How HPE's global restructure will hit the Australian business

The trickle-down effects of Hewlett Packard's global structural changes, foreshadowed as early as May, are beginning to show at the Australian arm of the company, with redundancies, appointments and promotions.

HPE is combining its server, storage and networking business units into one business group, dubbed the data centre and hybrid cloud group (DCHCG).

CRN understands that HPE's ANZ server business unit director, Tony Smith, will leave his role, as will general manager of storage for the region, Paul Shaw, after their positions were made redundant.

A HPE Australia spokesperson confirmed that the DCHCG would be led by Raj Thakur, currently vice president and general manager for hybrid IT in Asia-Pacific and Japan.

The DCHCG will absorb the data centre networking component of HPE’s Aruba business, with that wireless business group continuing to operate separately under Steve Coad.

Other appointments highlighted in an email circulated at HPE's Australian offices this week included: Brad Schafferius to lead the federal public sector for global industries, strategy and inside sales (GISA); Michelle Twigg to lead GISA's NSW and VIC industry verticles department; and Marina Fronek to head up GISA's state government and QLD, SA and WA team.

Sales strategy operations and transformation will be led by Stephen Donnolley; channels, SMB and service providers will be headed up by Christopher Trevitt; business development, enablement, solutions and technology will fall under Tertius Bezuidenhout's control; while Christian Weber and Michael Grossfeldt will lead technical support services and technical services consulting, respectively.

What about Aruba?

Steve Wood, APJ vice-president of Aruba, spoke to CRN at last week's Canalys conference in Macau, where he explained that the Aruba business group would have "everything wireless", including the EdgeLine edge gateway and the Moonshot integrated server system, and would also focus on the internet of things (IoT) sector. Aruba will, meanwhile, relinquish some enterprise networking lines.

"The data centre group will take some of those products, primarily the high-end ones to help them in their data centre sales motion. They will pull servers, storage and data centre networking products together," said Wood.

Wood added that his opposite number in the data centre group at the Asia Pacific & Japan level was yet to be announced.

CRN broke the news last month that Alan Hyde, the Sydney-based vice president and general manager of HPE’s Enterprise Group South Pacific, would retire from his role in November, and make way for Stephen Bovis.

HPE Australia has now confirmed Bovis' appointment. “We are currently implementing organisational changes that were announced in June 2016. At this time, we can confirm that Stephen Bovis will be the new leader for the Enterprise Group across South Pacific,” a spokesperson said.

Bovis will return to Australia from Singapore, where he was HPE's vice president of global and enterprise sales.

The changes come as HPE sees adjustments to its three main segments: Enterprise Services, Enterprise Group, and HPE Software. As announced in May, Enterprise Services will be spun out to CSC, with that deal expected to be finalised in the coming months. HPE Software Group on the other hand, will be spun off to Britain’s Micro Focus over the next six months.

CRN understands the full extent of the restructure has not yet been finalised.