With the “ITification” of telcos an ever-present hot topic in the industry, Hewlett-Packard Co. continues to address the needs of the communications and media industry.

“We’re putting a bunch of assets together to go after this business,” Saar Gillai, SVP and GM for HP’s Communications Solutions Business, told theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s Media production team, at HP Discover 2015 in Las Vegas. “It’s a big business for HP, a big opportunity.”

Telcos challenged by decreasing ROI

According to Gillai, telcos have built good solutions and good networks over the past two decades but are now challenged by decreasing ROI. Outsiders, such as WhatsApp and Apple, monetize telco services without payment to the provider, and the explosion of bandwidth usage by consumers requires the investment of more resources for the same or less return.

The solution, according to Gillai, is to move into the Cloud environment. However, “You have to change the whole paradigm,” he said. “It’s not that different to what’s happening in Enterprise, but there are a lot more constraints. This is not a one type fits all, this is about building solutions with our partners for our carriers who ultimately have the final choice in how they want to build it.”

As part of the Open Platform for NFV Project, HP has strong partnerships with other players that are going after the telco business, including Brocade, China Mobile, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Intel and Nokia, as well as 150 or more independent software vendors writing apps for this area.

“Carriers buy solutions; they don’t buy boxes,” Gillai told theCUBE. “We believe if we have a vibrant, open eco-system, it will help everybody.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of HP Discover Las Vegas 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE