(MT Newswires) -- Antonio Neri, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, describes the last quarter as mixed despite strong profitability that stands out from its peers. HPE's profitability climbed 200 basis points year-over-year thanks to a strategy focused on product mix.

HPE has generated $4 billion in orders over five quarters, but has only converted $1 billion into revenue to date, due to their deferred revenue model and As-a-Service offering. Neri acknowledges a slowdown in networking, but remains confident about the company's long-term competitiveness in hybrid cloud and AI.

He discusses supply challenges, particularly for GPUs, pointing to an improving situation, but with delivery times still in excess of 20 weeks. Demand remains strong and HPE is working hard to manage customer expectations around these lead times.

The CEO highlights the differences between HPE and Dell, emphasising HPE's strong growth in data centre services and its HP GreenLake offering, which enables customers to access GPU services without upfront capital expenditure. He notes that HPE has $4 billion in cumulative orders with a $3 billion backlog, which is comparable to Dell, but with a competitive advantage thanks to deeper expertise in data centre services and a large-scale networking business that Dell does not have. 

Regarding the acquisition of Juniper Networks, Neri refutes the idea that this has caused a slowdown in orders. He explains that the acquisition will enable HPE to double the size of its networking business and deliver hybrid cloud and AI services, with synergies from day one.

He concludes by highlighting the limited overlap between Juniper's and HPE's businesses, and how the integration of Juniper's AI technology with HPE's Aruba Central will benefit customers by reducing costs and merging the worlds of AI and native cloud.

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