HPE bolsters hybrid cloud position with Morpheus Data buy

HPE is strengthening its hybrid cloud position and the scope of GreenLake with the acquisition of Morpheus Data.

The vendor’s GreenLake-as-a-service portfolio has been a strong channel play, allowing the vendor to add more depth with the Morpheus move thanks to fresh cloud management software.

With analyst numbers predicting growth in the intelligent cloud operations market, the acquisition is an indication that HPE is aiming to gain a big slice of that action.

Fidelma Russo, executive vice-president and general manager of hybrid cloud and CTO at HPE, said that the deal would strengthen its market position: “With the acquisition of Morpheus Data, we will take the next major leap to make HPE GreenLake cloud the de facto platform for innovating across hybrid IT.”

HPE will combine Morpheus Data’s management tools with the AI-driven observability it gained from the OpsRamp acquisition sealed last year to provide more multicloud automation options.

Brian Wheeler, co-founder and CEO at Morpheus Data, said that both firms knew each other and were ready to meet evolving customer demands.

“This acquisition is the result of a long-term relationship between HPE and Morpheus Data that has already proven successful with customers. Together, we will be able to help more customers transform their multicloud, multi-vendor IT estates to thrive and innovate in this increasingly complex and fragmented IT landscape,” he said.

HPE has been expanding the GreenLake portfolio, with increased networking support, and reported a decent performance in its recent Q2 numbers. Earlier this year, HPE added more storage functionality to GreenLake, aimed at supporting more AI features.

Speaking to analysts back in June, HPE CEO Antonio Neri talked of the increased demand for GreenLake and its success getting the technology into fresh accounts.

“GreenLake hybrid cloud is attracting new customers,” he said. “In the second quarter of fiscal 2024, the number of customer organisations using HPE GreenLake increased sequentially by almost 9% to 34,000.

“Our as-a-service lifetime total contract value grew to more than $15bn in Q2, with our annualised revenue run rate, or ARR, growing 39% year over year. Demand is increasing for our HPE GreenLake on-premise private cloud solutions.”

HPE has indicated that AI is also going to be ramping up across GreenLake, and used its recent Discover event to underline that message and offer support to enable more partners to sell the technology and line up behind use cases.

Back in June, Marie Myers, executive vice-president and chief financial officer at HPE, talked about how the business was already building sales around AI.

“Our AI orders, a healthy, intelligent edge, is set to grow sequentially beyond Q2 as expected, and AI emerged as a driver of a healthy HPE GreenLake momentum,” she added.

“We are seeing rapid growth in AI system revenue. GreenLake is a key differentiator. We expect HPE GreenLake’s value proposition to key customers, including enterprises and sovereigns, to sharpen with the advent of AI.”