you'd be amazed. And it's not just the data center, we can work right across their whole estate. So as well as the data center, we look at the PCs. To your point, David, we look at even their print estate. And we identified many, many assets that were being underutilized and other assets that were end of life. So we were able to take those assets back and actually release value and boosts UNAD's budget. And some of those assets could not. They had no value. And sustainability was top of their agenda as well. As you'd imagine, the university wanted to lead and show their students that sustainability is key. So we were able to take those assets back and actually recycle them in a very environmentally sound way. So that was the first step to actually inject some cash into their budgets. The next step then was to look at their existing financial contracts that they had in place where maybe some of their banks and actually restructured those contracts to actually give them additional capacity to invest right now in technology. And I'm delighted to say they partnered with the HPE team, I mean, Aruba, to actually continue their five-year roadmap and actually improved their distance learning platforms. So I just thought that was a really good example right now and in the current climate as to show when we work together with our customers, what's actually possible. >> So let's talk a little bit more about GreenLake. I mean, for decades, I mean, even if I go back to the '80s, I saw financial instruments to sort of rent essentially, but it's different. GreenLake, HPE, has pivoted its entire company to as a service. And I want to understand better what role HPE Financial Services plays in making that transition. It's obviously a crucial part of the financing piece, but Brad, maybe you could tell us a little bit more there. >> Yeah, sure. And I think the great thing about GreenLake is it's more than just a consumption model, it's really providing that cloud experience, on-prem, and being able for customers to really manage a hybrid cloud experience. But where HPEFS plays a role, again, it's around our knowledge and ability around assets. So we are underneath GreenLake, doing financial engineering, managing the assets. But the biggest thing, when you think about how does a customer transition? If they're in a traditional cash purchase paradigm, the cost of change and figuring out how to move into a new type of paradigm and new consumption model can be daunting. So HPFS works closely with our GreenLake team and the customer, and we can take those existing assets and look to accelerate the migration into a GreenLake. A great example of that, a public sector customer, Kern County, they were in that cash paradigm, they had lots of assets. Like most entities, they were under pressure from a budget perspective. Tax revenues were down for a couple years in a row. So not only did moving to a GreenLake model provide some cost savings, and cost savings are important, but it also allowed them to deliver the services they needed to their constituents because they had that pay for use type of flexibility. They didn't have a long delay in procuring and provisioning equipment when they needed to roll something out. And again, once again, HPFS was able to monetize their existing assets, roll those into a GreenLake solution and help self-fund that transformation and really accelerate it to get from that cash paradigm model to a new GreenLake consumption model. >> Paul, what about the channel? I mean, on the one hand, I could see the channels loving GreenLake because there's a lot of services involved, and it's sort of an ongoing drip of cash as opposed to the sort of big hit. But on the other hand, it's the ongoing drip of cash as opposed to the big hit. What's the conversations like with the channel? How is that going? I mean, clearly it's the future, but how do they see it? >> I wouldn't say a drip of cash. We would call it an in-use revenue where it's very predictable, which is actually also a good thing, rather than a sort of a one-and-done solution. So clearly, GreenLake is very important to our channel partners, and we're seeing some really good adoption across the world. Again, we underpin that. The other thing to say is a lot of channel partners, as you likely say, want as sell services and become service providers. And what we also do is support not just the data center, but also workplace and print. And what you'll see on the printing side for many, many years, the print partners have been selling a contractual type of model. But a lot of partners now are moving all of their core portfolio into as a service. And there's different parts. It's nearly a cash to as a service journey, and there's different parts of that ladder on the way. And we will look to help our partners get along that ladder and hopefully position GreenLake. But there's also more simpler solutions like subscription that we can position on that journey. So it's really helping that partner get the confidence and the financial wherewithal and the infrastructure to get on the as a service journey. >> How about solutions? I mean, you guys have had some recent announcements. Maybe Brad, you can take us through sort of what the highlights of those were. >> Sure. So yeah, the first announcement was really the example I just provided, which was how do we transition customers to GreenLake? So again, that's a really important step for many customers, and something that we can help them with is moving from that existing paradigm to GreenLake. The second is really helping customers create velocity to move their transformation programs faster. And we do that in a number of ways, but again, all around the asset in our asset management expertise, whether we look to put those assets back into reuse in their facility, or if we look to monetize those assets and put them into reuse with a different customer. Really, it's all around how do we accelerate the customers transformation as we come out of a pandemic. And then lastly, the offering is really focused on how can we help the customer look at existing budget and really financially engineer where they're spending their money to create new pools of budget and cash so they can fund new projects. So it's interesting because when I look at the customers that we're doing these things with, it really spans every industry. So we're dealing with financial services and insurance companies, communications and broadcasting, travel and hospitality, you name it, manufacturing. So the interesting thing is, while sometimes you come out with solutions that are very industry-specific, I think our circumstances today really span lots of industries, both in the commercial and the public sector. And we're finding that these offers are really relevant right now for customers. >> Let's zoom out for a bit. And Brad, let's start with you, and then Paul, I want to get your unique perspectives from the standpoint of SMB in the channel. Summarize your overall strategy in that context. And then I'm interested in, how important do you feel the HPE Financial Services is with regards... And of course, you guys are biased, but that's okay, I want to hear your bias view. How important is it in the grand scheme of actually doing business with HPE. And I'm interested in in why HPE and how much of a competitive advantage you bring relative to some of your major competitors. >> Yeah, sure. So look, the strategy, in my mind, I'll start with HPFS, it's really making sure that we're working closely with our customers, understanding their needs from a business perspective and what business outcomes they're trying to achieve and then marrying both the financial planning and the technology planning to help those customers deliver and achieve those business outcomes. Doing that, also in a way that is sustainable and is good for the environment and helps customers achieve their sustainability initiatives. So kind of marrying that financial technology and sustainability portion of it. From my perspective, I think HPE is a fantastic partner. One, we've been at GreenLake for quite a while, and it continues to evolve. The experiences that we can provide customers now are significantly advanced from when flex capacity came out years and years and years ago. So I really think if a customer took a look at GreenLake a few years ago, you need to keep looking at it because it really has evolved, really creates a unique experience. But I think it's the combination of our technology. We have great technology in our portfolio. We have a fantastic model in GreenLake, and then we have all of the financial engineering expertise around assets and lifecycles and how to get the most out of your IT investment. And we are a partner. If you have sustainability initiatives, I mean, HPE talks the talk, we walk the walk. We do all of this for ourselves, and then we bring those practices out and share best practices with customers. So I really think it's a great time to partner with HP if you're a customer. >> Right, thank you for that, Brad. Paul, what would you add for your constituents? >> Brad, said it beautifully. So just a couple of points I'd add in. From a partner perspective, we are actually in every corner of the world. So we have that global footprint. And then as you see, consolidation in the market, that's very important, not only for our customers, but also for our partners, more and more solutions are going cross border and involve different regions. And we look to make sure that we're globally consistent in how we work with our partners and work with our customers. And the final thing I'd say is we get very excited about supporting our HPE colleagues. But from a channel perspective, we actually also support HPI, HP Inc. You will recall, before separation, that the companies did. So we also support the workplace and print environments, plus third party vendors, which again, is important for the channel community. Why do you need a one-stop shell? And where you'll often have a mixed technology and the solution. So we're there for that as well and always have been. And I think the partner community love our consistency there >> It's a nice arrow when you quiver. And of course we've seen laptop demand explode. And it looks like it's going to sustain for a while here. It's hard to predict, but Paul, still with you, tell us, thinking about the future, what's getting you jazzed up? >> Well, I said we have a global footprint, and every country is in a different place right now. As we sort of come out of the pandemic, some countries are still in the midst of it. But what gets me jazzed up and what gets me excited is the sense of optimism. I think we're sort of figured out how to navigate our way out of this pandemic and the current environment. And customers all recognize the need to invest in technology. Technology is the way forward. So that means having the capacity, investment capacity, the investment vitality, to make that investment. So what gets me excited is what we do is important and we're there to help. >> Great. Thank you. And then Brad, two-part question for you to bring us home. So what are you excited about, and what do you got going at Discover? >> So in terms of my excitement, I think Paul said it well, every company is a technology company. And when we see that everybody is going through a digital transformation, quite frankly, we at HPEFS are going through our own digital transformation. Paul mentioned earlier about Technomics. We have omni-channel ways of engaging with us that are consistent. We're looking at our customer and partner experience and continuing to improve those. So we're not resting on our laurels in what we've done in the past, we continue to change, to modernize, to create new and better ways of doing business with our customer base. So the exciting part, for me, is that change that comes with innovation and technology. And I just think HPE is a great place to be right now with all of that innovation going on. So you asked about Discover. So we're really excited. We've got a spotlight with Irv Rothman focused on investment agility and key to growth and regeneration. So that's really exciting. We have a few breakouts, making technology a force for good, getting back on track that create the investment vitality to take on the world and investment strategies to accelerate innovation in a disruptive world. So really excited about that. And then last, we've got some demos. We have a live interactive demo on our technology renewal center, as well as some on-demand demos of those renewal centers as well. So we've got a lot going on at Discover, and we're really excited about it. >> Great. Gentlemen, thank you for that. So I mean, look, cost of capital is low, but to have a technology partner with you that's also has financial expertise, that, to me, is a killer combination. Guys, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate your time. >> Dave, thanks for having us. >> Thanks, Dave. >> All right, and thank you for watching theCUBE's continuous coverage of HPE Discover 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there for more great content. