LAS VEGAS -- Hewlett-Packard Enterprise isn't pulling any punches now against virtualization competitors, with HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri seeing its recent software offerings as a new market for the company.
"The great VM reset is here, and HPE Private Cloud is your roadmap to a better future," said Neri during his keynote speech on Tuesday at HPE Discover 2025 conference.
Neri's comments echoed Broadcom CEO Hock Tan's comments a year prior, when Tan announced the then-forthcoming VMware Virtual Cloud Foundation 9 platform.
After debuting the HPE VM Essentials as a KVM hypervisor for VM recovery, HPE rebranded and launched its new virtualization stack as HPE Morpheus VM Essentials last month.
Now, the company has bundled this and several other software packages together as the HPE CloudOps Software suite, which was first shown at this year's Discover conference.
Analysts and customers said this software push gives HPE a valuable difference compared with hardware competitors like Dell Technologies, or against software like VCF 9.
They see a huge opportunity over the long term to displace VMware as the OS for the hybrid cloud.
Keith TownsendFounder, The Advisor Bench
HPE may feel it can take on major software challengers like Broadcom's VMware, but the strategy will need customer interest and corporate investment to remain competitive, said Keith Townsend, founder of The Advisor Bench.
"They see a huge opportunity over the long term to displace VMware as the OS for the hybrid cloud," Townsend said. "They have the bits around to cobble something together that's competitive, but that's going to take some time."
Customer demand
HPE CloudOps Software is part of HPE's larger private cloud platform push to sell software that can operate standalone, integrate with competitors' software or connect into HPE's larger cloud platform, GreenLake.
CloudOps contains Zerto data backup and recovery services, OpsRamp IT infrastructure management software and Morpheus virtualization, all of which HPE acquired in the last five years.
Customer interest in VM Essentials has been high since its initial rollout last summer, said Fidelma Russo, chief technology officer at HPE, during a media roundtable at HPE Discover. When asked if the company expects focus on more software offerings, she said HPE remains an infrastructure company, but the possibility exists.
"I wouldn't say we're becoming a software company," Russo said, noting that the three components of CloudOps are all from infrastructure technology acquisitions. "We're an infrastructure company. You can never say never, however."
HPE's CloudOps is the start of a more comprehensive virtualization platform in the future, Neri said in a follow-up media roundtable after his keynote. One possible addition he highlighted for future virtualization stacks would be SD-WAN connectivity technology, a core offering from networking competitor Juniper.
HPE is attempting to acquire Juniper for $14 billion, but the U.S. Department of Justice is suing to block the deal.
"I think we're going to live for a long time in a virtualized world," Neri said. "We want to become a true software alternative."
Customer demand is rising for a full-stack virtualization alternative, he said. Although he and Russo both expect to maintain partnerships with vendors like Broadcom, there are opportunities for HPE to enter a "co-opetition."
"You have to decide where to compete and where to partner," Neri said. "But the customers have asked me, 'Antonio, can you give me a [virtualization] alternative?'"
Look ahead
HPE customers are seeing new opportunities with the Morpheus virtualization offering.
Digital Realty, a data center colocation provider, anticipates partners offering HPE Morpheus VM Essentials as another option, according to Andrew Parsons, senior director of strategy and business development for OEM at Digital Realty.
"There's a need for virtualization strategy, and Morpheus is an added benefit," Parsons said.
For any kind of new HPE software to take off, however, the company will need to cede some control over its hardware stack, said Steven Dickens, CEO and principal analyst at HyperFrame Research.
Most customers interested in infrastructure software likely have a mix of software and hardware, meaning HPE will need to build future software without its own hardware capabilities in mind, he said.
"I don't think a lot of customers are [HPE-exclusive] shops," Dickens said. "They're more heterogeneous."
HPE will also need to keep its software interoperable with open source offerings, as those become the industry standard with the likes of Ansible, HashiCorp and Splunk, he said.
"I don't think a proprietary stack is where the industry wants to go," Dickens said. "One vendor can't outcompete open source."
Broadcom's VMware technology, despite customer grousing on price, remains the definitive virtualization platform with technology far ahead of competitors, Townsend said. The recent contract changes to VMware under Broadcom meant many customers agreed to another three-year term to keep the lights on, but this time means those customers are also exploring options, he said.
HPE already has some enterprise trust; the challenge now is catching up, Townsend said.
"Both Broadcom and competitors are relying upon this next three-year contract refresh," he said. "The main problem isn't price. It's trust in the relationships. Customers trust HPE, but the [virtualization] technology just isn't there."
Tim McCarthy is a news writer for Informa TechTarget covering cloud and data storage.
