What to expect from HPE Discover 2017

Twelve months is a long time in tech, as HPE has spent this last year demonstrating.

Since the last Discover conference in Las Vegas, HPE has acquired Nimble Storage, launched its own consultancy service Pointnext bought Simplivity and SGI, and spun off its software business to Micro Focus. And that's just the highlights.

What, then, does this mean for Discover 2017? Well, I expect that Meg Whitman's keynote will be, once again, full of strategy and explanation of what these acquisitions and divestments mean. In particular, I think we're going to hear a lot about Pointnext and how it fits in with HPE's vision.

There will undoubtedly be some product news too, but I imagine it will be to do with existing themes and lines, such as ProLiant and edge computing/IoT, particularly as there has already been a Simplivity product released since the acquisition (the HPE Simplivity 380 in March) and it's a probably a little early for any concrete product announcements emerging from the Nimble purchase, although you never know.

There's been some news about The Machine recently HPE's in-memory computing project and I would be surprised if it isn't name checked, but any totally new revelations would be a surprise.

In short, a sedate but interesting conference lies ahead, with Monday focussing exclusively on the channel (follow coverage from that on our sister siteChannel Pro), while Tuesday and Wednesday broaden out into the conference proper.

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