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HPE enabling channel to tap into AI opportunity
Vendor is providing support working to make sure its partners can deliver its AI technology offerings
HPE is putting the focus on artificial intelligence (AI), and has ramped up the support it’s providing partners to ensure the channel is in a position to support the technology.
The vendor’s Discover event heavily emphasised the extent to which the vendor is expecting AI to positively impact customers, and Charlie Tunley, UKIMEA channel and partner ecosystem director at HPE, is part of the team that is responsible for making sure those opportunities are seized by partners.
“We announced at Discover in Las Vegas, at the end of June, a whole new suite of offerings around AI called Private Cloud for AI, which is an AI customisable infrastructure stack that a customer can buy to start to deploy an AI within their enterprise,” he said.
Tunley added that HPE was making the offering available in different options to provide customers with choices.
“The whole intent behind that is to make artificial intelligence easy for our customers to buy, and easy for our partners to understand and sell to their customers,” he said.
Beyond the efforts made with the products and the work HPE is doing with Nvidia, the firm has also increased the support it can provide the channel on the training front.
“Part of what we’re doing with that is a huge enablement programme, or training programme, with our channel partners across the world, but across the UK and Ireland, as well, where we are giving them the skills and capability to go and talk to their customers and understand the opportunity around artificial intelligence so that they can bring us in when they need support,” said Tunley.
Partner engagement
Tunley said partners had been keen to engage with HPE because they understood the potential of AI. “All of us are seeing the world change in front of our eyes, with new tools that are coming out, whether you’re using Copilot day to day, whether you’re using ChatGPT ... the world is changing rapidly, and our partners are very interested in keeping up to speed on that, and our customers are keen to not get left behind,” he said.
“There is keen interest in all of this by our partner community in particular,” added Tunley. “The main opportunity is around generative AI in the [next] 18 months.”
With AI changing the technology landscape, there is also the potential for fresh partners to emerge, and HPE will need to ensure it’s supporting its existing base with the right tools and incentives.
“We’re analysing what changes or updates will be needed to our partner programmes,” he said. “The partners we work with, the ISVs, the SIs and the partner community in general. And things naturally evolve over time, but when something like AI comes along, clearly, that introduces new players, new software vendors, etc. We’ve got our ear to the ground.”
With the summer drawing to a close and a busy Q4 on the horizon, Tunley said he was expecting the end of the year to be a positive period for partners.
“I’m feeling optimistic and positive, because I think digital transformation, the adoption of AI, and all of those things will yield opportunities for companies like HPE and our partners,” he said.
“I think that there has never been a better time for our partners to want to work with HPE, in terms of the strength of the portfolio, the market opportunity and the work that we’re doing with our partners.”
