Driving Digital Transformation: Microsoft & HPE’s Strategic Partnership - Six Five On the Road

How are Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise accelerating enterprise digital transformation through a deepening partnership that spans cloud, edge, and secure AI?

From HPE Discover Barcelona 2025, host Will Townsend is joined by Microsoft's Wendy Welch, GM, Microsoft Device Partner Sales, for a conversation on how Microsoft and HPE are driving joint innovation, strengthening customer outcomes, and creating new opportunities through hybrid cloud, edge, and secure AI technologies. They explore the evolution of the partnership, the industries most impacted, and the future of hybrid and AI-powered solutions.

‍

Key Takeaways Include:

🔹End-to-end Solutions: Microsoft and HPE combine strengths in cloud scale, device ecosystem integration, edge compute, and security to deliver seamless, end-to-end solutions built for real-world enterprise challenges.

🔹Industry Outcomes That Matter: Examples of how their partnership is driving real transformation in sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services—helping organizations increase agility, modernize operations, and unlock new data-driven capabilities.

🔹Hybrid & Edge Innovation: Joint offerings leveraging hybrid cloud, edge computing, and secure AI are enabling enterprises to accelerate modernization strategies, improve operational performance, and prepare for the next wave of AI-driven workloads.

Learn more at HPE.

‍

Watch the full video at sixfivemedia.com, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, so you never miss an episode.

‍

Or listen to the audio here:

Disclaimer: Six Five On The Road is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded, and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors, and we ask that you do not treat us as such.

‍

Will Townsend:

This is Six Five on the Road. We are live at HPE Discover Barcelona 2025. And in this session, we're going to be talking about HPE and Microsoft's relationship. Wendy, it's so great to talk to you today.

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, Will, thanks for having me. It is fantastic to be here. It's been a great week. Awesome.

‍

Will Townsend:

Well, so I understand that you have the global responsibility for the partnership with HPE. And I'm sure you have a lot of insight into how both companies complement each other. So maybe let's start there. From an end-to-end solution perspective, where do you see the synergy between both companies?

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, perhaps I'm biased, but I think we complement each other incredibly well. And part of that's just because the fact we've built this relationship and nurtured it and evolved it over the last 30 plus years.

‍

Will Townsend:

Sure.

‍

Wendy Welch:

So today, when I think about our partnership, we're just so focused on what we need to deliver to customers and what they need most. And frankly, in our view, that is end-to-end solutions that modernize infrastructure and accelerate their transformation. I mean, it really is that focused and that, I want to say simple, but you know how complex that becomes. Second, I would just want to highlight our approach. And our approach is clear. We combine Microsoft's trusted cloud platform with HPE's leading infrastructure solutions. And what that does is it enables customers to seamlessly bridge their on-prem and their hybrid environments. Third, our partnership, it is powerful. And again, maybe I'm biased, but part of the power is that we're focused on solutions, but first and foremost, we're focused on keeping the customer at the center. And when we do that, it enables us to solve the very complex challenges that we're faced with together in the market, and that our customers are looking to solve. But we also do that by leveraging our deep expertise, our global reach, and our shared innovation, and our vision for success.

‍

Will Townsend:

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Now, you know, Microsoft partners with a lot of OEMs, right? So, is there anything unique about the relationship with HPE that you can point to?

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, I think so, but again, first and foremost, our collaboration is helping customers to accelerate their digital transformation and that journey. And we do that by leveraging Azure Local and HPE's cloud and edge solutions to empower the organizations. And what they're working to do is deploy secure AI-powered applications wherever the customer data resides. We know cloud, edge, increasingly hybrid, And it's the flexibility. And so HPE's robust, incredibly robust portfolio gives customers choice. And that flexibility is crucial for industries, whether it be retail, manufacturing, healthcare. They're leveraging those real-time insights and the power of HPE and their portfolio. to bring success and just continue to drive the innovation in the market.

‍

Will Townsend:

Yeah, you know, modern AI is so exciting. I've lived through public internet, I'm sure you have as well, cloud computing, and now we have this platform that is transforming so many industries, and you touched on several there. I'm wondering, could you provide an example of a joint HPE-Microsoft solution that's accelerated digital transformation and driven a positive business outcome?

‍

Wendy Welch:

Yeah, well, I do want to just touch on a few of the industries again. So we see great opportunities in retail. We have manufacturers today that are using the joint solutions to monitor and optimize their production lines in real time. With healthcare, we're seeing providers are securely processing patient data at the edge. And that's providing faster, more personalized care. And those are truly tangible outcomes. And they highlight how the combined strengths are delivering more measurable value for customers, and again, accelerating their transformation.

