>> Voice-Over: TheCUBE presents HPE Discover 2022
brought to you by HPE.
>> Welcome back to HPE Discover 2022.
You're watching theCUBE's coverage.
We're day two here.
Dave Vellante with John Furrier.
Heiko Meyer is here.
He's the Executive Vice President
and Chief Sales Officer newly minted,
relatively newly minted chief sales officer at HPE.
And Paul Hunter who's the Senior Vice President
and Managing Director of North America
for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Gentlemen, welcome to theCUBE.
>> Thanks for having us.
>> Heiko, this is the first time back in Vegas in a while.
Three years I think it's been.
And your first as the chief sales officer.
>> Yep.
>> What's the vibe like?
How's it feel?
>> I can tell you.
It's so cool.
You walk down the hallway, everybody's smiling
and you see people you have seen three years ago
or in this format on your screen the last few years.
I think what is amazing,
we had exactly three years ago, we had this event
and Antonio mentioned, Hey, by end of 2022
you will see everything being available as a service
and nobody thought about that we will not meet in person
until 2022 at that point in time.
>> Indeed.
>> And that's what happened.
I can tell you what's the best decision to make
an in-person event here in Vegas with so many people,
because it's about, Hey, the change in the market,
the demand, the transition.
And so I think it, I couldn't be more happy
to see the last two days
and looking forward to the rest of the event.
>> Paul, you have a background in the the channel
and now you're heading North America.
What are you seeing in the ecosystem?
Is there a difference as Heiko was saying from 2019?
Is there a different feeling, different conversations?
What are you seeing?
>> Yeah. Well, the good thing is like
because we haven't been here for three years
you've got a really marked moment of comparison.
So you cast your mind back.
What were the conversations like?
I think three years ago we were talking about cloud services
and partners were nodding their heads and thinking,
yeah but the world is going to continue as normal.
And we fast forward three years
and the partners are really talking about proactively,
how do they build up their cloud services,
and they're also talking about customer experiences as well.
We've landed and won new customers.
So that's really thrilling to hear
that they're really excited about the journey on with us.
>> I'd like to get your perspective
on what happened during the pandemic
because we saw, first of all, zoom and video conference
saved the internet, had meetings.
But the partners delivered a lot of value,
customers had to pivot, or if they had a tailwind,
they took advantage of it.
Some had headwinds with the pandemic,
everyone's working at home.
So a lot of disruptions for all the companies,
but a lot of the partners had success during the pandemic
'cause they have that solution.
What was the learnings that you guys saw
during the pandemic?
Because now with cloud, cloud scale, hybrid, mainstream
and now a steady state, people lived it
and partners delivered a lot of solutions
in hybrid mode, in virtual mode.
What was the learnings for you guys
coming out of that with customers and partners?
>> I think first of all, we all learned during the pandemic
that you can do business in a different way,
but as well you learned how to pivot faster
in the digital transformation.
This makes a difference and this creates value.
And I think together with our partner ecosystem
we were able to develop faster solutions there
while we develop everything as a service
and came up with more and more cloud services.
The good thing is it resonates.
And our history with the partners is, I don't know,
as long as I can think back in my career,
and you only can do that together with the channel partners.
And I think they appreciate that.
We learn from each other.
We do the same enablement from my guys
like from the partner guys
and this close relation, I think made a difference.
>> In 2019, GreenLake as a service
was really a financial vehicle.
Now that's evolved.
And now, two years on, three years on,
it's actually a cloud service.
>> Heiko: Absolutely.
>> What's the resonance been with customers?
Because everybody says they want that cloud experience.
They may not all want OPEX.
>> Yeah.
>> Dave: So what have you hearing from customers?
>> So first of all, what I hear is not the if,
so the strategy is clear.
The customer, they love it.
They like it.
They want to have the cloud-like experience, and guess what?
We have 70 cloud services now.
And we have announced a lot of new one
the last couple of days,
but it's not so much that if they should do this,
it's more of the question,
how can you help me to scale faster?
And that's the feedback I got the last couple of days,
and for us, it's a motivation.
We're on the right track.
This is a moment where you have a demand from the market
and a strategy that fits.
And this is so strong
and you can do this with the partner,
through the partners,
and you see the customers, they love it.
I have never seen an event where I got so many requests
the last two days where they say,
I saw that, can you help me to get there faster?
It's perfect.
>> Yeah. I think it was also a landmark moment
when we presented the cloud platform
as part of the Antonio's keynote.
