HPE CEO Antonio Neri On GreenLake’s Lowest Cost-Per-Workload Advantage And Why It Is ‘Better Than Public Cloud’

A Recession Will Drive Further GreenLake Momentum

With the threat of a recession looming, Neri predicted that an economic downturn would cause customers to embrace GreenLake adoption at a more rapid clip.

“If we have a recession—which people are thinking about these days—then that will actually accelerate [GreenLake momentum] because people are not going to stop [investing in digital transformation],” he said. “They are not going to say, ‘I am not going to do anything.’ People have to continue to accelerate the digital transformation. I think that is a tailwind for us to get that adoption faster.”

HPE intends to grow GreenLake “very, very rapidly,” with a plan to increase investments in the platform by about 27 percent in the new fiscal year, said HPE CFO Tarek Robbiati. This as HPE expects its GreenLake annualized recurring revenue run rate to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 35 percent to 45 percent from Fiscal Year 2022 to Fiscal Year 2025.

The increased investment comes with the consumption model driving a “richer mix of software and services” that is increasing both “durable recurring revenues and higher gross margins,” which will drive greater free cash flow, said Neri.

“We have a strategy that others try to emulate,” said Neri. “We see that every day: everybody is trying to copy what we do. But the experiences we offer are distinctive. We have created a performance culture that drives results. I often say that HPE does not wait for the next big thing to happen. We accelerate what comes next for our customers, our company and our shareholders.”