Antonio Neri, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Technology Services at HP, discussed his company’s new announcement around Big Data services, cloud and data management with theCUBE co-hosts Jeff Frick and John Furrier, live at HP Discover 2013.

Converged cloud and Big Data are the main areas of focus, Neri said. On the Big Data front, “we are announcing a new set of services around Advisory services.” The goal is to bring customers into an environment and have them define their value proposition around Big Data. The new services also help them define the strategy for Big Data and help them implement it.

The other aspect is converged cloud. “Every customer will follow a different path to the cloud,” and HP focuses on how to help them take the journey to the cloud, Neri explains.

HP takes you on a magical Big Data ride

“Many customers are kind of intimidated,” Neri said. Advisory workshops focus on that issue by bringing in consultants with a very clear approach and “we help them get comfortable about the next step. We don’t make then feel like they have to swallow a big whale,” they take baby steps.

• Customers want control

One of the customers’s biggest concerns is “all about change management.” IT, the business owners, they all need to be part of the conversation. “They really get very uncomfortable when they feel they are losing control. It is our role to show them they keep control.”

The technology shifts are driving the biggest change, Neri explained. “Applications and workloads are going to be the next big shift.”

• Amazon lacks HP’s technology expertise

“People don’t need cloud, they need flexibility, where cloud can play a big role,” Neri said. “At the end of the day is about productivity, cost and flexibility. Amazon has been in the forefront in building the environment, but they don’t have the technology expertise we have.”

HP’s cloud architecture allows customers to move up and down from private to managed to public cloud. “We have a four wall agreement and we also do flexible capacity service,” meaning on premise infrastructure as a service. “You can have the same technology on premise and we manage that as a service. We give them great flexibility, on premise.” Flexible capacity has been available for a while and “we see massive demand,” as customers are more comfortable with it because it’s on premise.

Watch the full interview here.