This article is about the enterprise-focused company that was spun off from Hewlett-Packard. For the predecessor company, see
Hewlett-Packard. For the printer and personal computer company, see
HP Inc.
HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in
Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the
Hewlett-Packard company.[2] It is a business-focused organization which works in servers, storage, networking, containerization software and consulting and support.
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. At the time of the spin-off, HPE's revenue was slightly less than that of HP Inc.[3]
HPE was ranked No. 107 in the 2018
Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[5]
Naming
The full name for the company is "Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company", which drops the hyphen that previously existed between the "Hewlett" and "Packard" of the former Hewlett-Packard Company. The company is commonly referred to as "Hewlett Packard Enterprise" or by its initials "HPE".
The company has also been referred to as "HP Enterprise" by some media outlets[6] and has even been incorrectly referred to as "HP Enterprises".[7]
History
In 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.[8] The merger of HPE Enterprise Services with CSC, to form a new company
DXC Technology, was completed on March 10, 2017. Approximately 100,000 current HPE employees were affected. More than 30,000 services employees from other areas of the HPE business remained at HPE including technology services support and consulting as well as software professional services.[citation needed]
In August 2016, the company announced plans to acquire
Silicon Graphics International (SGI), known for their capabilities in high performance computing.[9] On November 1, 2016, HPE announced it completed the acquisition, for US$7.75 per share in cash,[10] a transaction valued at approximately US$275 million, net of cash and debt.[11]
On September 7, 2016, HPE announced a "spin-merge" with
Micro Focus, who would acquire HPE's "non-core" software (which included the
HP Autonomy unit), and HPE shareholders would own 50.1 percent of the merged company, which would retain its current name.[12] The merger concluded on September 1, 2017.[13]
In November 2016, PC World wrote that "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."[14]
In September 2016, Hewlett Packard Enterprise transferred two patents to 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.[15]
On April 11, 2017, it was reported that
Synack had raised US$21 million in a round of funding that included Hewlett Packard Enterprise.[16]
In 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."[18]
In November 2017,
Meg Whitman announced that she would be stepping down as CEO, after six years at the helm of HP and HPE, stating that, on February 1, 2018, Antonio Neri[19] would officially become HPE's president and chief executive officer. The announcement created controversy leading to a 6% drop in stock price, which quickly recovered during the next few days.[20]
In June 2018, Hewlett Packard Enterprise launched a
hybrid cloud service called GreenLake Hybrid Cloud, built on top of HPE's OneSphere cloud management
SaaS console, offered under its brand HPE GreenLake.[21] GreenLake is designed to provide cloud management, cost control, and compliance control capabilities, and will run on
AWS and
Microsoft Azure.[22] GreenLake includes cloud data services for containers, machine learning, storage, compute, data protection and networking through a management portal called GreenLake Central.[23]
In February 2019, Meg Whitman announced she would not be seeking re-election to the board of directors, ending her professional involvement in HPE.[24]
In May 2019, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced plans to acquire
Cray Inc for US$35 per share.[25] The announcement came soon after Cray had landed a US$600 millionUS Department of Energy contract to supply the
Frontier supercomputer to
Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2021.[26] The acquisition was completed in September 2019 in a transaction valued at approximately US$1.4 billion.[27]
In December 2020, Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed it is relocating its corporate headquarters from San Jose, California to
Spring, Texas, a northern suburb of Houston.[28][29] As of December 2021, HPE headquarters remain at the former HP property and headquarters campus of
Compaq in northwest Harris County near
SH 249 and Louetta. Construction of the new Springwoods Village campus in Spring is expected to complete sometime in early 2022.[30] Concerns about major flooding at the Compaq complex were a contributing factor for HPE CEO Antonio Neri to have the new campus built.[31] The old campus had previously been flooded by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.[32]
HPE has come under criticism for its services provided to the
Israeli Police,
Israeli Prison Service, and
Israeli Population and Immigration Authority. HPE provides maintenance services for the servers of the Israel Police enabling it to perpetrate what human rights activists say are violations and war crimes such as home demolitions and forced displacement in the occupied West Bank. HPE provides servers, data storage and data security services for Israel's prisons, where Palestinian political prisoners and child prisoners are held hostage in inhumane conditions and are often tortured. In addition, HPE provides Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority exclusive servers for its ID card system which critics say is racially segregated and allows Israel to racially discriminate against and dominate Palestinians and deny them their rights. The BDS movement has called for consumers and organizations to boycott all HPE IT services and products as well as printers, computers, and printer cartridges from
HP Inc.[64][unreliable source?]
Carbon footprint
HPE reported Total
CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 30 September 2020 at 343 Kt (-48 /-12.4% y-o-y).[65] The company commits to reduce emissions by 55% by 2025 from 2016 base year, and this
science-based target is aligned with the
Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.[66]
HPE's annual Total CO2e Emissions - Location-Based Scope 1 + Scope 2 (in kilotonnes)
"Contact Sales of Support". Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Retrieved February 3, 2022. WW Corporate Headquarters - Houston, TX - United States 11445 Compaq Center Drive West Houston, Texas 77070