hpe history

Our Founding

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard became friends at Stanford University before forming a two-person company in a rented garage—the original Silicon Valley startup. Working with limited resources, the pair created a series of products—starting with audio oscillators used by sound engineers—sometimes using the Packard family oven to put on finishing touches. Their efforts impressed Walt Disney Studios, one of our early customers, and set the course for a legacy of innovation and leadership.

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Timeline of our history
July 2, 1939 Launched in a Palo Alto garage in 1939, Hewlett Packard was the original Silicon Valley startup. Today Hewlett Packard Enterprise is one of the world’s leading enterprise technology companies. See key milestones and moments from our history.
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Innovation Gallery

February 20, 1985 Explore a gallery of some of Hewlett-Packard’s most breakthrough and notable products. From its first devices—oscillators that improved the way audio frequencies were measured—to a calculator dubbed “the first personal computer” to bestselling printers and more, take a trip through the history of our imagination.
This article is about the enterprise-focused company that was spun off from Hewlett-Packard. For the predecessor company, see Hewlett-Packard. For the printer and personal computer company, see HP Inc.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Headquarters in Spring, Houston, Texas
Company type    Public
Traded as    
NYSE: hpe HPE
S&P 500 component
Industry    Information technology
Predecessor    Hewlett-Packard
Founded    July 2, 1939; 85 years ago as Hewlett-Packard
November 1, 2015; 8 years ago in San Jose, California
Headquarters    Spring, Houston, Texas, U.S.
Area served    Worldwide
Key people    
Patricia Russo
(Chairwoman)
Antonio Neri
(President and CEO)
Products    
Financial technology
Computer hardware
Computer software
Cloud computing
Internet of Things (IoT)
Artificial intelligence
Computer networking
Services    Consulting
Revenue    Increase US$29.1 billion (2023)
Operating income    Increase US$2.09 billion (2023)
Net income    Increase US$2.03 billion (2023)
Total assets    Increase US$57.2 billion (2023)
Total equity    Increase US$21.2 billion (2023)
Number of employees    62,000 (2023)
Divisions    
Intelligent Edge
HPC & MCS
Compute
Storage
Financial Services
Hewlett Packard Labs
Subsidiaries    
Aruba Networks
Cray
Zerto
Silver Peak Systems
Axis Security
Athonet
Website    hpe.com
Footnotes / references
Financials as of October 31, 2023[1]
The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas.

HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the Hewlett-Packard company.[2] It is a business-focused organization which works in servers, storage, networking, containerization software and consulting and support.

The split was structured so that the former Hewlett-Packard Company would change its name to HP Inc. and spin off Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a newly created company. HP Inc. retained the old HP's personal computer and printing business, as well as its stock-price history and original NYSE ticker symbol for Hewlett-Packard; Enterprise trades under its own ticker symbol: HPE. At the time of the spin-off, HPE's revenue was slightly less than that of HP Inc.[3]

In 2017, HPE spun off its Enterprise Services business and merged it with Computer Sciences Corporation to become DXC Technology. Also in 2017, it spun off its software business segment and merged it with Micro Focus.[4] Also in 2024, as part of the change in strategy, HPE's telecommunications business unit, the Communication Technology Group (CTG), was acquired by HCLTech for $225 million.[5]

HPE was ranked No. 107 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[6]

Naming

HPE campus in San Jose, California

The full name for the company is "Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company", which drops the hyphen that previously existed between the "Hewlett" and "Packard" of the former Hewlett-Packard Company. The company is commonly referred to as "Hewlett Packard Enterprise" or by its initials "HPE".