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to HPE Discover 2021, the virtual version. My name is Dave Vellante, and you're watching theCUBE. As the saying goes, follow the money. And with me to talk about HPE Financial Services and the value that it can bring to customers are two great guests, Brad, Shapiro's VP and managing director of the Enterprise Business at HPE Financial Services. And Paul Sheeran is Managing Director of Worldwide Channel and SMB for HPE Financial Services. Gents, welcome to theCUBE. Come on in. >> Thanks Dave, we really appreciate you having us. >> Hi, Dave. >> So Brad, why don't you start us off? Give us the rundown on HPE Financial Services. What's the scope of your services? Should we think of you as a bank? And maybe you could talk about some of the things that you do beyond financing. >> Yeah, that sounds great. So look, we are so much more than banking. Our mission is to create investment capacity to help customers accelerate their transformation. And maybe you could think of us as kind of like a two-in-one partner. We're part-CIO, part-CFO. We kind of refer to ourselves as the CIFO, if you will. And we've got an expertise in a number of different areas. Of course, we'll start with financial. And yes, we offer financial services, and we do an awful lot of financial solutioning. In our portfolio, it's over 13 billion of assets that have been financed. So that is a core competency for us. But we're more than that. We focus also on the technology side of things. And we have expertise in asset management. And we deal with multiple generations of technologies and all major manufacturers as well, not just HPE, but we understand technology and all different types, all different ages of technology. And lastly, we play a pretty big role around sustainability. HPE takes a leadership position when it comes to sustainability. And a lot of our capabilities around the circular economy and putting assets back into reuse play an important role in not only helping customers financially, but helping them meet their sustainability goals. >> I want to come back and ask you more about that, but Paul, I wonder... First of all, I like the CIFO. That's a great, little nomenclature. But Paul, if you're a small business, the CEO is also sometimes the CIO, is sometimes the CFO, a lot of hats. So maybe you could talk about the role that you guys play for SMBs and also channel partners. Channel's a whole different ball game. They want to make margin, they want to grow their business. So maybe you could discuss some of the differences in that channel. >> Yeah. Sure, Dave. Well, starting with the SMB customer is really critical part of our portfolio. As you said, they cover all the roles, so the CIO, CFO. And their budgets can be tight. And especially given the last 18 months, if you read some of the data out there, the budgets are really constrained, especially for the SMBs customer. So we try and do, and what our mission is, is what we call creating investment capacity, giving budgets a boost, bringing that vitality to the SMB customer base, to all our customers, but especially SMB customers to help them be able to invest in their digital transformations going forward. So crucial now that all our customers are able to continue to invest in technology. And the pandemic clearly brought at home how important having a digital capability it is. So SMB budgets are tight, and what we try and do is give them that boost, give them that vitality to actually continue to advance ahead and make the right investments for the future. And then from the partners, we actually do a four and a half thousand partners around the world. As you said, partners, they're also not only looking for financial solutions, but how do we differentiate ourselves is to try and help that partner move to a digital platform. We have invested heavily in our digital tools over the last couple of years. So in terms of offering solutions, it can be literally zero touch, low touch so the partner community can plug into our platforms. We also help them on that journey as a service. So technology is moving to as a service. People want to consume technology as a service like they do in the rest of their lives. It's all about subscription. And partners need help to be able to move to another service way. Hopefully GreenLake is the answer. So we support HPE GreenLake's offering. But there's different parts along the way for partners that we look to help them. And last but not least is helping them about asset management. As Brad said, it's all about the assets and understanding how those assets are managed. And helping the partners, having a relevant conversation with their customers as to how best to put in an asset management strategy for their customers. So three areas that we look to differentiate ourselves, Dave. >> We got a lot to talk about. So I want to come back and talk about as a service as well. But Brad, I want to go back to sustainability. So is it just the right thing to do? What's the financial case? Is it good business as well, and where do you fit? >> Yeah, so we believe that sustainability is good for the environment, obviously, but it's also good for business. And when you think about what we bring to the table and those assets back into reuse. So we handle between three and four million assets a year, and over 90% of those, we put back into reuse, with about 10% going into recycling. Putting those back into reuse, the customer that has those assets, we can monetize those assets and help accelerate transformation. So we monetize the asset, and we fund that transition in that transformation so we can really help customers get more budget than they were expecting by leveraging what they would deem to be end-of-life assets, but we find another home for those assets. So it definitely helps customers accelerate the transformation, while being good for the world, good for the environment. >> And that's true, Paul, for SMBs, just maybe on a smaller scale, and definitely makes sense for the channel, right? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Sustainability now is key. Certainly key for our channel partners is moving from a nice-to-have to a must-have. So absolutely, totally agree. >> Yeah. And it's almost like gain sharing. I mean, sometimes we sell used equipment on eBay. It helps fund future business or future transformation. So let's get into the transformations. Everybody talks about digital transformation. Coming into the pandemic, everybody talked about it, but there was a lot of complacency. We've all seen the wrecking ball and the acceleration we talk about all the time, but what role does HPE Financial Services, and do you have any specific solutions that support digital transformations? Any examples there? Maybe Brad, you could start it off. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I'll start off, and then Paul, feel free to jump in. Look Dave, what I would say is the pandemic taught us that every company is a technology company. And where HPFS comes in is we're looking to provide the investment capacity, which is the lifeblood of a company's digital roadmap. So if you don't have the investment capacity, there is no transformation. So when something like the pandemic comes up, and you can't budget for a pandemic, and revenues are down and budgets are getting squeezed, you really need a partner to help you with that. How do you uncover that investment capacity? So we we've talked to lots of customers. We've also done some research, and the ESG group and analysts basically found that 73% of organizations, not surprisingly, either delayed or canceled projects around IT transformation because of all the uncertainty. So what we're looking to do is leverage all of our capabilities in a timely fashion. Last year, we announced the idea of payment holidays and deferred payments so you could keep your transformation going and not have to pay for it for a full year. And now we look at it as we're coming out of the pandemic. And what we're looking to help customers with is one, help them transition their existing infrastructure into a modernized consumption model like GreenLake. Also looking to accelerate the velocity of the transformation programs by leveraging our capabilities around asset upcycling, as well as our accelerated migration program. And last, looking at our existing customers really doing some financial engineering with them, so they can stretch their budgets more and expand the budget to be able to handle new projects. >> Yeah, I mean, Paul, I think Brad nailed it. You're right, their transformations are strategic. They had to fund VDI initiatives or endpoint security or find some cash to buy laptops to support people at home. People were pulling out their servers and sticking them in their trunk and driving to their home because they couldn't get laptops for awhile. And so what are you seeing now, Paul, particularly in the channel. And of course, again, SMBs were squeezed. Maybe they don't have the liquidity that some of these large public companies have. A lot of people just shored up their balance sheets during the pandemic. Maybe the SMB doesn't have as much advantage to do that. But what are you seeing in regard to the sort of bounce back of spend in more strategic areas like transformation? >> Well, I think what we're seeing right now and what we're hearing, especially for SMB customer, is cash is king. It's all about cash preservation. It's about making sure that... You'll hear some studies where some SMB customers only have three or four months left of cash in their kitty to keep their businesses running. So that is really top of mind now. Would they have to invest? If they don't want invest, they're going to be dead in the water to stay ahead of the competition. So what we're looking to do is really help those customers preserve that cash and reach and look for different ways about how to boost their budget. There's actually nothing better than an example. Brad laid out very nicely in terms of what we can do. Bringing it to life, not so much an SMB customer, but there is UNAD. And UNAD is a university in Columbia based in Bogota. And their mission is very simple, it's all about excellence and learning. But as they went into the pandemic, they needed to invest in their distance learning platforms to really help their students. And like most businesses, cash and budget was being squeezed. Revenues were tight. So it would've been very easy to postpone that investment. Well, what we did with UNAD and working with UNAD under IT team was firstly to understand their existing IT estate and really see what assets are being utilized, what are not being utilized, what assets have reached or ended their useful life. And you'd be amazed. And it's not just the data center, we can work right across their whole estate. So as well as the data center, we look at the PCs. To your point, David, we look at even their print estate. And we identified many, many assets that were being underutilized and other assets that were end of life. So we were able to take those assets back and actually release value and boosts UNAD's budget. And some of those assets could not. They had no value. And sustainability was top of their agenda as well. As you'd imagine, the university wanted to lead and show their students that sustainability is key. So we were able to take those assets back and actually recycle them in a very environmentally sound way. So that was the first step to actually inject some cash into their budgets. The next step then was to look at their existing financial contracts that they had in place where maybe some of their banks and actually restructured those contracts to actually give them additional capacity to invest right now in technology. And I'm delighted to say they partnered with the HPE team, I mean, Aruba, to actually continue their five-year roadmap and actually improved their distance learning platforms. So I just thought that was a really good example right now and in the current climate as to show when we work together with our customers, what's actually possible. >> So let's talk a little bit more about GreenLake. I mean, for decades, I mean, even if I go back to the '80s, I saw financial instruments to sort of rent essentially, but it's different. GreenLake, HPE, has pivoted its entire company to as a service. And I want to understand better what role HPE Financial Services plays in making that transition. It's obviously a crucial part of the financing piece, but Brad, maybe you could tell us a little bit more there. >> Yeah, sure. And I think the great thing about GreenLake is it's