Partners: HPE OpenStack And Cloud Foundry Software Sale To SUSE Puts Focus Squarely On Next Generation Hardware
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) partners say the sale of the company's once-prized cloud software assets to SUSE puts the focus squarely on driving sales of next-generation converged infrastructure.
"HPE is looking at what they are good at, and what they are not good at, and have decided to focus on their core which is next generation infrastructure," said Rick Chernick, CEO of Camera Corner Connecting Point of Green Bay, Wis., No. 333 on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500. "Breaking up HPE allows each of these businesses to run on their own. For us, it should help drive more hardware sales with HPE."
Camera Corner Connecting Point, in fact, is having a stellar year selling HPE next-generation infrastructure including converged systems and HPE 3Par, said Chernick.
HPE announced Wednesday that it is selling its OpenStack cloud software assets including the HPE Cloud Foundry Platform as a Service. Terms of the transaction, which includes HPE naming SUSE as its preferred partner for OpenStack, Cloud Foundry and Linux, were not disclosed.
The cloud software asset sale comes just three months after HPE entered into an $8.8 billion spin-in merger with SUSE software parent, Micro Focus.
Chernick , for his part, sees the deal as yet another bid by HPE to move faster as a smaller, more nimble company. "HPE was so big before that it was hard to move quickly," he said. "In this market, changes have to be made quickly. Customers today want to know immediately what is going to help them run faster, better and cheaper."
A top executive for an HPE enterprise partner, who did not want to be identified, applauded HPE CEO Meg Whitman for moving the cloud software assets to SUSE. "They have decided to focus on what they are the best at which is hardware," he said. "Cloud software is not their business. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have beat them up in that market."
The top executive said the sale of the cloud software assets is a day of reckoning of sorts for HPE. "If something is not selling at a certain point you have to say it is not working and get rid of it, it's time to do something different," he said. "Good for Meg for bringing more focus to HPE. There is no reason to try to be everything to everyone."
HPE Senior Vice President Ric Lewis said in a prepared statement that the SUSE deal puts HPE's focus on "developing the next generation of hybrid cloud solutions, which combines HPE technology with a broad ecosystem of open source and partner technologies that support traditional and cloud-native applications."