As the second day of HPE Discover 2015 in London came to a close, the events of the day and the implications of interviews with attendees provided the SiliconANGLE team with plenty of food for thought.

John Furrier and Dave Vellante, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, sat down to hash out their thoughts on the conference, looking at various aspects of the HP, Inc./Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) split, sub-companies, and HPE’s position in the business battlefield now that its software focus has room to breathe.

Making the split

Reaction from both hosts to the hardware/software companies division of HP was positive, for a number of reasons. One of the foremost bright spots, as Vellante put it, was how “the split makes things so much cleaner.” Both hosts felt that by giving each company a clear and distinct focus, things would be less muddled and would also be able to reach into new areas of development that might have been precluded by needing to balance hardware with software.

Another side to the split, as Furrier mentioned, was that “the institutional knowledge of HP is important, and a lot of people were moving in and out of the company.” By separating out the two companies, HP has allowed itself twice the room for fully featured teams and internal growth.

Growth and pruning

While Furrier was of the opinion that HPE was already in shape to be a “‘cash machine,” Vellante was more reserved in his analysis, saying, “HPE can be a growth engine if they can get the mix right.” However, the hosts agreed that HPE had a lot on its side for making that growth happen, as long as the company takes care with problem areas and provides its potentially great holdings with opportunities to match.

Despite HPE’s holding of 3PAR, Vellante identified the “flat” revenues from storage as one of the company’s biggest current trouble spots, along with some overreliance on outsourcing. On the upside, Furrier pointed to the subcompany of Aruba Networking as one of HPE’s greatest possibilities for getting an edge on the market. As he noted, “If you attach with Aruba, you can bring a lot of value in on the converged infrastructure to ultimately cloud.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of HPE Discover 2015 — London. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting live with theCUBE hosts during the event.

Photo by SiliconANGLE