more than just a consumption model, it's really providing that cloud experience, on-prem, and being able for customers to really manage a hybrid cloud experience. But where HPEFS plays a role, again, it's around our knowledge and ability around assets. So we are underneath GreenLake, doing financial engineering, managing the assets. But the biggest thing, when you think about how does a customer transition? If they're in a traditional cash purchase paradigm, the cost of change and figuring out how to move into a new type of paradigm and new consumption model can be daunting. So HPFS works closely with our GreenLake team and the customer, and we can take those existing assets and look to accelerate the migration into a GreenLake. A great example of that, a public sector customer, Kern County, they were in that cash paradigm, they had lots of assets. Like most entities, they were under pressure from a budget perspective. Tax revenues were down for a couple years in a row. So not only did moving to a GreenLake model provide some cost savings, and cost savings are important, but it also allowed them to deliver the services they needed to their constituents because they had that pay for use type of flexibility. They didn't have a long delay in procuring and provisioning equipment when they needed to roll something out. And again, once again, HPFS was able to monetize their existing assets, roll those into a GreenLake solution and help self-fund that transformation and really accelerate it to get from that cash paradigm model to a new GreenLake consumption model. >> Paul, what about the channel? I mean, on the one hand, I could see the channels loving GreenLake because there's a lot of services involved, and it's sort of an ongoing drip of cash as opposed to the sort of big hit. But on the other hand, it's the ongoing drip of cash as opposed to the big hit. What's the conversations like with the channel? How is that going? I mean, clearly it's the future, but how do they see it? >> I wouldn't say a drip of cash. We would call it an in-use revenue where it's very predictable, which is actually also a good thing, rather than a sort of a one-and-done solution. So clearly, GreenLake is very important to our channel partners, and we're seeing some really good adoption across the world. Again, we underpin that. The other thing to say is a lot of channel partners, as you likely say, want as sell services and become service providers. And what we also do is support not just the data center, but also workplace and print. And what you'll see on the printing side for many, many years, the print partners have been selling a contractual type of model. But a lot of partners now are moving all of their core portfolio into as a service. And there's different parts. It's nearly a cash to as a service journey, and there's different parts of that ladder on the way. And we will look to help our partners get along that ladder and hopefully position GreenLake. But there's also more simpler solutions like subscription that we can position on that journey. So it's really helping that partner get the confidence and the financial wherewithal and the infrastructure to get on the as a service journey. >> How about solutions? I mean, you guys have had some recent announcements. Maybe Brad, you can take us through sort of what the highlights of those were. >> Sure. So yeah, the first announcement was really the example I just provided, which was how do we transition customers to GreenLake? So again, that's a really important step for many customers, and something that we can help them with is moving from that existing paradigm to GreenLake. The second is really helping customers create velocity to move their transformation programs faster. And we do that in a number of ways, but again, all around the asset in our asset management expertise, whether we look to put those assets back into reuse in their facility, or if we look to monetize those assets and put them into reuse with a different customer. Really, it's all around how do we accelerate the customers transformation as we come out of a pandemic. And then lastly, the offering is really focused on how can we help the customer look at existing budget and really financially engineer where they're spending their money to create new pools of budget and cash so they can fund new projects. So it's interesting because when I look at the customers that we're doing these things with, it really spans every industry. So we're dealing with financial services and insurance companies, communications and broadcasting, travel and hospitality, you name it, manufacturing. So the interesting thing is, while sometimes you come out with solutions that are very industry-specific, I think our circumstances today really span lots of industries, both in the commercial and the public sector. And we're finding that these offers are really relevant right now for customers. >> Let's zoom out for a bit. And Brad, let's start with you, and then Paul, I want to get your unique perspectives from the standpoint of SMB in the channel. Summarize your overall strategy in that context. And then I'm interested in, how important do you feel the HPE Financial Services is with regards... And of course, you guys are biased, but that's okay, I want to hear your bias view. How important is it in the grand scheme of actually doing business with HPE. And I'm interested in in why HPE and how much of a competitive advantage you bring relative to some of your major competitors. >> Yeah, sure. So look, the strategy, in my mind, I'll start with HPFS, it's really making sure that we're working closely with our customers, understanding their needs from a business perspective and what business outcomes they're trying to achieve and then marrying both the financial planning and the technology planning to help those customers deliver and achieve those business outcomes. Doing that, also in a way that is sustainable and is good for the environment and helps customers achieve their sustainability initiatives. So kind of marrying that financial technology and sustainability portion of it. From my perspective, I think HPE is a fantastic partner. One, we've been at GreenLake for quite a while, and it continues to evolve. The experiences that we can provide customers now are significantly advanced from when flex capacity came out years and years and years ago. So I really think if a customer took a look at GreenLake a few years ago, you need to keep looking at it because it really has evolved, really creates a unique experience. But I think it's the combination of our technology. We have great technology in our portfolio. We have a fantastic model in GreenLake, and then we have all of the financial engineering expertise around assets and lifecycles and how to get the most out of your IT investment. And we are a partner. If you have sustainability initiatives, I mean, HPE talks the talk, we walk the walk. We do all of this for ourselves, and then we bring those practices out and share best practices with customers. So I really think it's a great time to partner with HP if you're a customer. >> Right, thank you for that, Brad. Paul, what would you add for your constituents? >> Brad, said it beautifully. So just a couple of points I'd add in. From a partner perspective, we are actually in every corner of the world. So we have that global footprint. And then as you see, consolidation in the market, that's very important, not only for our customers, but also for our partners, more and more solutions are going cross border and involve different regions. And we look to make sure that we're globally consistent in how we work with our partners and work with our customers. And the final thing I'd say is we get very excited about supporting our HPE colleagues. But from a channel perspective, we actually also support HPI, HP Inc. You will recall, before separation, that the companies did. So we also support the workplace and print environments, plus third party vendors, which again, is important for the channel community. Why do you need a one-stop shell? And where you'll often have a mixed technology and the solution. So we're there for that as well and always have been. And I think the partner community love our consistency there >> It's a nice arrow when you quiver. And of course we've seen laptop demand explode. And it looks like it's going to sustain for a while here. It's hard to predict, but Paul, still with you, tell us, thinking about the future, what's getting you jazzed up? >> Well, I said we have a global footprint, and every country is in a different place right now. As we sort of come out of the pandemic, some countries are still in the midst of it. But what gets me jazzed up and what gets me excited is the sense of optimism. I think we're sort of figured out how to navigate our way out of this pandemic and the current environment. And customers all recognize the need to invest in technology. Technology is the way forward. So that means having the capacity, investment capacity, the investment vitality, to make that investment. So what gets me excited is what we do is important and we're there to help. >> Great. Thank you. And then Brad, two-part question for you to bring us home. So what are you excited about, and what do you got going at Discover? >> So in terms of my excitement, I think Paul said it well, every company is a technology company. And when we see that everybody is going through a digital transformation, quite frankly, we at HPEFS are going through our own digital transformation. Paul mentioned earlier about Technomics. We have omni-channel ways of engaging with us that are consistent. We're looking at our customer and partner experience and continuing to improve those. So we're not resting on our laurels in what we've done in the past, we continue to change, to modernize, to create new and better ways of doing business with our customer base. So the exciting part, for me, is that change that comes with innovation and technology. And I just think HPE is a great place to be right now with all of that innovation going on. So you asked about Discover. So we're really excited. We've got a spotlight with Irv Rothman focused on investment agility and key to growth and regeneration. So that's really exciting. We have a few breakouts, making technology a force for good, getting back on track that create the investment vitality to take on the world and investment strategies to accelerate innovation in a disruptive world. So really excited about that. And then last, we've got some demos. We have a live interactive demo on our technology renewal center, as well as some on-demand demos of those renewal centers as well. So we've got a lot going on at Discover, and we're really excited about it. >> Great. Gentlemen, thank you for that. So I mean, look, cost of capital is low, but to have a technology partner with you that's also has financial expertise, that, to me, is a killer combination. Guys, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate your time. >> Dave, thanks for having us. >> Thanks, Dave. >> All right, and thank you for watching theCUBE's continuous coverage of HPE Discover 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there for more great content. (upbeat music)

