HPE’s Ulrich Seibold On Nvidia Partnership And The Biggest ‘Mistake’ Partners Could Make In The New Enterprise AI Era

HPE Worldwide Vice President of GreenLake Partner & Service Provider Sales Ulrich Seibold says partners that invest in the enterprise AI opportunity with HPE will make three to four times more money as they are earning today.

The Beginning Of The AI Enterprise Era For HPE Partneres

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Worldwide Vice President of GreenLake Partner & Service Provider Sales Ulrich Seibold says the company’s new enterprise-class, full-stack generative AI solution co-engineered with Nvidia opens the door to big AI opportunities for partners.

“A year from now partners getting into this AI market will earn three to four times more money than today,” said Seibold. “To be fair there is an investment they have to make.”

The HPE-Nvidia solution targeted at the enterprise makes AI “relevant” for partners, said Seibold. “Before with HPC (High Performance Compute) and large language models it was more of a high-end play,” he said. “This is bringing AI from the high end to the enterprise.”

The Nvidia co-developed solution, along with HPE Ezmeral software for data analytics and GreenLake for File Storage, represents a major inflection point for partners to deliver AI services, said Seibold.

“We believe we are the only from a hybrid perspective that is able to deliver and provide these services to our partners,” he said. “It is an inflection point. AI really changes everything we are doing. It is not just delivering hardware or operating hardware. It’s really building new services together with enterprises.”

Seibold expects to see partners establish completely new business models in the enterprise AI era. “It is not about selling hardware anymore,” he said. “It is about building a service and driving business value to the end customer.”

To that point, Seibold said it is critical that partners build out AI practices with consulting services aimed at helping solve the myriad of data challenges customers face in the enterprise AI era.

“Where partners really can earn their money is if they are able to build a practice around AI,” he said. “The real money is integrating the data. It is not just about AI. The customers need to use AI to improve and change their business model. The majority of the earnings for partners is if they are able and willing to build consulting services around AI. So it is about how to integrate data.”

How big an inflection point is this new HPE Nvidia enterprise full stack generative AI solution along with the other offerings HPE is bringing to market here?

We believe we are the only from a hybrid perspective that is able to deliver and provide these services to our partners. It is an inflection point. AI really changes everything we are doing. It is not just delivering hardware or operating hardware. It’s really building new services together with enterprises.

I believe we are going to see new partners or established partners with totally different business models than in the past. It is not about selling hardware anymore. It is about building a service and driving business value to the end customer.

This is going to be a fundamental change for many of the partners. We have seen some partners already make these changes and are now very successful because the margins are three times higher than in the traditional model.

How does this Nvidia announcement differ from just putting Nvidia GPUs in an HPE server?

What we have announced is much more (than GPUs in an HPE server). It is really joint cooperation with Nvidia (for enterprise AI). This helps us a lot because now AI is relevant for our partners.

Before with HPC (High Performance Compute) and large language models it was more of a high-end play. This is bringing AI from the high end to the enterprise.

This is a new design in partnership with Nvidia. That is really important. It is not just compute. It is an end-to-end development including the Nvidia software stack.

What is the key for partners to make money with this new enterprise AI offering?

Where partners really can earn their money is if they are able to build a practice around AI. The real money is integrating the data. It is not just about AI. The customers need to use AI to improve and change their business model.

The majority of the earnings for partners is if they are able and willing to build consulting services around AI. So it is about how to integrate data. Cloud native companies will have to integrate these models, rebuilding their business models.

We will see totally new business models coming in the enterprise. Besides hardware and SaaS services on GreenLake, partners need to build out their AI competencies. This is one of the competencies in our Partner Ready Vantage program.

Partners need to be able to be able to integrate software and drive business process transformation. That is a key element where they can earn much more money on top of the hardware and managed services developed or operated by them.

This is not just about AI on our hardware but in the hyperscaler world if customers do not want to buy infrastructure or as a service from HPE GreenLake, partners can build a data model for their customers and also make money from subscriptions in AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

Is this officially the start of the AI enterprise era for partners with this Nvidia jointly developed generative AI solution tailored for the enterprise?

What we are providing partners is the full integration of infrastructure and services – on prem and off prem- so they can manage it and build on top of that their own services.

