One of the most difficult questions a company can get is when an analyst asks them…
“What truly makes your solution better than your biggest competitors (insert names here…)?”
Often this leads to a rattled down least of features and benefits, most indiscernible to the average consumer. However, in big tech it’s a little bit different, because beyond relationships, when it comes to making enterprise decisions about which technology company to partner with, decisions impact top lines, bottom lines and even the jobs of those that are making the decisions.
We know that IoT is one of the biggest trends in business today. It’s changing industry, manufacturing, healthcare, our cities and so much more. With the power of IoT analytics, an ever-connected stream of data that lives at the edge and sends data shooting back to the core, we have a whole new world of insights that can power our decision making and take our businesses into more positive directions whether that means improved patient care in hospitals, better targeting of ads on our mobile devices or smarter maintenance of machines in our factories.
So, when I visited HPE’s IoT Innovation lab this week, I had the opportunity to see and hear their strategy for IoT. I was impressed by their solutions and their partner ecosystem that includes an impressive set of Analytics companies and Operational Technologies (OT) companies such as SAS, HP, GE and SAP (Lots of acronyms). I still had to ask them the tough questions so I could better understand what set them apart.
After several conversations with some of their leaders across IoT, I could break it down into 3 specific initiative that is helping HPE set themselves apart from others playing in the IoT space.
- Edge Compute: HPE’s Moonshot technology was just the start as it was built to solve several compute problems, especially related to the temperature required for servers to run properly. HPE continued its innovation by taking the Moonshot products and packaging them into their Edgeline, which was specifically designed to for IoT and Edge Computing solutions. This isn’t just “Brand X” server products with a new name or being okayed for use in IoT applications. This was edge compute built from the ground up for IoT.
- Industrialization of Hardware: Perhaps you could have packaged this under item one above, but the physical build of the Edgeline solution needs to be recognized for its contribution to a more industrialized IoT solution. The hardware is built for tough environments like mines, factories and oil refineries. This is truly different than most of what is available in the market today.
- Integrated Lights Out: While many server products have some remote capabilities, HPE’s Integrated Lights Out is far more sophisticated than average remote management tools. Their automation tools, remote management options and reduced time to resolution with ILO allow IoT solutions to perform with more stability and offer greater piece of mind to those responsible for managing the IoT projects.
HPE has shown through their product innovation and their strategic ecosystem approach that they are going to be a serious player in the IoT space. We will be watching closely to see how their unique hardware and strategic partnerships lead to continued innovation in the IoT space.
In this short video I discuss further my day at the HPE IoT Innovation Lab.
Disclosure: Futurum Research, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising, and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the tech and digital industries. The firm does not hold any equity positions with any other companies cited in this column.
Daniel Newman is the Principal Analyst of Futurum Research and the CEO of Broadsuite Media Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise. From Big Data to IoT to Cloud Computing, Newman makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology projects, which leads to his ideas regularly being cited in CIO.Com, CIO Review and hundreds of other sites across the world. A 5x Best Selling Author including his most recent “Building Dragons: Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy,” Daniel is also a Forbes, Entrepreneur and Huffington Post Contributor. MBA and Graduate Adjunct Professor, Daniel Newman is a Chicago Native and his speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.