>>Welcome lisa and thank you for being here with us today >>Antonio It's wonderful to be here with you as always. And congratulations on your launch. Very, very exciting for you. >>Well, thank you lisa and uh, we love this partnership and especially our friendship, which has been very special for me for many, many years that we have worked together, but I wanted to have a conversation with you today and obviously digital transformation is a key topic. So we know the next wave for digital transformation is here being driven by massive amounts of data and increasingly distributed world and a new set of data intensive workloads. So how do you see a lot of optimization playing a role in addressing these new requirements? >>Yeah, absolutely Antonio. And I think, you know, if you look at the depth of our partnership over the last four or five years, it's really about bringing the best to our customers. And the truth is we're in this compute mega cycle right now. So it's amazing. Um you know, when I know when you talk to customers, when we talk to customers, they all need to do more and frankly, computers becoming quite specialized. So whether, you know, you're talking about large enterprises, um, or you're talking about research institutions trying to get to the next phase of compute so that workload optimization that we're able to do with our processors, your system design and then working closely with our software partners is really the next wave of this, this compute cycle. >>So thanks lisa you talk about mega cycle. So, I want to make sure we take a moment to celebrate The launch of our new generation 10 plus compute products with the latest announcement. Hp now has the broadest a nd server portfolio in the industry spanning from the edge to exa scale. How important is this partnership and the portfolio for our customers? >>Well, um Antonio I'm so excited, first of all, congratulations on your 19 world records with Milan and gen 10 plus. It really is building on sort of our, this is our third generation of partnership with Epic. And you know, you were with me right at the very beginning actually, if you recall you joined us in Austin for our first launch of Epic, you know, four years ago and I think what we've created now is just an incredible portfolio that really does go across. You know, all of the verticals that are required. We've always talked about, how do we customize and make things easier for our customers to use together? And so very excited about your portfolio, very excited about our partnership and more importantly, what we can do for our joint customers. >>It's amazing to see 19 world records. I think I'm really proud of the work our joint team do every generation, raising the bar. And that's where, you know, we, we think we have a shared goal of ensuring our customers get the solution, the services they need any way they want it. And one way we are addressing that need is by offering what we call as a service delivered to HP Green Lake. So let me ask a question, What feedback are you hearing from your customers with respect to choice, meaning consuming as a service? This new solutions? >>Yeah, great point. I think, first of all, you know, HP Green Lake is very, very impressive. So, congratulations to really having that solution. And I think we're hearing the same thing from customers and you know, the truth is, um, the computer infrastructure is getting more complex and everyone wants to be able to deploy, sort of the right compute at the right price point um you know, in in terms of also accelerating um time to deployment with the right security with the right quality. And I think these as a service offerings are going to become more and more important um as we go forward um in the compute capabilities and you know, Green Lake is a leadership product offering and we're very very pleased and honored to be part of it. >>Okay. Yeah. We feel uh lisa we are ahead of the competition and um you know, you think about some of our competitors is not coming with their own offerings, but I think the ability to drive joint innovation is what really differentiates us and that's why we value the partnership and what we have been doing together on given the customer's choice. Finally, you know, I know you and I above incredibly excited about the joint work with you and with the U. S. Department of Energy, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory we think about large data sets and you know and the complexity of the analytics we're running but we both are going to deliver the world first exa scale system. Which is remarkable to me. So what this milestone means to you and what type of impact do you think it will >>make? Yes Antonio I think our work with Oak Ridge National Labs and HP is just really pushing the envelope on what can be done with computing. And if you think about the science that we're going to be able to enable with the first extra scale machine, I would say there's a tremendous amount of innovation that has already gone in to the machine and we're so excited about delivering it together with HP. And you know we also think that the supercomputing technology that we're developing at this broad scale will end up being very, very important for enterprise computer as well. And so it's really an opportunity to kind of take that bleeding edge and really deploy it over the next few years. So super excited about it. I think you and I have a lot to do over the next few months here, but it's an example of the great partnership and and how much we're able to do when we put our teams together, um, to really create that innovation. >>I couldn't agree more. I mean, this is an incredible milestone for for us, for our industry and honestly for the country in many ways. And we have many, many people working 24 by seven to deliver against this mission. And it's going to change the future of compute no question about it. Um, and then honestly put it to work where we needed the most to advance life science to find cures, to improve the way people live and work, lisa, thank you again for joining us today and thank you more most importantly for the incredible partnership and, and the friendship. I really enjoy working with you and your team and together, I think we can change this industry once again. So thanks for your time today. >>Thank you so much Antonio and congratulations again to you and the entire HPI team for just a fantastic portfolio launch. >>Thank you.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube covering HP. Discover Virtual experience Brought to you by HP. >>Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of HP Discover. 2020. The virtual experience. The Cube. The Cube has been virtualized. My name is Dave Vellante. I'm here with Stuart Minuteman and our good friend Tim Crawford is here. He's a strategic advisor to see Io's with boa. Tim, Great to see you. Stuart. Thanks for coming on. >>Great to see you as well, Dave. >>Yes. So let's unpack. What's going on in that Discover Antonio's, He notes, Maybe talk a little bit about the prospects for HP of coming forward in this decade. You know, last decade was not a great one for HP, HP. I mean, there was a lot of turmoil. There was a botched acquisitions. There was breaking up the company and spin merges and a lot of distractions. And so now that companies really and you hear this from Antonio kind of positioning for innovation for the next decade. So So I think this is probably a lot of excitement inside the company, but I want to touch on a couple of points and then you get your guys reaction, I guess, you know, to start off. Obviously, Antonio's talking about Cove in the role that they played in that whole, you know, pandemic and the transition toe the the isolation economy. But so let me start with you, Tim. I mean, what is the sort of posture amongst cios that you talk to? How strategic is HB H B two? The folks that you talk to in your community? >>Well, I think if you look at how CIOs are thinking, especially as we head into covert it into Corona virus and kind of mapping through that, that price, um, it really came down to Can they get their hands on technology? Can they get people back to work working from home? Can they do it in a secure fashion? Um, keeping people productive. I mean, there was a lot of block and tackling, and even to this day, there's still a fair amount of that was taking place. Um, we really haven't seen the fallout from the cybersecurity impact of expanding our foot print. Um, quite. But we'll see that, probably in the coming months. There are some initial inklings there when it comes to HP specifically I think it comes back to just making sure that they had the product on hand, that they understood that customers are going through dramatic change. And so all bets are off. You have to kind of step back and say, Okay, those plans that I had 60 9100 and 20 days ago those strategies that I may have already started down the path with those are up for grabs. I need to step back from those and figure out What do I do now? And I think each company, HP included, needs to think about how do they start to meld themselves, to be able to address those changing customer needs? And I think that's that's where this really kind of becomes the rubber hits the road is is HP capable of doing that? And are they making the right changes? And quite frankly, that starts with empathy. And I think we've heard pretty clearly from Antonio that he is sympathetic to the plight of their customers and the world >>on the whole. >>Yeah, and I think culturally 10 minutes do I mean I think you know HP is kind of getting back to some of its roots, and Tony has been there for a long time. I think people I think is very well liked. Andi, I think, ease of use, and I'm sure he's tough. But he's also a very fair individual, and he's got a vision and he's focused. And so, you know, I think again, as they said, looking forward to this decade, I think could be one that is, you know, one of innovation. Although, you know, look, you look at the stock price, you know, it's kind of piqued in November 19. It's obviously down like many stocks, so there's a lot of work to do there, and it's too. We're certainly hearing from HP. This notion of everything is a service that we've talked about green like a lot. What's your sense of their prospects going forward in this, you know, New Era? >>Yeah, I mean, Dave, one of the biggest attacks we've heard about H E in the last couple of years, you know the line Michael Dell would use is you're not going to grow by, say, abstraction. But as a platform company, HP is much more open. From what I've seen in the HP that I remember from, you know, 5 to 10 years ago. So you look at their partner ecosystem. It's robust. So, you know, years ago, it seemed to be if it didn't come out of HP Labs, it wasn't a product, you know. That was the services arm all wanted to sell HP here. Now, in this software defined world working in a cloud environment, they're much more open to finding that innovation and enabling it. So, you know, we talk about Green Lake Day. Three lakes got about 1000 customers right now, and a big piece of that is a partner. Port Police, whether it's VM Ware Amazon Annex, were H B's full stack themselves. They have optionality in there, and that's what we hear from from users is that they want flexibility they don't want. You know, you look at the cloud providers, it's not, you know, here's a solution. You look at Amazon. There's dozens of databases that you can use from Amazon or, if you use on top of Amazon, so H p e. You know, not a public cloud provider, but looking more like that cloud experience. They've done so many acquisitions over the years. Many of them were troubled. They got rid of some of the pieces that they might have over paid for. But you look at something like CTP them in this multi cloud world in the networking space, they've got a really cool, open source company, the company behind spiffy, inspire. And, you know, companies that are looking at containers and kubernetes, you know, really respond to say, Hey, these are projects that were interesting Oh, who's the company that that's driving that it's HP so more open, more of a partner ecosystem definitely feels that there's a lot there that I respect and like that hp >>well, I mean, the intent of splitting the company was so that HP could be more focused but focused on innovation was the intent was to be the growth company. It hasn't fully played out yet. But Tim, when you think about the conversations that CIOs are having with with HPI today versus what they were having with hpe HP, the the conglomerate of that the Comprising e ds and PCs, I guess I don't know, in a way, more more Dell like so Certainly Michael Dell's having strategic conversations, CIOs. But you got to believe that the the conversations are more focused today. Is that a good thing or a jury's still out? >>No, it absolutely is a good thing. And I think one of the things that you have to look at is we're getting back to brass tax. We're getting back to that focus around business objectives. So no longer is that hey, who has the coolest tech? And how can we implement that tax? Kind of looking from a tech business? Ah, spectrum, you're now focused squarely is a C i. O. You have to be squarely focused on what are the business objectives that you are teamed up for, and if you're not, you're on a very short leash and that doesn't end well. And I think the great thing about the split of HP HP e split and I think you almost have to kind of step back for a second. Let's talk about leadership because leadership plays a very significant role, especially for CIOs that are thinking about long term decisions and strategic partners. I don't think that HP necessarily had the right leadership in place to carry them into that strategic world. I think Antonio really makes a change there. I mean, they made some really poor decisions. Post split. Um, that really didn't bode well for HP. Um, and frankly, I talked a bit about that I know wasn't really popular within HP, but quite frankly, they needed to hear it. And I think that actually has been heard. And I think they are listening to their customers. And one of the big changes is they're getting back into the software business. And when you talk about strategic initiatives, you have to get beyond just the hardware and start moving up the proverbial stack, getting closer to those business initiatives. And that is software. >>Yeah, well, Antonio talked about sort of the insights. I mean, something