HPE launches Pointnext services unit after spinning off enterprise services to CSC

Fresh from spinning off its enterprise services arm with CSC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is relaunching its technology services organisation under the name HPE Pointnext.

Pointnext will focus on supporting customers around hybrid IT, real-time data and analytics, and mobile solutions to "de-risk clients’ digital transformation".

The 25,000-staff division will be run by Ana Pinczuk, a Veritas and Cisco veteran who joined HPE two weeks ago to run the US$7.16 billion technology services organisation.

"With 15 years at Cisco, I am used to being very channel friendly," she said in an interview with CRN USA. 

Locally, Pointnext will be headed up by Chris Weber, South Pacific general manager. He said: “Each customer journey is unique and requires a trusted advisor with deep capabilities, a strong partner ecosystem, and a proven record for demonstrating innovative approaches to solving challenges."

He stressed that Pointnext would have a partner-friendly strategy.

Pointnext will also be a route-to-market for HPE's alliance partners, including traditional enterprise vendors and a new breed of cloud companies. A company statement flagged SAP, Microsoft, Docker, Mesosphere, Chef, Puppet, Ansible and SaltStack as part of its "powerful ecosystem".

"Pointnext will further leverage this partner ecosystem, as well as combine HPE infrastructure and workload expertise with a broader range of strategic system integrators to create partner opportunities aligned to customers’ needs."

Goodbye service, hello services

The ink is not yet dry on the deal to spin off HPE's US$20 billion enterprise services division, formerly EDS, to a new company in partnership with CSC, set to complete on 1 April and create a company called DXC Technology.

That deal sees HPE shed a part of its business that has long been contentious due to competition with channel partners. Pointnext's Weber admitted larger service providers had felt "a little bit threatened [by HPE enterprise services]" and he expected these partners will be "less guarded" thanks to the spin-off.

Weber said the CSC spin-merger deal meant HPE was "no longer in the outsourcing space".

"An outsourcer will typically take the the whole box and dice. That can be people, assets, taking over existing contracts, application outsourcing. That is not the space we [Pointnext] are in. Our focus is on helping those customers who need support on core infrastructure – assisting them to remove some of those lower-end, administrational tasks on their core infrastructure."

Pointnext will focus on three distinct stages of the customer investment journey: advisory services, professional services and operational services.

Worldwide boss Pinczuk pledged to share the Pointnext consulting and services intellectual property and methodology with HPE partners. "The opportunity is unbounded. And I think that is why the partner opportunity is so great. The question for us is: how do we work and partner with the channel to execute that opportunity that exists."

Pinczuk said she was looking forward to meeting with channel partners to make sure that Pointnext is part of each and every sales conversation. "The solutions of the future – these digital transformations – are not things that we do by ourselves. We do them with technology partners and go-to-market partners. That is going to be ongoing and an even more important part of our strategy."