HPE Launches New Global Sales Offensive for Aruba Networking

Partners Cheer 'Stupendous' New HPE Aruba Global Go To Market Sales Offensive

"Instead of dealing with two groups of sales and technical teams we'll be dealing with one," said CPP Associates Managing Partner Pat O'Dell. "That has to save at least 20 percent time and cost in our sales motion." Hewlett Packard Enterprise partners expect dramatic go to market sales advantages from a new global networking sales offensive that integrates the Aruba Networking channel team into the HPE global sales organization effective Nov. 1. The integration into the HPE global sales organization is going to have a "stupendous" impact that will help partners move the networking "sales needle," said Pat O'Dell, general manager and managing partner for Clinton, N.J.-based CPP Associates, one of HPE's top enterprise partners. "Anytime you consolidate operations and process it's a good thing," he said. "Today when CPP is talking to end users we have to deal with an Aruba team and an HPE team. We have to escalate pricing requests through an HPE team and an Aruba team. Just being able to talk to one team moves the needle for us." HPE Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Simon Ewington called the new global sales alignment a "massive opportunity" to simplify and deliver a better partner experience. "This is a massive opportunity to turbo-charge the partner business that we do with them and leverage the opportunity we have across AI by leveraging our compute, storage and networking portfolio which I think is unique in the industry," he said. "Most importantly it demonstrates that we continue to have partnering in our DNA and continue to listen to the feedback for our partners and how we can drive an optimal experience for them. I think it is a great example of us listening to what partners are asking for in terms of a simplified experience working with them across the complete portfolio and delivering on that promise." As to just how big an impact the new go to market model could have on partner sales and profitability, O'Dell said: "It know it's substantial. It is really hard to quantify, but basically instead of dealing with two groups of sales and technical teams we'll be dealing with one. That has to save at least 20 percent time and cost in our sales motion." The big go to market change also paves the way for the big additions to the HPE portfolio that will come with the expected completion of HPE's $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks later this year or in early 2025, said O'Dell. "Juniper brings solutions advantages to HPE with Mist AI and AI Ops which will automate network problem resolution, security with firewalls and new high end core switching," said O'Dell. "This is going to put much more pressure on Cisco because now all of sudden HPE's networking and AI solutions become much more comprehensive." O'Dell said most importantly the HPE, Aruba and Juniper Networking teams will all be "rowing in the same direction, leading to gains in "customer acquisition" and overall better networking solutions for customers. "A lot of smart people in the market are making big bets on HPE based on the comprehensiveness and the strength of the portfolio," he said. "Juniper makes HPE better." Erik Krucker, chief technology officer for Comport Consulting Corp, Ramsey, New Jersey, No. 312 on the CRN SP500, said he expects integrating the Aruba channel networking team into the global sales organization to make it "easier" to get price quotes to Comport customers faster. "Having a separate team from Aruba worked in the beginning after HPE acquired Aruba," he said. "That allowed Aruba to operate at a fast pace. It was one of the better decisions HPE made for an acquisition. But over time the returns on that have diminished with two teams, two quoting processes. You had to navigate two of everything. This should simplify that and give us more velocity. This should cut down on the friction." With the Juniper acquisition, Krucker said he is looking forward to a single sales offensive on the networking front with a new enterprise core routing platform. "HPE has done a strong job on campus networking but they have to build out the portfolio and go into the core of the data center," he said. The HPE Aruba and Juniper combination comes with customers seeking alternatives to Cisco with a new emphasis on software and how easy it is to manage the networking platform across an entire hybrid multicloud IT estate, said Krucker. "It's no longer just about speeds and feeds for the hardware any longer," he said. "HPE is going in the right direction with an easy way to manage things with Aruba Central. I hope HPE continues to build that out and fold Juniper into it with the GreenLake cloud console and management platform. That provides customers one single pane of glass with visibility into the entire IT estate."

HPE's New Aruba Networking Global Sales Offensive: What Partners Need To Know

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Partner Ecosystem Simon Ewington said the integration of the Aruba Channel Networking team into the global sales organization effective Nov. 1 is a "massive opportunity" to simplify and deliver a better partner experience. "This is a massive opportunity to turbo-charge the partner business that we do with them and leverage the opportunity we have across AI by leveraging our compute, storage and networking portfolio which I think is unique in the industry," said Ewington in an interview with CRN. "Most importantly is demonstrating that we continue to have partnering in our DNA and continue to listen to the feedback for our partners and how we can drive an optimal experience for partners. I think it is a great example of us listening to what partners are asking for in terms of a simplified experience working with them across the complete portfolio." Under the new go to market model, partners will no longer be forced to go to two separate organizations for networking price quotes or channel issues. In fact, Ewington said, the new structure provides a single partner business manager that "will own" the partner relationship with a unified go to market model with the full HPE portfolio, said Ewington. "We are going to measure more of the organization on helping partners to be successful across the full portfolio," said Ewington. In a blog post, Ewington said the changes "enable HPE to deliver a seamless experience to all its channel partners, and simplify the engagement experience across our broad edge-to-cloud portfolio without losing the specialized focus on networking."

Aruba Worldwide Sales Chief Alain Carpentier On Why HPE Has A Big AI Advantage Versus Cisco, Arista

Aruba's senior vice president of worldwide sales says integrating the Aruba networking channel team into HPE's global sales organization is poised to power a new era of AI and security growth for HPE partners. Aruba Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales Alain Carpentier said integrating the Aruba channel networking team into HPE is priming the pump for an AI networking revolution in anticipation of HPE's $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks. "We are building the foundation of a new wave of growth, which will be around AI and security," said Carpentier in an interview with CRN on the new global networking go-to- market sales offensive. "That will be the foundation. And for that, we need partners. For a partner, they need to transform themselves. If they are not able to transform, then they have an issue. So we believe that this new channel organization will help push them to transform their model to capture these new opportunities around AI, network for AI as well as with security attached to that, and also AI for network." HPE said the integration of the HPE Aruba Networking channel team into the global sales organization will take effect Nov. 1, the start of HPE's new fiscal year. HPE said the unification will "strengthen" the company's partner strategy and enable it to "simplify the engagement experience" across its broad edge-to-cloud portfolio without losing the focus on networking. HPE has already received European Commission approval for the blockbuster deal for Juniper Networks, which is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025. The acquisition doubles HPE's networking business and sets up a battle for network supremacy in the AI era between a combined HPE, Aruba and Juniper and market leader Cisco Systems, which has dominated the networking market since the mid 1990s. The acquisition sets up HPE to grab share in the network for AI market, building AI clusters that combine compute, storage and networking versus Cisco and Arista, said Carpentier, a 27-year HP and HPE veteran. "It's a big business that is coming," he said of the AI cluster market. "It is difficult to evaluate the size, but we believe that if we're able to provide one cluster end to end customers will be interested. That's where we have a big differentiator versus competitors. If you compare that with Arista and Cisco, they can't do that." HPE is also set to break open the AI for network market, which is aimed at leveraging AI to improve network automation, said Carpentier. He said some customers and partners are underestimating the impact AI will have on automating resolution of network issues. "We see some customers very amazed by these concepts that we have introduced, and it works very well," he said. "We simplify the way to manage the network so you have less people doing things they don't need to do to manage their network."