I've said a lot about borrowed from the very Meeker conversations that that data is plentiful. Something I've always said. Insights aren't. And so you're right. You've seen a couple of acquisitions, you know, Matt bahr They picked up, I think pretty inexpensively. Kind of interesting cause, remember, HP hp had an investment in Horton works, which, of course, is now Cloudera and Blue Data. Ah Kumar Conte's company, you know, kind of focusing on maybe automating data, you know, they talked about Ed centric, cloud enabled, data driven. Nobody's gonna argue with those things. But you're right, Tim. I mean, you're talking more software than kind of jettisons the software business and now sort of have to rebuild it. And then, of course, do this cloud. What do you make of HP ease Cloud play? >>Yeah, well, I >>mean, >>Dave, you the pieces. You were just talking about math bar and blue data, where HP connects it together is, you know, ai ops. So you know, where are we going with infrastructure? There needs to be a lot more automation. We heard a great quote. I love from automation anywhere. Dave was, if you talk about digital transformation without automation, it's hallucination. So, you know, HP baking that into what they're doing. So, you know, I fully agree with Tim software software software, you know, is where the innovation is. So it can't just be the infrastructure. How do you have eyes and books into the applications? How are you helping customers build those new pieces? And what's the other software that you build around that? So, you know, absolutely. It's an interesting piece. And you know, HP has got a lot of interesting pieces. You know, you talk about the edge. Aruba is a great asset for that kind of environment and from a partnership, that is a damn point. Dave. They have. John Chambers was in the keynote. John, of course. Long time partners. He's with Cisco for many years Intel. Cisco started eating with HP on the server business, but now he's also the chairman of pensando. HP is an investor in pensando general availability this month of that solution, and that's going to really help build out that next generation edge. So, you know, a chip set that HP E can offer similar to what we see how Amazon builds outpost s. So that is a solution both for the enterprise and beyond. Is as a B >>yeah course. Do. Of course, it's kind of, but about three com toe. Add more fuel to that tension. Go ahead, Tim. >>Well, I was going to pick apart some of those pieces because you know, at edge is not an edge is not an edge. And I think it's important to highlight some of the advantages that HP is bringing to the table where Pensando comes in, where Aruba comes in and also we're really comes in. I think there are a number of these components that I want to make sure that we don't necessarily gloss over that are really key for HP in terms of the future. And that is when you step back and you look at how customers are gonna have to consume services, how they're going to have to engage with both the edge and the cloud and everything in between. HP has a great portfolio of hardware. What they haven't necessarily had was the glue, that connective tissue to bring all of that together. And I think that's where things like Green Lake and Green Lake Central really gonna play a role. And even their, um, newer cloud services are going to play a role. And unlike outposts and unlike some of the other private cloud services that are on the market today, they're looking to extend a cloud like experience all the way to the edge and that continuity creating that simplicity is going to be key for enterprises. And I think that's something that shouldn't be understated. It's gonna be really important because when I look at in the conversations I'm having when we're looking at edge to cloud and everything in between. Oh my gosh, that's really complicated. And you have to figure out how to simplify that. And the only way you're going to do that is if you take it up a layer and start thinking about management tools. You start thinking about autumn, and as companies start to take data from the edge, they start analyzing it at the edge and intermediate points on the way to cloud. It's going to be even more important to bring continuity across this entire spectrum. And so that's one of the things that I'm really excited about that I'm hearing from Antonio's keynote and others. Ah, here at HP Discover. >>Yeah, >>well, let's let's stay on that stupid. Let's stay on that for a second. >>Yeah, I wanted to see oh interested him because, you know, it's funny. You think back. You know, HP at one point in time was a leader in, you know, management solutions. You know, HP one view, you know, in the early days, it was really well respected. I think what I'm hearing from you, I think about outpost is Amazon hasn't really put management for the edge. All they're doing is extending the cloud piece and putting a piece out of the edge. It feels like we need a management solution that built from the ground up for this kind of solution. And do I hear you right? You believe that to be as some of those pieces today? >>Well, let's compare and contrast briefly on that. I think Amazon and the way Amazon is well, is Google and Microsoft, for that matter. The way that they are encompassing the edge into their portfolio is interesting, but it's an extension of their core business, their core public cloud services business. Most of the enterprise footprint is not in public cloud. It's at the other end of that spectrum, and so being able to take not just what's happening at the edge. But what about in your corporate data center in your corporate data center? You still have to manage that, and that doesn't fall under the purview of Cloud. And so that's why I'm looking at HP is a way to create that connective tissue between what companies are doing within the corporate data center today, what they're doing at the edge as well as what they're doing, maybe in private cloud and an extension public cloud. But let's also remember something else. Most of these enterprises, they're also in a multi cloud environment, so they're touching into different public cloud providers for different services. And so now you talk about how do I manage this across the spectrum of edge to cloud. But then, across different public cloud providers, things get really complicated really fast. And I think the hints of what I'm seeing in software and the new software branding give me a moment of pause to say, Wait a second. Is HP really gonna head down that path? And if so, that's great because it is of high demand in the enterprise. >>Well, let's talk about that some more because I think this really is the big opportunity and we're potentially innovation is. So my question is how much of Green Lake and Green Lake services are really designed for sort of on Prem to make that edge to on Prem? No, I want to ask about Cloud, how much of that is actually delivering Cloud Native Services on AWS on Google on Azure and Ali Cloud etcetera versus kind of creating a cloud like experience for on Prem in it and eventually the edge. I'm not clear on that. You guys have insight on how much effort is going into that cloud. Native components in the public cloud. >>Well, I would say that the first thing is you have to go back to the applications to truly get that cloud native experience. I think HP is putting the components together to a prize. This to be able to capitalize on that cloud like experience with cloud native APS. But the vast majority of enterprise app they're not cloud native. And so I think the way that I'm interpreting Green Lake and I think there are a lot of questions Greenland and how it's consumed by enterprises there. There was some initial questions around the branding when it first came out. Um, and so you know it's not perfect. I think HP definitely have some work to do to clarify what it is and what it isn't in a way that enterprises can understand. But from what I'm seeing, it looks to be creating and a cloud like experience for enterprises from edge to cloud, but also providing the components so that if you do have applications that are shovel ready for cloud or our cloud native, you can embrace Public Cloud as well as private cloud and pull them under the Green Lake >>Rela. Yeah, ostensibly stew kubernetes is part of the answer to that, although you know, as we've talked about, Kubernetes is necessary containers and necessary but not sufficient for that experience. And I guess the point I'm getting to is, you know we do. We've talked about this with Red Hat, certainly with VM Ware and others the opportunity to have that experience across clouds at the Edge on Prim. That's expensive from an R and D standpoint. And so I want to kind of bring that into the discussion. HP last year spent about 1.8 billion in R and D Sounds like a lot of money. It's about 6% of its of it's revenues, but it's it's spread thin now. It does are indeed through investments, for instance, like Pensando or other acquisitions. But in terms of organic R and D, you know, it's it's it's not at the top of the heap. I mean, obviously guys like Amazon and Google have surpassed them. I've written about this with regard to IBM because they, like HP, spend a lot on dividends on share buybacks, which they have to do to prop up the stock price and placate Wall Street. But it But it detracts from their ability to fund R and d student your take on that sort of innovation roadmap for the next decade. >>Yeah, I mean, one of the things we look at it in the last year or so there's been what we were talking about earlier, that management across these environments and kubernetes is a piece of it. So, you know, Google laid down and those you've got Microsoft with Azure, our VM ware with EMS. Ooh! And to Tim's point, you know, it feels like Green Lake fits kind of in that category, but there's there's pieces that fall outside of it. So, you know, when I first thought of Green Lake, it was Oh, well, I've got a private cloud stack like an azure stack is one of the solutions that they have there. How does that tie into that full solution? So extending that out, moving that brand I do here, you know good things from the field, the partners and customers. Green Lake is well respected, and it feels like that is, that is a big growth. So it's HB 50 from being more thought of, as you know, a box seller to more of that solution in subscription model. Green Lake is a vehicle for that. And as you pointed out, you know, rightfully so. Software so important. And I feel when that thing I'd say HPI ee feels toe have more embracing of software than, say, they're closest competitors. Which is Dell, which, you know, Dell Statement is always to be the leading infrastructure writer, and the arm of VM Ware is their software. So, you know, just Dell alone without VM ware, HP has to be that full solution of what Dell and VM ware together. >>Yeah, and VM Ware Is that the crown jewel? And of course, HP doesn't have a VM ware, but it does have over 8000 software engineers. Now I want to ask you about open source. I mean, I would hope that they're allocating a large portion of those software engineers. The open source development developing tooling at the edge, developing tooling from multi cloud certainly building hooks in from their hardware. But is HP Tim doing enough in open source? >>Well, I don't want to get on the open source bandwagon, and I don't necessarily want to jump off it. I think the important thing here is that there are places where open source makes sense in places where it doesn't, um, and you have to look at each particular scenario and really kind of ask yourself, does it make sense to address it here? I mean, it's a way to to engage your developers and engage your customers in a different mode. What I see from HP E is more of a focus around trying to determine where can we provide the greatest value for our customers, which, frankly, is where their focus should be, whether that shows up in open source for software, whether that shows up in commercial products. Um, we'll see how that plays out. But I think the one thing that I give HP e props on one of several things I would say is that they are kind of getting back to their roots and saying, Look, we're an infrastructure company, that is what we do really well We're not trying to be everything to everyone. And so let's try and figure out what are customers asking for? How do we step through that? I think this is actually one of the challenges that Antonio's predecessors had was that they tried to do jump into all the different areas, you know, cloud software. And they were really X over, extending themselves in ways that they probably should. But they were doing it in ways that really didn't speak to their four, and they weren't connecting those dots. They weren't connecting that that connective tissue they needed to dio. So I do think