Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Networking

    HPE Acquisition of Aruba a Boon for Both, Executives Say

    By
    Jeff Burt
    -
    March 8, 2016
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      HPE executives

      LAS VEGAS—Dominic Orr spent much of his time last year at Aruba Networks’ user conference assuring customers and partners that Hewlett-Packard’s planned acquisition would be good for the company but would not fundamentally change what they liked about Aruba.

      A year later, Orr—who was CEO of Aruba at the time, and now is president of Aruba and senior vice president at Hewlett Packard Enterprise—was back on stage here laying out how the company is still focused on innovation, customer support and service, and partner relationships, while also taking advantage of the benefits that come with being part of a larger company that has the size and reach of an HPE.

      He also had some help pushing that message forward when HPE CEO Meg Whitman joined him on stage to talk about what having Aruba in the fold has meant to the larger company.

      “I think it’s worked out great,” Whitman told the 2,000 or so Aruba partners and customers—who call themselves Airheads—who packed the auditorium at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas here March 8 for the opening keynote in Aruba’s Atmosphere 2016 user conference.

      She also assured the attendees that Orr and his team would have broad authority not only over the development of Aruba’s products, but over the direction of HPE’s entire networking portfolio. In addition, Whitman said she is as committed to the channel as Aruba officials are.

      “We are a partner-centric company,” the CEO said. “It is in the DNA of this company.”

      When the $3 billion acquisition was announced early last year, the idea was that the combination of HPE’s strength in wired networking technology would mesh well with Aruba’s wireless network expertise to create a tightly integrated offering that would help HPE better compete with the likes of Cisco Systems.

      The initial results have been good. During HPE’s first financial quarter as a new company after HP split in November 2015 and created two independent tech vendors, the company saw networking revenues jump 62 percent year-over-year, due in part to Aruba. During a conference call March 4 to talk about the results, Whitman said Aruba’s presence within HPE showed the industry that “we’re completely committed to the networking business.”

      “We are all in on networking, and while we had HP Networking before, I think people thought, ‘Well, maybe they are not 100 percent committed, maybe a bit below scale,'” she said, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “With the acquisition of Aruba, they’ve gained a great deal of confidence in our product roadmap and in our commitment to the business, and so Aruba I think has cast a really nice glow over the rest of our HP networking business.”

      At the show, Whitman said Aruba gives HPE “a key strategic weapon in the market against Cisco.”

      Orr said the year with HPE has given Aruba a boost. The company has reached a $1 billion annual run rate and has been able to grow the ecosystems around such technologies as AirWave, ClearPass and Meridian, he said. In addition, Aruba has worked with HPE and other vendors—such as VMware, Broadcom and Cavium—to develop a version of the OpenSwitch open-source networking operating system for HPE.

      Not surprisingly, Whitman noted the $1 billion run rate, calling it an important milestone.

      In addition, Aruba has doubled its sales, services and IT teams, and is opening more offices around the world. Orr also talked about an array of new and enhanced integrated wired and wireless software and hardware—including management software, switches and wireless access points—that the company unveiled earlier in the day and some of which merged technologies from both Aruba and HPE. That included the new ArubaOS-Switch, a unified OS that combines the best features of the ArubaOS and HPE ProvisionOS operating systems.

      At the same time, Orr noted that key tenets of Aruba’s business—from innovation to customer service to partner support and relationships—have remained after the HPE acquisition.

      “We told you last March that there were certain things that were not going to change when we become part of HP,” he said.

      HPE’s Whitman noted that the company is transforming from “selling speeds and feeds to selling business outcomes,” and that it’s a significant change for HPE that was fueled in part by the culture that came over with Aruba.

      Avatar
      Jeff Burt
      Jeffrey Burt has been with eWEEK since 2000, covering an array of areas that includes servers, networking, PCs, processors, converged infrastructure, unified communications and the Internet of things.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×