HPE CEO On Juniper Merger, AI, Battling Cisco, And John Chambers’ Advice

HPE CEO Antonio Neri talks about HPE-Juniper putting the heat on Cisco, employees coexisting with AI, what Juniper partners should be doing today, and the advice John Chambers is giving him.

HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri is bullish about his company’s upcoming $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, a move that will put the heat on networking rival Cisco Systems.

“This is the first time in the history of both HP and HPE that the company will have the full intellectual property stack, from silicon to the infrastructure to the operating system, through the software services and security, to provide that modern edge-to-cloud networking fabric,” said Neri on stage at the XChange Best of Breed conference, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company.

Neri said HPE is “becoming a networking company at the core. Something that probably Cisco has forgotten now for a little bit, and I think that’s the big opportunity, which ultimately is to give customers a more modern, AI-driven experience at the networking level.”

Neri also spoke about his channel partner strategy and product integration vision once HPE closes on the Juniper deal, which he said could be just “weeks away.”

“Juniper has an amazing QFX fabric that needs some modernization and acceleration, but we will take that together with our HP Slingshot architecture—which is the one we’re using to scale tens of thousands of GPUs—and bring it together over time,” Neri said. “Because we believe with our high-performance silicon we can reduce the complexity of the platform.”

Artificial intelligence and generative AI was also top of mind for HPE’s CEO.

Neri said every job will be impacted by AI and GenAI. And to get ahead, employees must become skilled in AI.

“Everyone needs to have a minor in AI, including myself. All of us. Because you have to be able to coexist with AI in your jobs,” Neri said. “But the reality is that everybody will have to live with some sort of AI in their job. Being proficient in how to use AI will be very essential.”

In an interview with CRN’s Jennifer Follett, vice president of U.S. content and executive editor, and Steve Burke, executive editor, news, at XChange Best of Breed, Neri talked about HPE-Juniper versus Cisco networking, AI, combining Juniper and HPE’s partner programs, what Juniper partners should be doing right now to prepare, and what advice former Cisco CEO John Chambers is giving him.

What should Juniper partners know about what this HPE-Juniper opportunity means and what should they expect?

First of all, now you’re going to get access to a much bigger portfolio than ever imagined before.

HPE brings to Juniper a few things: No. 1, scale. Scale is the name of the game, and so that’s super important.

No. 2 is the fact that when we think about the future of hybrid cloud and AI, you need more than the networking parts of the portfolio. And clearly, HPE now—after six years of innovation with GreenLake software-defined and cloud-native infrastructure—we can bring the full stack there, including the software you need to run it.

Juniper has an amazing QFX fabric that needs some modernization and acceleration, but we will take that together with our HP Slingshot architecture—which is the one we’re using to scale tens of thousands of GPUs—and bring it together over time. Because we believe with our high-performance silicon, we can reduce the complexity of the platform.

And then connect storage and servers in an AI-driven approach with our HPE GreenLake platform. So we have a lot that we’re going to work through, but I think Juniper gets access to scale and a much larger sales force. And obviously be able to serve all customer segments.

What should partners on the HPE and Juniper sides be doing right now to prepare and get ahead once the deal closes?

Obviously, once the transaction closes, we can do more planning from a regulatory perspective.

We’ve got to come out immediately with what the proposition is. So that definitely will be the first step: making sure you understand what products for what use case [and] for what segment of the market. There will be a tremendous amount of enablement that we’re going to drive.

HPE has already brought the consolidation for one partner program [Aruba Networks], which is from feedback we have gotten over the years. But I purposely kept the two separate because I needed to scale Aruba to the level it is today.

Now, with the pending transaction, we have the ability to have only one partner program for the entire company.

Inside that partner program, we’re going to have different levels of certifications and compensation, which is very much suited for the type of business we compete in. But the ability to sell the whole solution actually acts as a multiplier to that partner program as well. But you know, we already announced that HPE now has emerged in the Aruba partner program and the Juniper partner program.

This year, Cisco’s former CEO, John Chambers, gave you a huge vote of confidence in a blog post where he wrote he thinks HPE will become an AI leader in the industry with you at the helm. What kind of advice has John given you on how to go up against Cisco?

