Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (commonly referred to as HPE) is an American multinational enterprise information technology company based in Palo Alto, California, founded on 1 November 2015 as part of splitting of the Hewlett-Packard company. HPE is a business-focused organization with two divisions: Enterprise Group, which works in servers, storage, networking, consulting and support, and Financial Services.

The split was structured so that the former Hewlett-Packard Company would change its name to HP Inc. and spin off Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a newly created company. HP Inc. retained the old HP’s personal computer and printing business, as well as its stock-price history and original NYSE ticker symbol for Hewlett-Packard; Enterprise trades under its own ticker symbol: HPE. According to notes from 2015, HPE’s revenue was slightly less than that of HP Inc. In 2017, it spun off its Enterprise Services business and merged it with Computer Sciences Corporation to become DXC Technology. It also spun off its software business and merged it with Micro Focus. HPE ranked No. 107 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

History

May 2016

the company announced it would sell its enterprise services division to one of its competitors, Computer Sciences Corporation in a deal valued at US$8.5 billion. The merger of HPE Enterprise Services with CSC, to form a new company DXC Technology, was completed on 10 March 2017. Approximately 100,000 current HPE employees are affected. More than 30,000 services employees from other areas of the HPE business will remain at HPE including technology services support and consulting as well as software professional services.

 August 2016

the company announced plans to acquire Silicon Graphics International (SGI), known for their capabilities in high performance computing. On November 1, 2016, HPE announced it completed the acquisition, for US$7.75 per share in cash, a transaction valued at approximately US$275 million, net of cash and debt.

 September 7

2016, HPE announced a “spin-merge” with Micro Focus, where Micro Focus would acquire its “non-core” software, and HPE shareholders would own 50.1 percent of the merged company, which would retain its current name. The merger concluded on September 1, 2017.

November 2016

PC World wrote “HPE, and before it, Hewlett-Packard, failed to develop middleware tools to really make a dent in the software market, where other companies like IBM, SAP, and Oracle are excelling” and that “without major software product lines, HPE’s integrated offerings won’t be as strong as competitors like Dell, which have the software and hardware assets, adding that “If all HPE is doing at this point is focusing largely on hardware, you have to ask what the end game here is.”

September 2016

Hewlett Packard Enterprise transferred two patents to a Texas-based wholly owned shell company Plectrum LLC. These two patents were originated at the 3Com Corporation, which was bought by HP in 2010, along with about 1,400 patents. US Patent No. 6,205,149 is entitled “Quality of service control mechanism and apparatus,” while US Patent No. 5,978,951 describes the use of a “high speed cache management unit” which replaces some software-based systems with hardware in order to reduce latency time.

April 11, 2017, it was reported that Synack had raised US$21 million in a round of funding that included Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

In January 2017, the company acquired data management platform SimpliVity, the developer of the OmniCube hyper-converged infrastructure appliance, for US$ 650M.

April 2017

Hewlett Packard Enterprise completed its acquisition of hybrid flash and all flash manufacturer, Nimble Storage Inc, for US$1.2 billion or US$12.50 per share. In October, Reuters reported that the company had allowed a Russian defense agency to examine a cyber-defense system used by The Pentagon. The report noted: “Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight [Hewlett Packard Enterprise] employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack.”

November 2017

Meg Whitman announced that she will be stepping down as CEO, after six years at the helm of HP and HPE, she noted that on February 1, Antonio Neri will take this role. The announcement created controversy leading to a 6% drop in stock price, which quickly recovered during the next few days.

June 2018

Hewlett Packard Enterprise launched a hybrid cloud service called GreenLake Hybrid Cloud, which is built on top of HPE’s OneSphere cloud management SaaS offering. GreenLake Hybrid Cloud is designed to provide cloud management, cost control, and compliance control capabilities, and will run on AWS and Microsoft Azure.

February 2019

Meg Whitman announced that she will not be seeking re-election to the board of directors, ending her professional involvement in HPE.