The company has also been referred to as "HP Enterprise" by some media outlets[7] and has even been incorrectly referred to as "HP Enterprises".[8]

History

IT service management employees hold up the new company's logo rectangle in 2015.
In May 2016, the company announced it would sell its enterprise services division to one of its competitors, Computer Sciences Corporation in a deal valued at US$8.5 billion.[9] The merger of HPE Enterprise Services with CSC, to form a new company DXC Technology, was completed on March 10, 2017. Approximately 100,000 current HPE employees were affected. More than 30,000 services employees from other areas of the HPE business remained at HPE including technology services support and consulting as well as software professional services.[citation needed]

In August 2016, the company announced plans to acquire Silicon Graphics International (SGI), known for their capabilities in high performance computing.[10] On November 1, 2016, HPE announced it completed the acquisition, for US$7.75 per share in cash,[11] a transaction valued at approximately US$275 million, net of cash and debt.[12]

On September 7, 2016, HPE announced a "spin-merge" with Micro Focus, who would acquire HPE's "non-core" software (which included the HP Autonomy unit), and HPE shareholders would own 50.1 percent of the merged company, which would retain its current name.[13] The merger concluded on September 1, 2017.[14]

High-performance processor test bed built by HPE for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in 2018
In November 2016, PC World wrote that "HPE, and before it, Hewlett-Packard, failed to develop middleware tools to really make a dent in the software market, where other companies like IBM, SAP, and Oracle are excelling," and that "without major software product lines, HPE's integrated offerings won't be as strong as competitors like Dell, which have the software and hardware assets", adding that "If all HPE is doing at this point is focusing largely on hardware, you have to ask what the end game here is."[15]

In September 2016, Hewlett Packard Enterprise transferred two patents to Texas-based wholly owned shell company Plectrum LLC. These two patents were originated at the 3Com Corporation, which was bought by HP in 2010, along with about 1,400 patents.[16]

On April 11, 2017, it was reported that Synack had raised US$21 million in a round of funding that included Hewlett Packard Enterprise.[17]

In January 2017, the company acquired data management platform SimpliVity, the developer of the OmniCube hyper-converged infrastructure appliance, for US$650M.[18]

In April 2017, Hewlett Packard Enterprise completed its acquisition of hybrid flash and all flash manufacturer, Nimble Storage Inc, for US$1.2 billion or US$12.50 per share. In October, Reuters reported that the company had allowed a Russian defense agency to examine a cyber-defense system used by The Pentagon. The report noted: "Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight [Hewlett Packard Enterprise] employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack."[19]

Antonio Neri, President and CEO as of 2018

In November 2017, Meg Whitman announced that she would be stepping down as CEO, after six years at the helm of HP and HPE, stating that, on February 1, 2018, Antonio Neri[20] would officially become HPE's president and chief executive officer. The announcement created controversy leading to a 6% drop in stock price, which quickly recovered during the next few days.[21]

In June 2018, Hewlett Packard Enterprise launched a hybrid cloud service called GreenLake Hybrid Cloud, built on top of HPE's OneSphere cloud management SaaS console, offered under its brand HPE GreenLake.[22] GreenLake is designed to provide cloud management, cost control, and compliance control capabilities, and will run on AWS and Microsoft Azure.[23] GreenLake includes cloud data services for containers, machine learning, storage, compute, data protection and networking through a management portal called GreenLake Central.[24]

In February 2019, Meg Whitman announced she would not be seeking re-election to the board of directors, ending her professional involvement in HPE.[25]

In May 2019, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced plans to acquire Cray Inc for US$35 per share.[26] The announcement came soon after Cray had landed a US$600 million US Department of Energy contract to supply the Frontier supercomputer to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2021.[27] The acquisition was completed in September 2019 in a transaction valued at approximately US$1.4 billion.[28]

In December 2020, Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed it is relocating its corporate headquarters from San Jose, California to Spring, Texas, a northern suburb of Houston.[29][30] As of December 2021, HPE headquarters remain at the former HP property and headquarters campus of Compaq in northwest Harris County near SH 249 and Louetta. Construction of the new Springwoods Village campus in Spring is expected to complete sometime in early 2022.[31] Concerns about major flooding at the Compaq complex were a contributing factor for HPE CEO Antonio Neri to have the new campus built.[32] The old campus had previously been flooded by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.[33]

HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks was subjected to an investigation by the UK's antitrust watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority. On June 19, 2024, the Competition and Markets Authority announced that it had initiated a merger inquiry to assess potential competition concerns arising from the deal, setting an August 14, 2024 deadline to decide whether to conduct a full investigation. At the time the deal was announced, HPE had agreed to pay $40 per share in cash for Juniper.[34]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett_Packard_Enterprise