that, you know, whether it's open source or commercial software, we'll see how that plays out. Um, but I'm glad to see that they are stepping back and saying Okay, let's be mindful about how we ease into this >>well, so the reason I bring up open source is because I think it's the mainspring of innovation in the industry on that, but of course it's very tough to make money, but we've talked a lot about H B's strength since breath is, we haven't talked much about servers, but they're strong in servers. That's fine We don't need to spend time there. It's culture. It seems to be getting back to some of its roots. We've touched on some of its its weaknesses and maybe gaps. But I want to talk about the opportunities, and there's a huge opportunity to the edge. David Flores quantified. He says that Tam is four. Trillion is enormous, but here's my question is the edge Right now we're seeing from companies like HP and Dell. Is there largely taking Intel based servers, kind of making a new form factor and putting them out on the edge? Is that the right approach? Will there be an emergence of alternative processors? Whether it's our maybe, maybe there's some NVIDIA in there and just a whole new architecture for the edge to authority. Throw it out to you first, get Tim Scott thoughts. >>Yeah, So what? One thing, Dave, You know, HP does have a long history of partnering with a lot of those solutions. So you see NVIDIA up on stage when you think about Moonshot and the machine and some of the other platforms that they felt they've looked at alternative options. So, you know, I know from Wicky Bon standpoint, you know, David Foyer wrote the piece. That arm is a huge opportunity at the edge there. And you would think that HP would be one of the companies that would be fast to embrace that >>Well, that's why I might like like Moonshot. I think that was probably ahead of its time. But the whole notion of you know, a very slim form factor that can pop in and pop out. You know, different alternative processor architecture is very efficient, potentially at the edge. Maybe that's got got potential. But do you have any thoughts on this? I mean, I know it's kind of Yeah, any hardware is, but, >>well, it is a little hardware, but I think you have to come back to the applicability of it. I mean, if you're taking a slim down ruggedized server and trying Teoh essentially take out, take off all the fancy pieces and just get to the core of it and call that your edge. I think you've missed a huge opportunity beyond that. So what happens with the processing that might be in camera or in a robot or in an inch device? These are custom silicon custom processors custom demand that you can't pull back to a server for everything you have to be able to to extend it even further. And, you know, if I compare and contrast for a minute, I think some of the vendors that are looking at Hey, our definition of edge is a laptop or it is this smaller form factor server. I think they're incredibly limiting themselves. I think there is a great opportunity beyond that, and we'll see more of those kind of crop up, because the reality is the applicability of how Edge gets used is we do data collection and data analysis in the device at the device. So whether it's a camera, whether it's ah, robot, there's processing that happens within that device. Now some of that might come back to an intermediate area, and that intermediate area might be one of these smaller form factor devices, like a server for a demo. But it might not be. It might be a custom type of device that's needed in a remote location, and then from there you might get back to that smaller form factor. Do you have all of these stages and data and processing is getting done at each of these stages as more and more resources are made available. Because there are things around AI and ML that you could only do in cloud, you would not be able to do even in a smaller form factor at the edge. But there are some that you can do with the edge and you need to do at the edge, either for latency reasons or just response time. And so that's important to understand the applicability of this. It's not just a simple is saying, Hey, you know, we've got this edge to cloud portfolio and it's great and we've got the smaller servers. You have to kind of change the vernacular a little bit and look at the applicability of it and what people are actually doing >>with. I think those are great points. I think you're 100% right on. You are going to be doing AI influencing at the edge. The data of a lot of data is going to stay at the edge and I personally think and again David Floor is written about this, that it's going to require different architectures. It's not going to be the data center products thrown over to the edge or shrunk down. As you're saying, That's maybe not the right approach, but something that's very efficient, very low cost of when you think about autonomous vehicles. They could have, you know, quote unquote servers in there. They certainly have compute in there. That could be, you know, 2344 $5000 worth of value. And I think that's an opportunity. I'd love to see HP Dell, others really invest in R and D, and this is a new architecture and build that out really infuse ai at the edge. Last last question, guys, we're running out of time. One of the things I'll start with you. Still what things you're gonna watch for HP as indicators of success of innovation in the coming decade. As we said last decade, kind of painful for HP and HP. You know, this decade holds a lot of promise. One of the things you're gonna be watching in terms of success indicators. >>So it's something we talked about earlier is how are they helping customers build new things, So a ws always focuses on builders. Microsoft talks a lot. I've heard somethin double last year's talk about building those new applications. So you know infrastructure is only there for the data, and the applications live on top of it. And if you mention Dave, there's a number of these acquisitions. HP has moved up the stack. Some eso those proof points on new ways of doing business. New ways of building new applications are what I'm looking for from HP, and it's robust ecosystem. >>Tim. Yeah, yeah, and I would just pick you back right on. What's do was saying is that this is a, you know, going back to the Moonshot goals. I mean, it's about as far away as HP ease, and HP is routes used to be and that that hardware space. But it's really changing business outcomes, changing business experiences and experiences for the customers of their customers. And so is far cord that that eight p e can get. I wouldn't expect them to get all the way there, although in conversations I am having with HP and with others that it seems like they are thinking about that. But they have to start moving in that direction. And that's actually something that when you start with the builder conversation like Microsoft has had, an Amazon has had Google's had and even Dell, to some degree has had. I think you missed the bigger picture, so I'm not saying exclude the builder conversation. But you have to put it in the right context because otherwise you get into this siloed mentality of right. We have solved one problem, one unique problem, and built this one unique solution. And we've got bigger issues to be able to address as enterprises, and that's going to involve a lot of different moving parts. And you need to know if you're a builder, you've it or even ah ah, hardware manufacturer. You've got to figure out, How does your piece fit into that bigger picture and you've got to connect those dots very, very quickly. And that's one of the things I'll be looking for. HP as well is how they take this new software initiative and really carry it forward. I'm really encouraged by what I'm seeing. But of course the future could hold something completely different. We thought 2020 would look very different six months ago or a year ago than it does today. >>Well, I wanna I want to pick up on that, I think I would add, and I agree with you. I'm really gonna be looking for innovation. Can h P e e get back to kind of its roots? Remember, H B's router invents it was in the logo. I can't translate its R and D into innovation. To me, it's all about innovation. And I think you know cios like Antonio Neri, Michael Dell, Arvind Krishna. They got a They have a tough, tough position because they're on the one hand, they're throwing off cash, and they can continue Teoh to bump along and, you know, placate Wall Street, give back dividends and share buybacks. And and that's fine. And everybody would be kind of happy. But I'll point out that Amazon in 2007 spent spend less than a $1,000,000,000 in R and D. Google spent about the back, then about the same amount of each B E spends today. So the point is, if the edge is really such a huge opportunity, this $4 trillion tam is David Foyer points out, there's a There's a way in which some of these infrastructure companies could actually pull a kind of mini Microsoft and reinvent themselves in a way that could lead to massive shareholder returns. But it was really will take bold vision and a brave leader to actually make that happen. So that's one of things I'm gonna be watching very closely hp invent turn r and D into dollars. And so you guys really appreciate you coming on the Cube and breaking down the segment for ah, the future of HP be well, and, uh and thanks very much. Alright. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Volante for Tim Crawford and Stupid men. Our coverage of HP ease 2020 Virtual experience. We'll be right back right after this short break. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Announcer: Live from Copenhagen, Denmark, it's theCUBE! Covering KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2018. Brought to you by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and it's ecosystem partners. >> Hello there and welcome back to theCUBE's exclusive coverage of KubeCon 2018, the Cloud Native Compute Foundation. CNCF, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. My cohost Lauren Cooney is here with me this week. Our next two guests are from HPE Developer program. Paul Holland, Director of Open Source Program Office. And Said Syed, who is the Head of HP Developer Experience. CUBE alumni. Welcome back. Good to see you. >> Thanks for having us. >> Thanks for comin' on. >> Thank you. >> First of all, new logo. I love that, I want to get into it. HPE Developer program. We've had many conversations in the past about the relationship with Docker. The work you guys are doing inside the enterprises with cloud, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. Why are you guys here? What's the story? What's the update from HPE? >> In December we launched this new program called the HP Community Developer Program. And that's really focused on reaching out to the developers that are out there. Whether these are DevOps developers, Cloud Native application developers, ITOps developers, who are looking to do integration with HPE infrastructure as well as our software defined platforms. It's basically evangelizing all of the good work that HP's doing in the open source program and other areas. Do you want to add something, Paul? >> Yeah, I think part of it is the recognition that HPE is a software company. After all of the separations, the divestiture with HPI and that micro-focus. We're left with really still a lot of developer power. It's the idea that as we work with developers internally and externally, we need to formalize that developer program. Both inside of open source and the general developer. Go through our API's and some of that coordination, to really make the developer work. >> I mean we're talking software defined. Everything now, you guys have been part of that. To give you guys some props, we've interviewed in the past four or five years, you guys were doing, talking micro services early on. >> Syed: That's right. >> Again the enterprise has software defined systems. >> You guys are a big part of that. So I got to ask you, the perfect storm is here. I mean Kubernetes, which is on the scene, is now, at least in my opinion, the defacto standard for interoperability around multi-cloud. This is the perfect storm for a company as big as HP with all the customers. So what is... I mean you guys must be sitting there going, perfect timing! What does it mean for you guys, Kubernetes? This is going to give you certainly a tail wind for deployments, and customer value creation. What's it mean internally for HPE? >> Well I think Kubernetes is at the heart, as you mentioned, of the open source ecosystem. It's about all of those Lego blocks now finally coming together with micro-services. And being able to put 'em together for an enterprise class workload. And given our history and expertise there I think you're right. It's a great opportunity to make sure that it works for