‍

Will Townsend:

So can you provide a specific example that's publicly shareable?

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, I won't name names, but let me go back to retail because together we have a tremendous global win that HPE is still deploying, but they are out of Australia. So when I think about retail specifically, the hybrid edge solutions are helping customers and this particular customer has transformed their operations and enhanced their shopper experience. And they're doing that by delivering AI-powered analytics at the edge, and the retailer can now analyze foot traffic, they can optimize and monitor inventory levels, and even deliver personalized promotions in real time. And it's through those real-time monitoring, and with the edge and cloud solutions, they can also more effectively identify risks. They can prevent loss. And it's just ensuring that operational efficiency that we believe is so powerful. And that first very large global retail win that we've had with HPE was the first of another that were in earlier stages of deploying. But I'll let them share their customer names. But again, when we think about the capabilities. It's not just the operational efficiency, but it's also going back to the customer. And it's how we're enabling retailers to respond to changing customer and consumer preferences, which in this world and the rapid innovation, we know that that does change rapidly. It also addresses security, and then going back to customer loyalty and preferences, and how the solutions can enable faster, more data-driven decisions in-store, in-market.

‍

Will Townsend:

I love the fact that you're helping facilitate that online hyper-personalized experience and bringing that into brick and mortar, because that's been a big challenge, right? I mean, when you look at the Amazons of the world and the Walmart.coms of the world, customers want that same sort of customer experience in a retail location, right?

‍

Wendy Welch:

I mean, when I go to the store, that's what I'm expecting. If I'm going to take my time and go to the store, I want that same type of personalized, fast experience that I feel I can have if I just stayed home.

‍

Will Townsend:

Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. Well, so you touched on Cloud and obviously Microsoft with Azure. You're doing great things there, but I'm wondering from your perspective, how does Hybrid Cloud, Edge Compute, and the channel play a role in enabling AI-powered innovation?

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, it's great, and certainly both organizations have a huge affinity and loyalty for the channel. And it's because they play such a pivotal role in this journey, and the more complex and the more global in scale the deployments are, we see the more partners. and the more we need to leverage the ecosystem. And frankly, customers want choice. They want choice in who they partner with. They want choice of who they deploy with and support. So we are both just very committed to enabling partnerships worldwide. And we do that through strong tools, tech enablement, resources, also deployment support. But that is all required to deliver the fully integrated solutions. I absolutely agree. So my call to action for a channel partner would be now is the time to engage with us. We have had tremendous momentum with HPE. We see that only accelerating and certainly some of the announcements this week just continue to unlock new opportunities. I think the opportunity for channel partners is so strong with Microsoft and HPE together.

‍

Will Townsend:

I love it. I love it. And with Juniper coming together with HPE, I think it just strengthens the overall value proposition, not only from what you're doing with the company, but just overall for the channel as well. It provides more selling opportunity, more opportunities to monetize what they do best.

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, and I'm excited for HPE because I think it just continues to differentiate them and strengthens their value prop in the market.

‍

Will Townsend:

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, as we wind up our conversation, what excites you the most about the innovation potential longer term with HPE?

‍

Wendy Welch:

Well, I would say overall, I'm just incredibly excited about the innovation and the partnership between us. And it's because we're not just responding to today's challenges, we're looking out to the future. We're looking out around the corner about how we can continue to shape and anticipate the pain points and bring new solutions to market. We see it every day, we've seen it this week, HPE has an incredibly robust portfolio, and that's true full stack. They can address AI, modernization, virtualization, across compute, storage, networking, and their professional services. Truly, I just view our partnership as stronger than ever, but it is because HPE has been so aggressive in leaning into their innovation, and they are uniquely positioned in the ecosystem. This week at Discover, again, you touched on it, the incremental product announcements, where they've gone and just leapfrogged. with networking. I've seen it in the showcase, in the keynotes, in the sessions. Frankly, our partner meetings and customer engagements have just been full stop excitement this week. And for me, when I just reflect on like, what does that all mean? It is underscored that there's tremendous opportunity for transformation at the edge. And together, we are positioned that with partners to go and not just build, but deploy and deliver these important innovations for customers around the world.

‍

Will Townsend:

I think Antonio really punctuated your thoughts there during the keynote when he said, you know, the theme for this year's event here in Barcelona is discover what's next, right? And the only way that you can do that is with a partner ecosystem and certainly the work that you're doing with HPE proves that very point. Wendy, thanks for taking time today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

‍

Wendy Welch:

Excellent. Will, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of the show.

‍

Will Townsend:

You too. And that's Six Five Live from Barcelona, HPE Discover 2025. Stay tuned for more exciting content coming your way.

‍