Yesterday’s keynote at HP Discover was difficult for me to consume, because it felt like a firehose of marketing pitches from at least half a dozen HP executives. Perhaps I’m bringing an unfair comparison to the experience, but years of VMworld have led me to expect an inspiring rally cry, made real by charismatic speakers and specific technical use cases (polished, of course, to fit nicely into a session like that). Instead, it was merely topical hopscotch. Then Dominic Orr hit the stage.
Dominic presented a clear problem (people working everywhere), a relatable situation (finding yourself on the cold side of the firewall), a winning style (“collisionable moments”), and a specific solution (Aruba). That’s what each part of a keynote should embody. HP is privileged to have Dominic on the team. Now it’s time to discover (or hire) more people like him to lead the charge.
This is the opportunity at hand for HP Enterprise.
While Meg Whitman cited 75 years of history behind the choice of the new name, the split is also a unique chance to shed that past and reinvent for the future.
HPE has sizable building blocks in compute, storage, network, and software, and the coming months will reveal whether leadership can stack these to form a cohesive industry wonder. Otherwise they will likely remain disparate units, like broken pillars in the ruins of ancient Greece.