I've had a lot of partners say,
this was sort of really marked the moment
where we felt there was this real substance
to the offering now.
And I had one of the sales guys relate to me a story
where they have a client in the audience.
And they're thinking about
how they might have a relationship with us.
And through seeing the kind of significance of it for us,
we're able to close deals.
So that's also a really exciting thing.
We're actually now closing deals and winning new customers.
>> Hey, being agile and closing deals fast is a good thing.
I mean, that's what you guys like.
>> Yeah, that's all it.
>> So I love the channel conversation and partners
because one of the things that I've observed
and knowing the HPE channels so strong,
obviously they want to make money.
Gross margin is all about the profit, the profit motive,
but the enablement that you guys have,
how has that translated into this shift?
Everyone's aligned behind GreenLake and as a service
'cause this seems to be a good fit for parties
'cause they're going to go to the customer,
the ultimate end customer and bolt on services.
>> Yeah.
>> How is that going?
'Cause this to me seems like a dream scenario for services
which we all know is high gross margin.
>> Yeah. And I think it's a journey.
What's a journey for our sales organization,
like it is for the partners,
but it's a journey worth to do that.
And so what is our strategy to have this together
with our channel partners?
In mind, to combine their strengths
and we have a kind of modular approach
so that they can plug in their strengths, their IP,
or as well, their services
which makes them sticky and relevant to the customer
and it drives profitability.
And I think that's the secret behind the model,
working with the channel, not separate to the channel.
And I think this resonates.
This story, it's a journey.
And we learned a lot the last three years how to sell it.
In the past, we were selling transactional hardware.
Now we are selling services,
cloud services like you mentioned, different game.
And this is enablement and we offer the same trainings
we are doing with our folks to our channel partners
because we are together in this journey.
>> You described it really well and so did Heiko.
Essentially, it requires a lot of persistence
because you're not going to get it right the first time.
And so we now seen partners try and fail several times,
but now, try, fail and succeed.
So that's exciting.
And also I think what we're also seeing
is partners is doing quite a good job of building services
that integrate into the cloud services.
So they're right into the APIs.
I was with a meeting with a partner called CBTS
and they talked about the whole
of their services portfolio now is embedded in GreenLake.
So that certainly was not the case three years ago.
>> Yeah. And the big tailwind too
as you got the open source software movement,
you're seeing the ability for partners
and ultimately the channel being software enabled.
They're adding services, not just professional services,
but cloud services where they have the domain expertise.
They're close to the customer.
And they could really be customizing solutions
and that's going to always be great for the customer.
The question I have for you guys is,
do you see that domain specialism
with machine learning and with software?
Do you see partners start to get vertically focused
and start get more targeted towards say verticals?
>> Yeah. You go.
>> No, go first.
>> Well, again, it's funny.
Your questions are completely resonating
with the conversations we've been having all day.
Like I was with our partner called Connection
and they're talking about
how do they build practices in four areas?
And I'm quite closely allowed to aligned to our areas
of edge cloud and data.
They have another one
which is also workplace transformation.
And they're thinking, how do we add expertise?
How do we hire, recruit and retain the best talent?
And that, again, that wasn't a conversation
we were having two, three years ago.
So where partners really add value to us
is through their services and their expertise
and progressive partners are hiring and doing them.
>> Yeah. And this transformation I mentioned earlier,
it's selling outcomes,
business outcomes for the end customer.
And I think selling outcomes means
you need to be specialized in something,
be it on a domain area or be it on a vertical.
And I think when you focus on that,
that's the best way you can add value to a customer.
This creates this trust relationship.
>> So edge cloud and data.
Obviously, I think edge,
you guys sending stuff and out of space,
that's the ultimate edge.
So you got some proof points there.
>> John: Deep edge.
>> I think deep edge, yeah.
That is very good.
I think cloud, you showed the console, Fidelma.
It had a very clear and strong platform message,
say, okay now go build.
The data piece to me is the least mature when I walk around.
Although I did see Starburst out there.
I think Starburst is very advanced leading edge thinker.
So that was a good sign.
What do you see as having to happen
to really build out that data ecosystem now?
>> So I think what is important,
this is all connected to each other,
edge, cloud and data.
And at the end, it's about how you can create insights
out of the data and where they live,
where they come up the data,
how we structure them,
how we get insights out of the data.
So I think this is an area we see much more.
It's not only about AI,
but it's about having a data strategy as a customer.
And this is one of those areas
we have customer advisory boards that tell us, Hey, help us.
We want to create our data strategy.
And this is something where I think we can play together
with our partners to really create value,
get these insights out of the data.
