Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s largest ever Discover event took over the entire ExCel conference centre in London’s Docklands at the start of December. Over 13,000 technology leaders and partners took the time find out more about the company’s recent separation and what it means for customers.
The newly-restructured HPE promised a clearer focus on what customers require, faster moves to hybrid infrastructure to allow users to run applications and data across multiple types of technology and across private, public and managed clouds.
This will allow companies to become truly data-driven organisations which properly exploit the information resources they already collect.
Of course HPE will also ensure customers make these moves safely with proper monitoring of the risks and keeping data safe and secure at all times.
Finally the new firm will increase workforce productivity with improved technology alongside better and easier mobility.
The strategic overview was supported by news that HPE will work with Microsoft on hybrid cloud provision, it will also offer a Cloud Broker solution to ease management of multiple clouds. On the hardware front attendees were introduced to composable infrastructure – a new architecture for running traditional and cloud applications on one flexible kind of hybrid hardware.
HPE’s CEO Meg Whitman introduced high profile HPE customers like Jim Gianopulos – president and CEO of 20th Century Fox. He explained how technology has transformed the business of making films in Hollywood. He talked about the two companies had worked together to create visual effects in films like Avatar but also used big data solutions from HPE to analyse social media and reactions from fans to films and their marketing. The conversation is available from HPE.com here – https://www.hpe.com/events/discover/
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A little closer to home the audience in the main auditorium also heard from the boss of the UK Civil Service John Manzoni who discussed the impact of technology on how government works and collaborates with the private sector and with big technology providers.
The ExCel centre was also host to a huge exhibition with stands from HPE’s different divisions and from its partners.
The event was be a big test for the new firm and the first chance most European customers and observers had to see what impact the reinvention has made on the 75 year old technology giant.
The whole conference and the exhibition space was divided up into four themes or tracks:
Transform to a hybrid infrastructure:
A typical company today uses dozens of different applications and types of hardware to get its work done. Hybrid infrastructures promise to let these work together as well as providing building blocks for future growth -you’ll no longer have to rip out and replace to move forward.
Protect your digital enterprise:
Security is no longer just an add-on either for technology projects or for business as a whole. It must be central to building any digital enterprise.
Empower the data-driven enterprise:
Data can no longer be the resource your business ignores. Successful firms use it at every stage – not just to see what went wrong in the past but to predict what might work better in the future.
Enable workplace productivity:
For today’s workforce the workplace is not just a geographic location. They expect to be able to work anywhere on different devices with the same connectivity as they’d get from a desktop in an office.
HPE Discover was a great chance to get to know the new company and hear some real world examples of what the change means for customers. The event showed off the skills HPE has used it to restructure its own business as well as what those skills could mean for accelerating any business.
Alongside the strategic view of the future of business there were also practical examples from customers and new products to support HPE’s vision of the idea economy. See what you missed here – https://www.hpe.com/events/discover/
