'HPE will be about speed', says UK boss

Andy Isherwood admits separation has been so smooth, it has been "bizarre"

HP has officially split into two, marking the end of a lengthy separation process its UK boss has said went so smoothly as to be "bizarre".

From today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and HP Inc are two separate legal entities, although the pair have been operationally independent of each other since 1 August.

HPE focuses on software, services and enterprise, while HP Inc is dedicated to personal systems and printing.

HPE's UK managing director Andy Isherwood said his company - which employs more than 250,000 staff and has revenue of $53bn - was created to be more efficient than the previous combined HP.

"This company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will be about speed," he said. "It will be about having the mindset of a startup. How can we be quick? How can we be in industries and businesses that are growing? And how can we get out of stuff quicker if they're not working? That is really what this separation and launch of Hewlett Packard Enterprise is about."

When HP unveiled the new partner programmes for the duo last month, the vendor's partners hailed the split as a success, reporting very little disruption. Isherwood agreed that this has been the case.

"I think if you talk to partners, they will say ‘did it happen?'" he said. "They have been, frankly, amazed at the lack of disruption to their business. We said we would take our systems down for three days and they thought it would be more like three weeks, at best. But it was three days. It is slightly bizarre."

He said on 1 August, when HP operationally split into two and its systems were separated, there was some expectation of chaos which did not materialise.

"I didn't go on holiday, I had teams stood up here dialling in at 7am waiting for all the problems," he said. "We split every single system - each customer has a different trading relationship with the two companies, every channel partner has different support mechanisms - everything! Thank God that we didn't blink."

Isherwood said today's legal separation is "more symbolic" than anything else. HPE's chief executive Meg Whitman - who remains chairman of the board of HP - is set to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange today to mark the company's arrival.

Partners of HPE and HP Inc will see minimal changes to the day-to-day running of their HP businesses, Isherwood said, insisting that most of the company's partner staff are remaining in the same roles.

"The way in which we have engaged with partners historically is always focused around solutions," he said. "We've had people focused on our PC and laptop business; we've had people focused on our managed-print services. So the people remain the same, but the legal entities they represent are different. Take Computacenter, for example - they will have a contract with HPE and HP Inc. The people that turn up will be from different companies, but typically, they will be the same people.

"This is why people aren't seeing and feeling that suddenly everything is going to change and their businesses are at risk. They are not."