>> Are you hearing conversations
where customers or partners are saying,
okay, I want to get insights out of the data,
but I actually want to build a data business,
I want to build data products on GreenLake?
Are you hearing that yet?
>> Yeah, we are.
Particularly, we think of them
as the information modern companies.
They're building out new service lines.
We see it in a lot of industries now.
You can see like how car manufacturers
are increasingly thinking about how do they monetize
their data that they're getting from it.
And so there are new businesses being established
like in lots of different verticals.
Pharmaceuticals will be another one
where traditional players are really being challenged.
And there are big businesses growing very rapidly
based off data.
So we're seeing it quite extensively.
And we have to think about how do we access
those new customers?
How do we intersect them?
And it's not just the people
that we've been dealing with for 10, 20 years.
They're very new companies.
>> Which announcement's got the most buzz
in your conversations with customers, partners?
>> It's funny.
When I started my conversation
at a couple of meetings now, the last two days,
always started and said, what resonates?
And first of all, the funny thing is everybody told me
the clarity of the message, the strategy.
Second, the consistency that we do, what we promise to do.
A couple of them I noted down is private cloud enterprise.
It's a great solution here.
And then what I hear as well with our clarity
and the strategy we are leapfrogging the competition.
That's what I get out of these meetings.
And I think that's the best compliment we can get
for the two days.
>> Yeah. And I think the platform
and the conversations around machine learning AI.
We even had an HP executive talk about quantum.
So you guys are already starting to think
about what's around the corner.
And I think if the platform works,
the test will be and the results will be enablement.
Ecosystem will be flourishing.
And we're going to watch that.
So I want to get your take on the early shift
'cause I think this year with GreenLake and the platform,
it's maturing enough to the right.
No doubt about it.
We see the momentum.
But there's still a lot more to do than go.
So how do you guys envision the ecosystem developing?
Because that'll be the true test to flourishing.
'Cause if you enable people, will get value out of it
and it's got to be a step function, not incremental value.
>> I think we always talk about,
Hey, we landed and then we expand from there.
That's the beauty of the model.
And the good thing is there's no window lock-in
for the customer.
So they are free.
That's a modular system.
And what we see really, first of all,
to understand the customer digital journey.
We're on the journey and they're all in a different place
And we have this Digital Next Advisory workshops.
When we have this anchor point,
you start there, you really can grow.
And then you add workloads based on where the customer sits.
What are the partnerships we have to bring to that?
So it's really a model which starts
and is designed for the future.
>> The field must love it.
The folks in the field. >> We love it.
>> You guys love that.
>> Absolutely.
>> Give it the customer plan, future
>> And I can tell you the partners love it as well.
>> Got it.
>> When I talk to CIOs, and I ask them, what's changed?
With Ukraine and supply chain and inflation
and hot rising interest rate,
what's changed in terms of your assumption
from the beginning of the year?
Let's say, in terms of IT spend
and they're saying, well, not a lot, actually.
We're going to continue to spend.
We are reprioritizing.
We're taking Robin a little bit from over here
to put it into security.
>> Heiko: Yep.
>> But generally speaking, it's the same as we expected.
Let's call it 6, 7% growth
which is pretty good on top of last year.
And maybe there's some dry powder there
depending on how business goes.
It also seems like there's a lot of headwinds
at the macro in B2C, some of the consumer companies,
but B2B is booming.
What do you guys are seeing?
>> Absolutely. I completely agree that the demand
will continue for different reasons.
It could be a little bit shift within the demand
as you describe, but they know exactly they're on a journey
in the digital transformation.
If they stop now, they have a competitive disadvantage.
So they are wisely investing.
So I think that the demand will stay here.
Yes everybody talks about macroeconomics recession.
We are confident we will see
in our B2B part continue demand.
>> And they're well capitalized
as are a lot of the ecosystem partners.
>> Yeah. And it's not a nice to have.
It's a must have.
I don't know of any customers
that are deinvesting in technology.
Deinvesting in the lifeblood of their business
>> Heiko: Exactly.
>> Guys, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE.
Great to see you.
Congratulations on being here and best of luck
with all the follow up from the show.
I'm sure there's a lot.
>> We'll get an update next year
and see how it turned out. >> Yeah.
>> Don't worry.
(laughs)
>> Thanks for having us.
>> Thank you for watching this segment.
This is Dave Vellante for John Furrier.
theCUBE's coverage of HPE Discover '22 from Las Vegas.
We'll be right back.
(gentle music)