In the tech world, there is seldom a calm before the storm. However, where Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. is concerned, people are waiting to see what they’ll do next.

The international tech company faces a massive shift in business from the physical world to the cloud. Likewise, it faces serious competition from other industry giants. How HPE responds will determine its future.

At the HPE Discover EU conference in London, Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), co-hosts of theCUBE (* disclosure below), from the SiliconANGLE Media team, shared a table to discuss HPE’s possible moves and the matter of its competition.

HPE, AWS and the future of the cloud

The conversation opened with a look at how HPE operates. Vellante mentioned that he sees HPE as a tech and products company first, with services wrapped around that core. Gillin then pointed out that the market doesn’t get excited about services, but it does get excited for products.

The topic shifted to HPE’s major competitor, Amazon Web Services. Gillin stated that AWS is creating whole new markets around its offerings, and that builds a lot of excitement. Cloud services will mature over time, and AWS will be in position to take advantage when that happens.

Partners and acquisitions

Meanwhile, HPE had its own method. Vellante explained that HPE’s Capacity on Demand offering was a direct response to the public cloud. Where Amazon builds a stack involving storage, compute, database and so on, HPE is partnering for its stack. Gillin agreed, saying that HPE is turning a liability into an asset by divesting themselves of anything that wasn’t core to its business and then partnering like crazy.

Vellante considered what moves HPE could make to improve its position. He asked when HPE will make a big move. Gillin felt that it was hard to imagine what acquisitions they could make that would be a game-changer. He also mentioned how HPE would have to be careful in its acquisitions to avoid competing with its partners.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of HPE Discover EU. (*Disclosure: HPE and other companies sponsor some HPE Discover EU segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither HPE nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo by SiliconANGLE