One of the pleasures of my job is speaking at events, some vendor-internal and some public. I say to speak ‘at’ but the formal presenting is really just the job aspect…much of the pleasure comes from the speaking with that naturally accompanies these engagements.
One example was when I addressed HPE’s Americas Storage Sales Kick Off in [mainly cloudy!] Orlando back in January. It was interesting because, frankly, for some time now, ‘storage’ would not be the first choice in a game of word association after HPE is uttered. At least not for anyone who was not in attendance in Orlando! Yes, there’s been progress and of course there are highlights; moreover, HPE is a huge machine so its revenue in all areas is pretty significant. But there has been little really new with which to grab the spotlight for storage – 3PAR and Nimble are established standards, and even HPE’s magnificent InfoSight analytics tool is delivering more genuine value than innovative excitement these days.
Andrew Manners runs storage sales for this part of HPE and the January event was of course (as these things are) about recognition of past successes, present motivation…all the while knowing about, and prepping for, a future that holds more promise and opportunity. That was the common theme of all the speaking with conversations I had; ‘just you wait…”.
Well, the wait was over at HPE Discover. I caught up with Andrew, stuck a camera in his face, and let him get justifiably excited...not just about his group’s progress, and not just about the slew of storage BU product introductions, but about the fact that storage was once again being fully embraced by HPE, and that it was front-and-center at the event.
If you'd like to read -- or see -- more about HPE Discover, please read these blogs from me and my colleagues:
HPE Goes 'All In' on 'as a Service' at Discover 2019