the enterprise developer, for general developers. And how everything comes together within it, within a corporate world of development. >> Are you guys doubling down? >> Syed: Absolutely. >> What's the story internally? Is it got the charter from the top? >> That's right, yeah, we're definitely doubling down. As you mentioned, we started early on with micro services, with our partnership at Docker. We have a great relationship with Mesosphere. And we're full on with Kubernetes. You know we have a product that we're actually demoing here on the show floor, called HPE OneSphere. We launched the product in December of last year. And one of the things it actually does, it enables Kubernetes' cluster management on-prem and off-prem. For example in AWS. Deployment, management, all of those things. We are full on. We also have open source projects in the Kubernetes landscape. It's called Project Dory. That enables persistent storage. It's actually contributed by our Nimble big business unit. We're very focused on enabling our developers. Things that enable them is things like, how can I automatically deploy applications? And so on. Using Kubernetes cluster or Kubernetes environment. Working with Paul and others that's exactly what we're focused on. >> What are some of the user cases that you guys are seeing? As you mentioned some of those deployments. Is it really existing integration within HP Solutions? Like OneSphere? And OneSphere's obviously going to be a nice paint a glass and look at the platform of what the cloud offers. Is it Edge? Is it IoT? I mean what are some of the user cases? >> I think it's all of the above. I think what we're seeing is legacy enterprises having all of these legacy applications that they need to migrate this new world. At the same time they're struggling with, how do then I make hybrid? How do I then go to the Edge? And so across the board, I think that's the power of going back to your original question about HPE. Is we've seen all of that in the enterprise. And can we put those proprietary componentry into the products? Like a OneSphere on top of open source components. The reason we're here at Kubernetes, as an example, is to really highlight to developers that if you really want to bring things together. We can help you do that. Whether it be legacy applications, new application, greenfield applications. All within this again Lego block type environment, within Kubernetes and these other open source platforms. >> I mean you guys also again on the composable infrastructure kind of story. It's kind of here, right? >> That's right. Again we started down this journey three, four years ago with Docker. And several others. We built this unified ecosystem. A composable ecosystem. And in the ecosystem I think there's now like 40 some partners. But that's growing. If you look at it from a layered cake point of view. The infrastructure is here. That problem has been solved for a long time. You have infrastructure management. With one view, with our composable API's. Working with components like Docker, and Mesosphere, and Redfish, and other open source products and services, on top of that with OneSphere as the multi-cloud/hybrid cloud management platform, again using the power of our API's. And then integrating north bound with these hybrid multi-cloud management environments, as well as south bound with infrastructure management. Now you have the overall story. We're really exploiting the power of API's. And enabling our developers internally, as well as developers outside of HPE, To come together and start to think about this new idea. Is there a solution for that? Absolutely, there's an app for it. And then the way you build that app is build that API integration. >> You talked about an app store that you guys are working on. It has about 40 different partners in it. What about users of the solutions that are in there? Are you seeing an uptick in that? And what are you seeing in terms of that and what are they using? >> Yeah so I'll give you a quick example. We launched the developer community program in December. We launched the portal in December. And in the past two and a half months, we have seen a significant uptick and actually just people comin' in and hanging out on the portal. I think we are up to about 30,000 unique, unique views of our page. Most people are spending three to four minutes, which is a lot in today's terms. Someone who is going there, reading our content. And then on top of that actually consumer-ship of our projects. Grommet for example is one of our open source projects that HP funds. It's a UX front end. I think it has more than 10,000 people that are following it, and using it. Companies like Netflix, for example, use Grommet as a UX. Most of our SDCG is off our defined applications are now using Grommet. So OneSphere, One View. That's our de facto standard. But it's open source, anyone can use it. >> Are you finding, HP is traditionally been kind of a company that does a lot of things internally. Are you guys opening up for the first time? With allowing your developers to build things that will be put into open source? Can you talk a little bit about that? >> The power of HP is we've had a rich collaboration history for a long, long time. And I think you alluded to it before. From an enterprise perspective, how can we make that easy? Not only for our own internal developers. And maybe this is where this question comes from from an internal perspective. Even ten, 15 years ago with Martin Fink, at the helm of the open source group. And then ultimately as the CTO. And things have shifted through the separations. How do you leverage that power of openness, collaboration, that's in their DNA? And really empowering them to share. How do we take concepts like inner sourcing, which is the open sourcing of activities inside a company, And really start develop those habits and capabilities. Whether or not it's external is just a flip of the switch. But developers know how to contribute. They're also learning best of breed skills. And developing their own career over time. >> Cooney: That is great to hear. >> And enabling that for other enterprises as well. Which is really where a lot of our customers come to us and say, hey you're an enterprise with lots and lots of developers. How do I get that same power with mine? And you kind of walk them through the journey. >> It's interesting, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. I think you guys are doing... First of all I love the new logo. I think it's really important everyone knows you guys have a very active and open source community. And have been on this. This is not a new thing, revelation within HP. But Intel has the same challenge. They're tryna move away from that Intel Inside. You guys are known to a lot of people as a hardware company. You got HP.com is now the printer and the peripheral side. But it's a cloud game. You're still selling servers but people are still buying servers. The cloud providers need servers. They need it. But the software is the key, the software defined infrastructure is now that glue layer. Service meshes are hot. You're seeing SDO's got massive traction. Everything's pointing to this new level of services at scale. >> That's right. >> I want to get your thoughts on the HP story there. Can you take a minute to explain what you guys are doing with that vision? Because Cloud Native isn't just about the cloud. There's a lot of on-prem activity that's moving to a cloud operating model. So it's not a full public cloud. What's your story? >> If you look at the overall strategy. We make hybrid IT simple, recognizing that it's all those different flavors. We have to enable the software capabilities because the world is software enabled. You have all those componentries working together seamlessly and automated. And then we have the services groups to make it happen. With the Pointnext, and the acquisitions of cloud technology partners in the new areas. We have a wide variety of a portfolio of services that are now enabled. And experts to actually go help customers do it. And so we have the capability legacy. We also have the capability of the new generation of IT. And everywhere in between. And then you talk about the Edge. And so with our acquisition Aruba, which it seems like a long time ago. It's just a few years. They've been an integral part of taking that from a data center all the way to the edge and in between. I think we've got those multiple layers of hybrid IT. We have the software enabled activities, which definitely includes open source. Because you can't be software enabled without software and open source. And then from a service perspective, the wealth, depth of bench, in terms of... >> And OneSphere's the key product that, for you guys, that connects all this. Is that kind of where the momentum is? >> Holland: It's one of them. >> One of them, okay. >> And then if you look at some of the acquisitions we have made. CTP, for example, or Cloud Cruiser, for example. These are all helping us build our portfolio of rich services that enable customers to go from a pure on-prem, pure hardware focus company. To now a new age Cloud Native, or hybrid cloud sort of company, where, we have the experience. Now, we have the experience with all of these different acquisitions like CTP, to enable them to have a full hybrid cloud of micro plus macro services kind of migration capabilities. >> What are you guys offering developers? Not that I'm going to ask you for the pitch. Cause everyone, the developers are getting a lot of pitches, if you will. People say I got to own the developer. They don't want to be owned. They want to be collaborative. But they're closer to the front lines than ever, these developers. And they're really looking at business problems. It's not just, here's the specs go code it. They're on the front lines. Right at the point of engagement for the business logic, and the business models of a lot of these applications. What do you guys bring to the table for the developers? Is it marketplace? Is it distribution? Is it opportunity? What is the value proposition that you guys are talking to developers about, specifically? >> I think it's all three. We really start with internal, right? We are aligning our internal developers to really consume our own champagne. Drink your own champagne. So what does that mean? Can you use OneSphere to develop OneSphere? Absolutely. Our mentality is, our OneSphere developers, in fact a couple of our distinguished technologists are here. So more customer focused. Do your development on your own products, on your own products. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. >> So that's number one, right? If they go through the pains of developing on our own products. They will know exactly which areas to focus on. And so that's one thing we are really enabling our developers to do. Is really think outside in, versus inside out. Gone are the days of, we will build it and they will come. No they won't. You have to really give them what they are going to consume. So from a strategy perspective, we're really exposing our developers to the outside world. Hey go out there. Talk to them. Learn what they're looking for. Right, so that's number one. Number two. With the developer community program, and the developer portal, and the open source program. Now that we're collaborating across HPE, at the top end and the bottom end. We're not really able to think about how we use the power of our API's, from layer 1 infrastructure all the way up to layer 7. Or Layer 5 and above. And say, "Alright how do we enable these guys to build value add that really solves their problem?" Whether it's DevOps problems. CI/CD? Whether it deploying applications, managing, monitoring applications. It's all through the power of API. If you can automate it, orchestrate it and manage it. Then we have really solved your problems. This is why we're not only going after and enabling the developers by giving them what they need. We're also partnering with key partners in our ecosystem that actually brings the best of breed. And that's what the customers are used to using today. >> And you guys had it more up to stack. Certainly the application level is a key point. What about the channel opportunity? Cause I'm seeing, and I've been talking about this on theCUBE lately, is developers are the new sales channel, because in the old days VAR's, and ISV's and channel partners would bring solutions. And you guys had a great channel, have a great channel that brings solutions to customers. Now these customers are having programming and developing done from the partners. You guys have to create that. Are you guys looking at that as a significant opportunity, with this program? >> In today's world you have to think about things in a different way. With the advent of DevOps. With the developers no longer in their