The past few years have been a rollercoaster of innovation, particularly when it comes to the cloud ecosystem.

The pandemic, supply chain challenges and overall instability led to an explosion of virtual offerings, from video meeting technology to the expansion and vertical development of cloud-based offerings.

“Three years ago, we were talking about cloud services and partners were nodding their heads and thinking, ‘Yeah, but the world is going to continue as normal,’” said Paul Hunter (pictured, left), North America sales leader at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. “Fast forward three years and the partners are really talking proactively — how do they build up their cloud services.”

Hunter and Heiko Meyer (pictured, right), executive vice president and chief sales officer at HPE, spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and John Furrier at the HPE Discover 2022 event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed transforming business models toward repurposing existing technology in new ways and the positive outlook for business-to-business transactions around digital transformation. (* Disclosure below.)

HPE GreenLake functionality repurposed as a cloud-based service

The transition to the cloud has shifted the business model for many enterprises, including tech companies like HPE. Repurposing existing products is often a pathway to transformation, as is the case with HPE GreenLake, which changed from being a financial vehicle to a cloud service.

“In the past, we were selling transactional hardware. Now we are selling services, cloud services. We offer the same training we are doing with our [customers] to our channel partners, because we are together in this journey,” Meyer said.

Despite B2C headwinds at the macroeconomic level, the B2B model is booming. There may be shifts in demand, but if an organization is on a digital transformation journey, continued investment and dedication to that functionality are essential.

“And it’s not a nice to have. It’s a must-have. I don’t know of any customers that are deinvesting in technology — in the lifeblood of their business,” Hunter said.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Discover event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Discover. Neither Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE