Former SimpliVity Channel Chief George Hope To Drive SimpliVity, Nimble Sales Growth In New HPE Role
George Hope, the former vice president of global channels for SimpliVity, has been named vice president of worldwide distribution for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Hope, who joined HPE after the $28 billion enterprise computing giant acquired SimpliVity for $650 million last year, will be responsible for all global distribution relationships reporting to new HPE Global Channel Chief Paul Hunter.
Hope, who joined SimpliVity in January 2014, led the sales charge during a period of explosive growth at the hyper-converged storage startup.
Partners said Hope's success building a strong partner network at SimpliVity along with his 17-year track-record as a seasoned channel executive at EMC would be a big advantage as HPE moves to ramp up SimpliVity and Nimble sales growth through distribution.
Before taking the global channels job at SimpliVity, Hope spent three years as director of channels sales for the U.S. for EMC and several years as senior director of global channels for EMC's Isilon network-attached storage division.
HPE has pledged to drive 100 percent of the sales of SimpliVity and Nimble through partners. That promise is already paying off in a stepped-up sales charge from partners on the hyper-converged and all-flash storage offerings.
Michael Goldstein, CEO of LAN Infotech, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla. solution provider, said Hope's enterprise channel leadership will be key to driving sales growth through distributors working hand in hand with partners on new emerging technologies.
"I expect Hope to really help make the SimpliVity and Nimble acquisitions successful," said Goldstein. "This is an area of big growth for partners, but you need someone with channel expertise in these higher-end products to help partners move to an architecture sale that will generate services and consulting dollars. HPE spent a bundle on Nimble and SimpliVity, and they really need to make sure they back it up with the right channel strategy. Distribution is a big part of that."
Hunter, for his part, recently told CRN that he has his sights set on big channel sales growth from the SimpliVity and Nimble acquisitions."If we are able to do with SimpliVity and Nimble what we have done with Aruba that is huge," Hunter said. "The Aruba business has grown by $1.5 billion in two to three years. If you are able to achieve similar growth with Nimble and SimpliVity and apply it to our channel that is huge."