cubes, not touching production, they're releasing the production daily. Or multiple times per day. And so we're lookin', or have looked with that with, how do the developer work. And get that all the way to production. At the same time, what's the skill sets to work with in the open? Are you talking about the channel? The open source community is a great channel. Not only for ideas and conversations, but also to meet people. Not only are we there. >> Furrier: Your buyers are there. >> Yeah exactly. We're releasing the customers. But customers is part of our community. Vendors are part of our community. Partners are part of our community. And together we're building a community of developers that are doing work that ultimately goes to production multiple times per year. >> When you guys get this right, I think the gains will be huge. >> Well I'll give you an example. One of the largest web companies in the world. We're partnering with them. They're a huge customer of ours. Instead of selling to their frontline, we went and started talking to their developers. And their developer leaderships. To the point where we are working on doing hackathons. So our developers, their developers, in the same conference room, solving joint problems together. >> Cooney: So co-development. >> Co-developing, exactly. We call it a hackathon. But yeah, co-developing, absolutely. That's where we're focused. Because today developers and the line of businesses have more and more and more influence on key technology decisions. That's where the money is. >> Being genuine and authentic in these communities is certainly a great, successful formula. You guys, see that. We'll be following your progress. Thanks for coming on theCUBE and sharing the update. And congratulations on the new program. And the new logo. I'd love to get a shirt when you get a chance. >> Absolutely, yeah. >> Congratulations, great to see you. Thanks for comin' on. We are here at KubeCon 2018 in Europe. This is theCUBE, I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. We'll be back with more live coverage after this short break.

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering HPE Discover 2017 brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> Welcome back everyone, we are here live in Las Vegas for HPE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Discover 2017. This is theCUBE, Silicon Angle's flagship program, we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise, I'm John Furrier with my co-host Dave Vellante. Our next guest is Phillip Cutrone, who is the VP and General Manager of Worldwide OEM Datacenter Infrastructure Group, you're taking all of the stuff and offering it out to customers for HP. The portfolio's massive, welcome to theCUBE. >> That's right, hey, thank you so much, it's great to be here and what a great business. I got to tell you we have thousands of customers. Multiple billions of dollars of revenue, double digit growth for the past five years. It's an awesome business and I'd love to talk to you about all the vertical markets that we're taking care of. >> Let's start in with the strategy, so we see HP, okay, you now have a cloud play which is fine, I mean, what does a cloud play really mean, the cloud is everywhere so it's not like a cloud play kind of reminds me of the internet play. What's your internet play? It's the internet. So you guys are seeing the cloud all around you with other folks, that's an OEM opportunity, in and of itself as people become service providers. >> You know, >> The solutions are all over the place as well. >> There are services providers, but we find with OEM customers, let's think about OEM customers like this. Let's talk about edge for a moment. We've move compute to the edge as far as possible, right. That's an en vogue, that's a current contemporary topic of saying at the edge. In OEM we work with customers, say in healthcare. Whether you want records at the hospital, having it in a private cloud accessible to all doctors, but it goes a step further. You need to acquire the data first. Now let's talk about a CT scanner. A CT scanner needs a lot of processing to produce the image. So, we'll put a compute, specialized compute server inside the CT scanner to receive probably at a terabyte of data per minute that has to be recorded flawlessly into the server. Now we accumulate that information now it's not just one record, it's thousands of records. Now we can take, doctors can take a look at all that information to try to make, create better outcomes for patients. So think about pushing all of that data to a private cloud inside of a hospital in a healthcare example. Now, you can look at video surveillance, another great example, manufacturing, control of assets on your manufacturing floor and possibly telecommunications. So think about not just cloud, but pushing it down to the edge and doing the compute, processing, storage there and possibly using the cloud later on for big data analytics. >> I got to ask you the question, why are people interested in the OEM solution from you. You mentioned business is good, doing over billions of dollars, but why are they wanting to OEM, why HP? Why not just buy off the shelf stuff and cobble together? >> Yeah, so that's a long answer and hopefully I have enough energy to keep you and your audience entertained here. But let me say this, if you're going to bet your business on a product, on the infrastructure, who're you going to do it with? 'Cause it's a lot of responsibility. I can't book revenue until my OEM customers book revenue. That means they depend on Hewlett Packard Enterprise. So think about that level of responsibility. Okay, now let's think about the four components of what makes our OEM business. First off I'm going to say, I'm going to break this down into four Ss. The first S is going to be solution. Everything around here you see at HP Discover, is all about the portfolio. Resilient portfolio. What does OEMs care about? They care about great products, quality products, feature-its, great value, but, they also care about long life. So why do I care about long life? Some of these customers will spend six months to eight months, qualifying, certifying a solution on a server. They don't want to agree to do that for possibly another year, two, five years down the road. Pardon me. So they actually want to take their time and live that life out as long as it squeezes. >> It's integral to their solution. And they really spec it out. They're not just like bloating it, stacking and racking. >> That's right, now, but now they need someone to execute it. They need a supply chain, the second S. They may, if a customer, a small customer inside of Iowa, wants to ship product in Singapore, Japan, or South America, they need a company that can take them global, we can do that. One SKU, a custom SKU for that customer, the exact configuration, their image loaded in the factory deployed globally. The third S, services. Once it's deployed, they're going to need someone to maintain it. They'll do first level call on their application or something like along those lines, but they need someone to get on site and actually fix it if something were to happen. We give that assurance in our services. And then finally, you know, the OE in business is a dedicated business. It's not a, you may have not heard about us before, they were just a covert business, but it has dedicated resources, dedicated sales staff, dedicated engineering to manage and maintain. We have like a control tower. So think about our IT customers who are receiving products into their data center. It's a one time transaction generally speaking or infrequent For OEMs, it's every week we get a PO, we've got to be executing flawlessly all the time. So we need a control tower to maintain that entire ecosystem to make sure it's a flawless execution. >> So what's the fourth S? I got solution, supply chain, services. >> Staff, I call it dedicated resources, staff. >> Now I got to ask you Phil. >> Yeah. >> So you would before the split with HPE, HP had a big instrumentation business and it's sold presumably to a lot of, for instance, medical you know, device applications and use cases. Was there synergy between your business and that business? How did the split affect you? Certainly it affected the supply chain in a way, you know supply chain shrunk. Did it affect your buying power? How did you navigate that split? >> So generally speaking, the two businesses were operating separately anyway, even from a supply chain perspective, and yes it's true that there are common customers between say HPI today and HPE today as well, but in a case of calling on common customers, there's a workstation application where HPI specializes in, and then there's a storage or a compute from a server perspective, and we specialize in that, and there actually has been minimal overlap, so actually, if anything, there's still a very collaborative relationship with HPI today. >> And, and you said it's multiple billions, growing in double digits. >> That's right. >> Per year. And what exactly, I mean can you give us a sense of some of the solutions that your selling. >> Absolutely. >> What's hot? >> Yeah, I'll tell you, I want to go back to, I'm going to say two items. First off, telecommunications. Telecommunications was a huge opportunity doing the build out of 4G. Now 4G is out and that was billions of dollars of opportunity working with all our OEM customers. Now we're looking ahead of 5G. Now there's a tremendous opportunity. And we're starting to work on the servers of tomorrow. Now do we have the portfolio today to do 5G? Of course, but when 5G finally lands, it's probably going to be a vol, it's going to evolve, and it'll probably end up even being a different server than what we actually have on the truck today, because we're going to optimize and tune. But what's super super hot, I want to go back to healthcare for a minute. And it's important for all of us. When my children sometimes ask me, hey dad, what do you do for a living? Well if I tell them, I say, well you know, I OEM out, the don't know what the hell that means, right? Okay so, no no, we build servers. I don't understand that, what's a server? Storage, they don't get it. But if I say it this way, I help you connect that phone. Probably 90% of the phones in the United States connect through an HPE server, that's a fact. Okay that means it's enabling. So we provide communications, we provide entertainment, we're the infrastructure behind. And we save lives. How can you possibly proclaim that we save lives? I'll tell you how. When I'm, I go back to that CT scanner example. When a terabyte comes off that scanner and goes onto that server, there cannot be a hiccup. It's not buffered, it's not, it's got to land directly on it. If not, it's a misget. That means the patient gets reradiated, and it's an FDA offense. We have family members that have to go through CT scans, that's not a good thing. So we help save lives, that's the perspective. Now what's happening, what's so popular is collecting that data and let's go to digital pathology. That's the latest thing, now are you familiar with digital pathology? >> Not really. >> But the key point though is that the, the having the reliability is critical on the OEM, and they go to HP for the reliability, the custom engineering, staff. >> That's right. >> Because of the services you guys provide. >> And big data analytics. And that's where digital pathology, I want to close on this topic. When you go in, if someone has cancer, and they take a tissue sample, and they look for, they run the genome sequencing, and they're looking for the mutations in the cell, now, as you start to accumulate that, and we work with companies that are accumulating a petabyte a week of data on this very topic. Okay that's a lot of data. So now I want to figure out what's the most effective cure. So I can go back and look at millions of patients and look at what the therapies were for that specific mutation. That's very compelling. Now instead of throwing a barrage of every possible treatment to treat every patient, which in and of itself is detrimental to the body, now maybe it can be very small. I talked to some doctors and they say, you know, sometimes an aspirin can be a therapy for a specific mutation. Well why would I give it radiation? And this is the reason why, >> This is the power of data. >> Power of big data. It's going to help us make better decisions. >> Phil, thanks so much for coming in, really appreciate your insight, OEM opportunities are out there, and congratulations on your success. >> Thank you so much, appreciate it. >> This is The Cube coverage here at HPE Discover 2017, stay with us for more. We're on day two of three days of exclusive coverage with theCUBE, I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, be right back, stay with us. (electronic music)