back to article HPE's cloud server wasting away on low calorie Microsoft sales

Hewlett Packard Enterprise's joint venture with Foxconn to build lower cost servers to order for the world's biggest service providers is under threat because of its over reliance on shrinking sales to its one major customer, reportedly Microsoft. The two-year-old tie-up between the pair was created to compete with Chinese …

  1. Networking Dude

    the large cloud players are looking for pricing directly from the manufacturers of the systems... HPE cannot make money having FoxConn make boxes for microsoft and then passing them through... Watch what happens here. MSFT will go directly to FoxConn for custom built boxes without support from an HP, Dell, et al..

    Same thing happening in the networking game. Celestica is gaining share in the 100G switch game against everyone...

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      I wondered at what stage they'd start buying cotton from Egypt and coating it in chocolate. I'll swear Milo Minderbinder is running their accounts department.

  2. Herby

    "Low Cost" and "Data Center"

    Not a good combination. In the grand scheme of things, the cost of a data center appliance is the least of your worries. If you are getting server boxen in quantity the operating cost and software licensing will be costlier in the long run.

    Data center items (see article on BA's fiasco) should be pretty "bullet proof" and reliable. This just isn't compatible with "low cost". As the saying goes: good, fast, cheap; pick two!

    1. chris 143

      Re: "Low Cost" and "Data Center"

      That doesn't apply to the same extent if you're running azure sized quantities of servers.

      Any licensing costs are an accounting trick (microsoft selling to microsoft). Once you're up to the big cloud providers scale worrying about individual server reboots just doesn't make sense.

      The ideal cloud native app just spins up a new node if one goes away for some reason.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Low Cost" and "Data Center"

        How many apps run in clouds are "native" and "ideal"?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Low Cost" and "Data Center"

      "Data center items (see article on BA's fiasco) should be pretty "bullet proof" and reliable"

      For cloud, the exact opposite is the case to a BA style DC - cloud systems are designed to identify failing systems and either migrate VMs to other locations, or if the failure is catastrophic to restart the systems elsewhere. Stack em high and keep em simple, software will handle the rest.

      The underlying systems are definitely not bullet proof - take a look at the OpenCompute server design for an example of what they do, they favour power efficiency over power redundancy.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe buying more from Dell?

    Azure cloud is likely made up of ODM white box and additional value players, like HPE and Dell.

    The HPE space is likely being lost to Dell.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft hoses HPE... dog bites man story.

  5. theblackhand

    HPEs chances in the cloud

    Given stories about the level of design customisation Google and AWS do to save power (Google using rack level high efficiency power supplies) and do to ensure reliability (I.e AWS writing firmware for UPSs), I wonder what HPE would offer Azure that Azure couldn't do better themselves?

    I like HPE servers, but there's loads of enterprise features I like that cloud providers would get no value from.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, if Microsoft is buying fewer HPE Servers, does that mean that there are sales cuts HPE's storage unit, as well?

  7. ToddRundgrensUtopia

    HPE versus IBM, who dies first?

    Who will die first, HPE or IBM?

    Sad state, but the nonsense that escapes from the mouths of there respective CEOs is truly alarming. Its like the Emperor's new clothes and Megybabe and Gini look b****k naked to me.

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