History
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.[11] 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.
In August 2016, the company announced plans to acquire Silicon Graphics International (SGI), known for its capabilities in high performance computing.[12] On November 1, 2016, HPE announced it completed the acquisition, for US$7.75 per share in cash,[13] a transaction valued at approximately US$275 million, net of cash and debt.[14]
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.[15] The merger concluded on September 1, 2017.[16]
In September 2016, Hewlett Packard Enterprise transferred two patents to Texas-based wholly owned shell company Plectrum LLC. These two patents were originated at 3Com Corporation, which was bought by HP in 2010, along with about 1,400 patents.[17]
On April 11, 2017, it was reported that Synack had raised US$21 million in a round of funding that included Hewlett Packard Enterprise.[18]
In January 2017, the company acquired data management platform SimpliVity, the developer of the OmniCube hyper-converged infrastructure appliance, for US$650M.[19]
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."[20]
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[21] 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.[22]
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.[23] GreenLake is designed to provide cloud management, cost control, and compliance control capabilities, and will run on AWS and Microsoft Azure.[24] GreenLake includes cloud data services for containers, machine learning, storage, compute, data protection and networking through a management portal called GreenLake Central.[25]
In February 2019, Meg Whitman announced she would not be seeking re-election to the board of directors, ending her professional involvement in HPE.[26]
In May 2019, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced plans to acquire Cray Inc for US$35 per share.[27] 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.[28] The acquisition was completed in September 2019 in a transaction valued at approximately US$1.4 billion.[29]
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.[30][31] From December 2021 to April 2022, HPE headquarters was located 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 was completed in early 2022. 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] In April 2022, HPE relocated from the Compaq complex to its recently finished Spring campus,[34] coinciding with the sale of the former complex to Mexican beverage distributor Mexcor that month.[35]
HPE's proposed $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.[37] In January 2025, the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division filed an antitrust lawsuit against HPE to block its acquisition of Juniper Networks, alleging that the proposed deal would raise prices, harm competition, and reduce innovation.[38] Following a settlement with the DOJ, in which HPE agreed to divest its Instant On wireless division and license the source code for Juniper's Mist AI (a key component of Juniper's WLAN products), the acquisition was completed on July 2, 2025.[39][40] Later that month, Axios reported that the U.S. Intelligence Community had earlier directly intervened to persuade DOJ to allow the acquisition, arguing that blocking the merger would have harmed U.S. companies and strengthened Chinese competitors—particularly Huawei
To help HPE with the Juniper merger, HPE hired conservative lobbyist Mike Davis to receive a favorable decision by the second Donald Trump administration.[43] Davis had helped Trump to staff key figures in anti-trust roles in the administration, including Gail Slater, the head of the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division.[43] According to sworn deposition by Roger Alford, a deputy in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Davis threatened Slater unless she approved a settlement deal related to HPE’s $14 billion bid to acquire rival Juniper.[43] Slater and her team were resistant to approving the settlement, as the proposed settlement did not alleviate anti-competition concerns.[43] Shortly thereafter, Slater and her deputies were forced out of the Justice Department.[43]