No, he doesn’t give me advice [on that]. He has given me enormous support as a leader and as a friend.

It’s kind of fascinating. Obviously, he’s a legend when it comes down to building an amazing franchise like Cisco. He ran that company for 20 years and has done some amazing things.

But we became closer as we got to know each other as leaders. We have kind of a similar system for what we care about in the future [in terms of being] purpose-driven, ties to the communities, innovation that makes a difference, not just for business, but for society.

Along the way, we got to know each other, and he provided more advice as a leader now as we compete with Cisco. So I consider him an amazing leader and a good friend.

He said to me, ‘You’ve been bold to take some risks along the way because you’re looking at these inflection points, and if you can anticipate them and catch that inflection point right at the time it’s happening you have the ability to potentially do something very interesting for customers and shareholders.’ So it’s someone you always want to validate thoughts and ideas, and he’s always been good with that.

What are the big differences between HPE’s AI networking story with Juniper versus the Cisco networking story with Splunk?

We are becoming a networking company at the core. Something that probably Cisco has forgotten now for a little bit, and I think that’s the big opportunity, which ultimately is to give customers a more modern, AI-driven experience at the networking level.

Our focus is to really bring together a series of amazing assets. And to give a sense, once the Juniper transaction closes, we’re going to have another business that looks like this: $11 billion revenue. It will represent more than one-third of company revenue. It will represent probably 50 percent of the company profits.

I always said that networking is the core foundation before you even think about cloud or AI.

As you go farther down this generative AI path inside HPE, what kind of impact do you expect that to have on the makeup of your workforce?”

Everyone needs to have a minor in AI, including myself. All of us, because you have to be able to coexist with AI in your jobs, if you will.

Therefore, learning the techniques about AI, even simple things like product engineering and so forth, are essential skill sets that the entire sales, the entire workforce will have to know.

So, yes, there will be mundane things, more automation—in fact, you don’t need AI in some cases to reduce the workforce. It’s just digitization and automation. But there will be some incremental areas, where today you’re doing the manual tasks because you feel the need to have an extra control in place that automation and AI will be able to take away.

But the reality is that everybody will have to live with some sort of AI in their job. Being proficient in how to use AI will be very essential.

I speak sometimes at universities, and I say, ‘I think you should get a minor in AI because you will be more marketable going forward.’ If you go apply for a job and say, ‘I have a minor in AI,’ I’ll tell you, it will be much more valued as we go forward.

What is the fastest path to AI modernization for partners?

Work with those vendors that will make it easy for you to go sell.

For me, you can work with so many people. We have to pick the one that is willing to make the investment with you, and that you also are able to make the investment with them. That they’re committed to treating you no differently than we do, which is an extension of our sales force, but do extensive enablement and also invest in the people to help your brand.

In the end, you have to be very proficient up front—on day zero in my mind—because many enterprise customers want help.

I just came from a meeting with a customer here today. They were telling me, ‘Hey Antonio, we laid this amazing networking foundation. Now we laid this amazing Hybrid Cloud Foundation. Help me with the business use case.’

I said, ‘Who's doing this in your organization?’ They said, ‘No one. We are very IT-centric and the business doesn’t understand it yet or how to engage it.’ So you can create a lot of opportunity by being that catalyst, including business in IT, by having some adviser up front.

Then don’t forget, many of these customers don’t know how to run these things on the back end. They don’t, especially as you go to these new technologies, some of them have no idea how to run it.

So each of you may serve a different segment of the market. Figure out how to market in the white spaces that you can complement with the skill sets that you have.

What is your assessment of how ready the channel is today for AI?

I don’t think they are ready, to be honest with you. I’m generalizing here.

My view is, based on my understanding and access to the technology—which obviously I get every day and looking at the past cycles—this is going to be a bigger cycle than the cloud was.

You don’t want to be in the cycle, you want to be on the cycle. [If not], then you’re going to be suffering down the road because the reality is you don’t have the relevancy that people expect.

And all the customers will have to rethink their IT strategy and retool their architecture, no question. But it will take time.

The good news is we are early. If you think about where most of the audience plays in the enterprise space, we are early on that side. So there is still a lot of time. But you need to decide who you want to be in that cycle and the sooner, the better.