Aruba On The Record

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, pulled out all the stops during fiscal year 2022 that included record quarterly revenue of $965 million, an impressive 23 percent jump year over year. And that’s despite a massive product backlog that grew during the year due to to supply chain constraints and component shortages that challenged the company, along with the rest of the tech industry.

Aruba President Phil Mottram attributes much of the record-breaking growth in orders and demand to its loyal ecosystem of channel partners. The company is taking on—and winning—against other networking behemoths, and it’s due to a mix of its blossoming Network as a Service (NaaS) business and its flagship Aruba Central management platform that works across all of the company’s product lines—something that many competitors just don’t have, Mottram said.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company wasn’t completely unscathed during the year, however. Global supply chain issues caused Aruba to rely on alternative sources and, in some cases, even redesign some of its products to exclude components that the company couldn’t get its hands on. Those issues, Mottram said, are finally easing.

Mottram spoke with CRN about the company’s fourth-quarter Fiscal Year 2022 financial results, how Aruba is winning against its competition and in the NaaS arena, and the big areas of focus and investment for 2023.

Here are excerpts from the conversation.