HP Enterprise Moves Headquarters to Houston
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. will move its headquarters to Houston, where the company is already building a new campus.
HOUSTON—Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. will move its headquarters here, a major shift for a founding Silicon Valley computer maker now focused on cost-cutting measures and motivated by work-from-anywhere arrangements. The company is already building a new campus in Houston.
The spread of COVID-19 and the subsequent economic slowdown suppressed demand for networking and computer hardware. HPE reported quarterly revenue that topped analysts’ predictions, indicating that businesses are indeed upgrading data center hardware during the pandemic and firms are investing in gear to make remote working efficient, according to Bloomberg.
A maker of servers, storage hardware and networking gear, HPE was created in the 2015 split of one of the Bay Area technology companies, Hewlett-Packard Co. Bloomberg reports that HPE has posted declining revenue in all but one quarter since the split.
Chief executive officer Antonio Neri has been working to turn the tide by reducing the company’s overhead costs, exiting unprofitable businesses and chasing the hybrid-cloud market, where businesses store some information in data centers and some with cloud companies.
“The global pandemic has forced businesses to rethink everything from remote work and collaboration to business continuity and data insight,” Neri said in a statement. “We saw a notable rebound in our overall revenue, with particular acceleration in key growth areas of our business.”
Sales in the quarter ending October 31 were little changed from a year ago at $7.2 billion. Profit was 37 cents a share in the fiscal fourth quarter, HPE said Tuesday in a statement. Fiscal fourth-quarter sales increased 6% from the prior period. In the current quarter, HPE projected that profit, excluding some items, will be 40 cents to 44 cents. The company said sales will decline from the preceding period at a percentage in the mid-single digits, in line with normal seasonal patterns. A decline of 5% would indicate sales of about $6.84 billion, says Bloomberg.
The company will keep its technology innovation hub in San Jose while administrative work will be done at the new Texas headquarters, Neri said on a conference call with analysts. Consolidating more expensive facilities in California will lead to real estate cost savings, he said.
Hewlett-Packard Co. was founded in 1939 in a Palo Alto garage.