There was no denying the energy felt yesterday’s CrowdChat session for Hewlett-Packard’s annual event, HP Discover (#hpdiscover).  The social media discussion ran live during SiliconANGLE’s ongoing coverage from HP’s conference, broadcasting interviews and announcements from theCUBE.  Show hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante interviewed several industry thought leaders and HP customers on Day 1 of the event, providing commentary throughout.

All eyes are on HP as the legacy technology giant is in the midst of one of its biggest challenges to date.  For some time, HP has faced layoffs, has been slow to deliver products, and has not been able to pivot in response to market shifts.  HP is banking this turnaround on the trust that comes with its brand, and the expectation is that its products can always be top-flight contenders within their lines of business.

Last year, despite standout pressures on the PC and server lines of business, HP showed progress.  This year, HP’s evolving turnaround plan is expected to center on the shining and rising stars in its portfolio, such as the storage product 3PAR and analytics platform Vertica, and enterprise services.  The enterprise is HP’s key focus for this event — attracting and retaining customers hinges on its service offerings and ability to rethink infrastructure.

With 498,000 social media impressions and counting, the most voted #HPDiscover CrowdChat threads displayed tremendous interest in a number of topics and guests on #theCUBE.

One of the top-ranked discussions was theCUBE session with David Scott, SVP & General Manager of HP Storage. Scott shared the developments in their high-end 3PAR storage products, such as an all-flash offering and impressive cost per gigabyte figure.

CrowdChat comments and questions on Scott’s interview:

the 3PAR all flash array has a full stack – the ? everyone asks -is it a "bolt on" or a true all-flash… #hpdiscover http://t.co/JyiL0TzRyS

— Dave Vellante (@dvellante) June 10, 2014

https://twitter.com/zrotech/status/476440835634905088

'First flash array ever to be suitable' – enterprise use case 99.9999999% great tidbits in this interview #hpdiscover http://t.co/AqTAOElTt5

— BLACKCERT (@BLACKCERT) June 10, 2014

They are gunning for EMC customers. Scott says customers looking to refresh their EMC Tier 1 arrays no… #hpdiscover http://t.co/FaCiCXAErF

— Bert Latamore (@BertLatamore) June 10, 2014

Another highly voted on guest was Scott Weller, the SVP & GM Technology & Support for HP. Weller shared the direction of HP’s cloud, OpenStack, and services efforts, with a strong focus on enterprise-grade delivery.

Customers value that we know what enterprise-grade means. So when we launch Heleon that means it is no… #hpdiscover http://t.co/PlupdPWXQo

— Bert Latamore (@BertLatamore) June 10, 2014

@BertLatamore Services are where the rubber meets the road. Not sexy but that's where the value lives #hpdiscover http://t.co/4nuANU2xJa

— Dave Vellante (@dvellante) June 10, 2014

New style of IT means to me hybrid. I have to support customers living & breathing hybrid better. We'r… #hpdiscover http://t.co/0XQlfW3kGe

— Bert Latamore (@BertLatamore) June 10, 2014

Craig Nunes, HP Storage VP of Marketing & Alliances, was another popular guest that further discussed HP storage announcements.  Taking that HP storage conversation a bit further, theCUBE host Dave Vellante added the following research information that predicted the arrival of flash in the mainstream market:

@dfloyer posted this graph in 2009 showing that by 2014 enterprise flash drives would crossover and re… #hpdiscover http://t.co/YwODDXzAa3

— Dave Vellante (@dvellante) June 10, 2014

The CrowdChat continues today as continued areas of interest during HP Discover include more about HP Helion, hybrid cloud solutions, and HP’s strategy in attracting new clients to its camp.

Images: theCUBE/SiliconANGLE