back to article As HPE trousers soaring profit, new CEO looks at cost-cutting Next plan and thinks: More of that!

Hewlett Packard Enterprise took everyone by surprise Thursday by turning in better-than-expected quarterly financial numbers. The business end of the HP breakup credited a strong start to the year, a tax windfall, and its ongoing efforts to slash costs and jobs, for a nearly five-fold boost in profits over the year-ago quarter …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Evryone is doing well

    HPE is doing well, Dell is doing well, Cisco is doing well.

    Only the scammers at Nutanix can’t turn a profit despite cooking the books:

    https://finance.yahoo.com/m/42e06bb0-3358-30ed-8a0f-443a431c3cc9/stiff-competition-could-sink.html

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Evryone is doing well

      Not so fast... yes, they had an increase in income but, they're cutting costs meaning employees. And the new guy is going to continue with the plan Meg started. At what point does cutting employees kill new products, sales,etc.? The investors might be excited for a couple of quarters but it probably won't last.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Evryone is doing well

        I don't know of a company in the world that does not refresh its workforce. Even the smaller companies do but you don' hear about it because, well, it's not interesting.

        Having said that, nowhere in the conference call he even hinted to more cuts whereas in prior calls this was blatantly evident.

        They can still cut costs, but cutting costs doesn't mean cutting employees. This company went from close to 300k employees to less than 50k (mainly by selling businesses). It's like losing 83% of your weight but still wear your old clothes! Cost cutting means fixing processes that are no longer applicable to the size of this company.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "cutting costs doesn't mean cutting employees"

          Because they won't cut costs at the executive level, that usually means:

          1) cutting employees/outsourcing/offshoring

          2) making the lives of those left more miserable removing benefits and the like, and saving on employee expenses (including building and offices expenses)

          3) Hire less expensive people when needed

          It could make HPE a really nice place to work for...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Evryone is doing well

          Wrong!! You must not have been keeping up with HPE the last few years as they laid off people almost quarterly. The 300k was from the companies that they bought and then got what they neede from them and sold. Not much process to fix when most of the manufacturing are in other countries. NEXT is definitely a sneaky way of saying layoffs. Anyone working for HPE should seriously consider finding another job. I wouldn't buy an HPE or HP Inc. product if it was the last thing on Earth.

      2. ManMountain1

        Re: Evryone is doing well

        Rubbish. The workforce reduction element of HPE Next is over (thankfully). HPE Next is a long term project about culture, systems, strategy, etc. The painful bit has been done.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: Evryone is doing well

          The painful bit has been done.

          I wish I could share your optimism.

        2. baspax

          Re: Evryone is doing well

          ManMountain1

          Bullshit. During layoffs, the most talented leave on their own because they have options. Everyone wants to change jobs on their own terms not by decree of some anonymous director/VP far away.

          Case in point, in my region all the talented Nimble sales reps and systems engineers have already left.

          1. ManMountain1

            Re: Evryone is doing well

            Everyone has options, not just the most talented ones! And if anything, it tends to be the less talented ones who jump ship every couple of years!

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Evryone is doing well

              Exactly right!

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Evryone is doing well

          Whatever you say ManMountain1. I think I've read several times where that good for nothing Meg Whitman mentioned that there would be no more layoffs and then you hear about more layoffs and then another one. What long term goals does HPE have? The only long term project is to have some other company by it and strip it of all it's patents.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Evryone is doing well

        Just ask IBM!

    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Evryone is doing well

      HPE will soon be just the 'C' level execs and a few beancounters. A 'shell' company. From a Garage to a Shell. my, how the mighty continue to shoot themselves in the foot on the way to the bank (if you are an ecec that is)

      1. baspax

        Re: Evryone is doing well

        True that. I wish they hadn’t so many people let go recently. I am not sure that brain drain is easily replacable.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Steve Davies 3

        Hold on, you forgot the lawyers, can't outsource them or they'll sue you!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Evryone is doing well

      A rising tide floats all ships

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Evryone is doing well

        Dell EMC Storage has sprung a leak then!

      2. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

        Re: Evryone is doing well

        Unless that rising tide is actually a Tsunami. Then you are pretty much hosed no matter what ship you are on.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Evryone is doing well

      Well at least they appointed a guy now. The share price will no doubt trend upwards far more rapidly.

  2. thedogandduck

    If your only tool is a hammer...

    "Neri said, he is so encouraged by the Q1 returns that he's going to drive the cost-cutting Next campaign even harder."

    It makes you wonder what he would have done if they had seen poor results in the quarter.

    1. ManMountain1

      Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

      I don't believe Neri would have described it as the 'cost-cutting Next campaign'. That was one bit of it unfortunately but that bit is done. Next includes many facets and as I said before, the WFR was only the initial and most painful bit.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

      Rubbish.

      here is the transcript. Go read it

      https://seekingalpha.com/article/4149748-hewlett-packard-enterprises-hpe-ceo-antonio-neri-q1-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

      1. ManMountain1

        Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

        "I believe Q1 is a solid proof point that shows we are doing the right things. But there's still more work to do. We remain focused on executing our strategy, driving HPE Next and continue to introduce innovative products and services our customers are looking for." ... no mention of cost cutting. Poor journalism by The Reg!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

          @ ManMountain1

          This isn't a site read by investors or fund managers. No good you trying to pump the stock here. And anyway, as IT types, we've watched the painful demise and disintegration of the old HP, until there was nothing left but talentless execs, whose only strategy was job cuts and offshoring.

          1. handleoclast
            Coat

            Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

            until there was nothing left but talentless execs, whose only strategy was job cuts and offshoring.

            I have a cunning plan...

            Change HPE into a consulting people, advising other large companies how to cut jobs and offshore until they, too, have nothing left but talentless execs.

            Admittedly, in the long term they're building their own competition in the "advise people how to cut jobs and offshore" business, but by the time that happens they'll have been fired with golden parachutes anyway.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

            Why you bothered?

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: If your only tool is a hammer...

            MountainMan1 sounds like a mouthpiece for HPE. HPE is falling apart and it's stock is pretty pathetic. Even worthless Meg Whitman knew it was a sinking ship, that's why she resigned.

  3. The_seeker1

    HPE NEXT basically means Next layoffs.

    HPE doesn't value it's employees and uses a term like NEXT to make it sound like a good thing when a major part of their cost cutting is sending work to other countries to be built and laying off thousands of employees from U.S. They sell off parts of their businesses a little at a time. Pretty soon, HPE will probably be a skeleton that will be bought out by another company. Other companies will lose faith in HPE at the rate their going.

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