‘Now Is The Time For Network As A Service’

Aruba Worldwide Channel Chief Donna Grothjan says there has never been a better time for partners to drive Network-as-a-Service sales growth.

“Now is the time for Network as a Service,” said Grothjan. “What we’re hearing from customers is they’re actually asking and looking for Network-as-a-Service options. The good news is we were before our time when we launched NaaS over three years ago. We were helping educate the market on Network as a Service. Where we are today is customers are actually asking for it. So we are well positioned and our partners are well positioned for this.”

Over the past two years, HPE has more than doubled its as-a-service total contract value to nearly $10 billion.

HPE’s Aruba intelligent edge business, meanwhile, was up 25 percent to $1.1 billion in the most recent quarter ended Jan. 31.

“The great part is we have growth across the entire portfolio,” said Grothjan. “When you think about the pandemic and the shift to digital transformation, coupled with some of the challenges that we’ve had around supply chain that everyone in the networking category experienced, that demand and that shift of digital transformation is still happening.”

Grothjan said the biggest greenfield opportunity for partners remains in acting as managed service providers for their customers.

“For us the biggest opportunity is still with managed service providers,” she said. “Since we launched our MSP program three years ago, we have about 500 solid managed service provider partners that have joined our program. We continue to believe that’s the best opportunity for our partners.”