HPE President Neri: Pointnext HPE GreenLake 'Business Model Innovation' Is A Channel Game-Changer
Hewlett Packard Enterprise President Antonio Neri told CRN that the company's new Pointnext HPE GreenLake "business model innovation" opens the door for partners to dramatically increase sales and profits in an era of pay-per-use services.
HPE's ability to deliver pay-per-use consumption-based metering – which has been a huge technological hurdle for partners competing with public cloud – is part of HPE GreenLake's outcome-based application services, which were unveiled at HPE's Discover conference Monday in Madrid. "This is how we enable our channel partners to deliver these new services with a [consumption-based model] packaged in a way that is easy for them to sell and easy to make money," said Neri, who will become the next CEO of HPE effective as of Feb. 1, 2018.
In fact, he said, HPE GreenLake and HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity open the door for partners to make money in on-premises hardware and subscription-based services in a consumption-based pay-per-use model. What's more, he said, partners can even offer their own managed services on the platform.
"They will get the money up front by selling the hardware, which is part of the solution itself," he said. "They will make money on the services side, and they will make money on a rentable basis for the subscription – all without massive capital investment. For those that have the capability, they can just leverage our consumption-based model and then they can add their own services on it."
With HPE GreenLake, HPE takes away the high risk of providing consumption-based services – holding the sales paper on the complex deals -- so partners can focus on adding their own high-value managed services, said Neri.
"We take all of the risks out of the way for them, putting it on our paper so they can focus on the value-add on top of that," he said. "It is up to us to explain it and train them. Once the partners understand this, they get very excited because they know we are taking away the complex stuff for them while they focus on the areas where they can really add value."
Neri said he sees the HPE GreenLake offerings – which include SAP HANA as a service, big data as a service, backup as a service, database as a service and edge compute as a service -- as a major step forward for HPE's Pointnext services business.
"HPE GreenLake is another improvement to really deliver the value proposition of HPE Pointnext," said Neri. "HPE Pointnext was a great launch for us because it is beyond just support. It is everything as a service. So HPE GreenLake now is the brand for everything as a service. And you are going to see more and more offers as we go along. It is enabled by our technology, software and financing capabilities packaged in a business- outcome-oriented solution. HPE Pointnext is all about delivering outcomes for our customers."
HPE Pointnext Senior Vice President Ana Pinczuk said HPE will offer the full portfolio of HPE Pointnext solutions from advisory to professional services through the channel. "I see that as the fuel to really get the power of the HPE Pointnext offers into the market," she said.
Both HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity and HPE GreenLake workload application services will be available to be sold by partners, said Pinczuk.
HPE is also exploring the possibility of taking some of the services capabilities of cloud services superstar Cloud Technology Partners (CTP) – which HPE acquired in November -- and packaging them for partners, said Pinczuk. That includes CTP professional services and managed compliance services, she said.
Pinczuk said HPE estimates the partner portion of the digital transformation services market at $500 million. "To me the channel is a huge opportunity," she said. "We are putting a lot of investment to deliver solutions that are channel-first with both our advisory and our operational services. We are investing in VARs, disties, OEMs and SIs [systems integrators]."
Dan Molina, chief technology officer at Nth Generation Computing, a San Diego-based solution provider that is working closely with Pointnext, said HPE's ability to provide effective metering of hybrid cloud workloads, which came from its Cloud Cruiser acquisition earlier this year, is a huge competitive advantage for customers and partners.
"Customers need a consistent billing, monitoring and consumption model across their hybrid IT platforms with public, on-premise, co-location," he said. "It is a hybrid world. The flexible, pay-per-use consumption model definitely resonates with our customers, and that is what HPE is providing with HPE GreenLake."
Molina said he sees the HPE GreenLake services offering combined with HPE's Synergy composable infrastructure as an unbeatable combination. "We are gaining significant traction with Synergy," he said. "We see the interest level in Synergy multiplying. Synergy and HPE GreenLake are great options for customers looking to keep things simple with flexibility and agility. Synergy composable infrastructure is API-driven so you can automate operations to a very large degree."
Neri, for his part, said he sees HPE GreenLake as the perfect opportunity for partners to "double down" on HPE. "This is the right time to bet on HPE," he said. "We have phenomenal innovation – not just technology, but business model innovation. HPE GreenLake is a business model innovation that is enabled by our technologies and our solutions."
The HPE GreenLake launch is another sign of HPE executing on its mission to make hybrid IT simple with a channel-first model, said Neri. "We have the best channel program on the planet," he said. "We are a channel-first company. That is not changing, and it will never change. This is the time to double down on HPE. We have demonstrated when we have joint business plans with our partners, we win. We win. That is why the channel partners love us."