Whitman On The Record Before GPC

When Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman takes center stage at the company's Global Partner Conference this week in Boston, it will be the culmination of what partners are calling a turnaround for the ages.

Five years ago, HP was considered a Silicon Valley dinosaur on shaky financial ground with me-too products and a demoralized partner network. Today, HPE, which had $12.5 billion in debt on the balance sheet when Whitman took the helm, has $5.5 billion in cash, an innovation engine firing on all cylinders and a charged-up partner network.

Whitman spoke with CRN about the turnaround, the new, more agile HPE, the recent sales restructuring, the differences between Dell-EMC, Cisco, IBM and HPE, and her plans for the future.