Before everything was basically GPUs in our compute. Now we have a fully integrated, newly developed end to end solution optimized together with Nvidia for the enterprise.

We are not talking about the high performance computing stuff where partners didn’t play a role.

We are also providing through partnerships AI as a service with Aleph Alpha (a large language model AI software maker that HPE has invested in and partnered with on HPE GreenLake for large language models). We also have a partnership in Europe with Taiga Cloud (a Gen AI cloud service provider).

From now on customers or enterprises through our partner community can use these services and integrate them. This is process driven and process oriented. These are new capabilities that partners need to build. It is more than just selling or operating IT infrastructure. This is where partners will be able to make money.

Through our Partner Ready Vantage program we are helping partners go in this direction. We are helping our partners build these capabilities so they can participate in AI. For me this is AI coming to the enterprise.

What is the call to action for partners who can start obtaining the Partner Ready Vantage AI certification beginning in the first quarter next year?

They need to invest in AI capabilities. This is a consulting business. It is a new business. For big partners or small partners it is the start of a new game now. Everyone has a new chance to enter into this business. That is the beauty of the AI enterprise era we start today.

What is your vision for HPE partners building AI practices and how you see GreenLake propelling this AI hybrid cloud opportunity?

The vision is our partners leading the enterprise business operated through the HPE GreenLake based platform. That is basically the vision. We are really in the forefront of this AI enterprise market.

This is not just a compute announcement. This is a new (enterprise) design. AI is a data driven business so think about HPE Ezmeral and our software capabilities. We have the software capabilities all on top of the platform so partners can add their own services.

We have the new HPE GreenLake Flex solution built for Digital Twin, data analytics, data management, new file storage management capabilities.

Others will try to sell their hardware as a service but we are trying to bring our partner community into a new world.

What do you think is going to be the ultimate economic impact on partners from this new AI enterprise stack with Nvidia and the rest of the AI announcements?

A year from now partners getting into this AI market will earn three to four times more money than today. To be fair there is an investment they have to make.

What is the biggest mistake partners could make with the start of this new AI enterprise market push?

The biggest mistake partners could make is waiting and looking. The time is here. Partners need to start now. A year ago it was too early. It was not a partner play at that point in time.

Partners need to start now building a new business model. Those partners waiting will find the opportunity is gone. They might operate or manage something, but the partners who are starting now to build new business models will earn the money.

As part of HPE Partner Ready Vantage, we have a co-financial model. This is building intellectual property around HPE software and infrastructure based on the platform. It is enabling our partners to build their own services. We do a co-financing model helping them. Their business model needs to be clear and there needs to be a return at the end that is clear.

This Partner Ready Vantage program is very important because it costs a lot of money (to build new business models). You need different people. You need a different business model. You might need a different operating model in the hybrid world.

All partners within HPE Partner Ready Vantage – roughly 700 so far- will be able to participate in these models to build up their own AI specialization and capability. It is a huge investment on our part.

What is the difference between the way HPE is approaching this AI shift with Partner Ready Vantage versus Dell Apex?

You have already seen this in Partner Ready Vantage. Partner Ready Vantage is all about enabling our partners to build these new business models. It is not about reselling a vendor service.

With other vendors – as you know – it is white labeling. This is not about white labeling. It is about helping partners by delivering our own capabilities to them. We are offering them our consulting approach, how we operate and also the toolsets on how we build this expertise. This is something we are offering through our AI specialization with HPE Partner Ready Vantage.

It is not reselling vendor solutions. It is building your own services. This is a fundemtnal change. It is a totally different model. It is not about reselling something and being an agent. In that agent model the skill set and the knowledge benefits stay on the vendor side. That is not our model. Our model is making our partners successful.

We open up our books to partners, our concepts, our technology and our customer success methodology. This is about how we operate managed services, We are helping partners looking to build up their own managed services capabilities. We show them how we did it, the toolsets and what is important. All that is being provided to our partners. That is a big, big benefit for partners.

How big are those HPE Partner Ready co-financial investments that HPE is making here?

We are talking about double-digit millions of dollars that we invest each year. It is really about the business case. This is a huge investment. It will go up over time.