Buzz Off

Can Simon Ewington survive the Buzz Off buzzword gauntlet? Discover how HPE and Computacenter are reshaping IT, slashing costs, and driving the next wave of AI-powered enterprise transformation



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Buzz Off brings you straight talk on networking & security!
 
Every week there's a new phrase, trend or acronym dominating the networking & security conversations. Too often, the buzzwords get in the way of what you really want to know: What does it actually mean? Why does it matter? And how will it help my organisation?
 
That's where Buzz Off comes in. Hosted by Oli Chapman, Head of Networking & Security at Computacenter, we bring together experts from leading technology and security organisations to explore the biggest topics shaping the industry today.
 
But there's one rule: leave the buzzwords at the door. No jargon. No marketing speak. No hiding behind industry clichés.
 
Instead, expect honest conversations about today's challenges, emerging technologies, evolving threats, and the practical steps organisations can take to stay secure, connected, and successful.

Subscribe to Buzz Off on Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts:

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/buzz-off/id6788003296
 
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/033KO1SinkwxOyldPQ31g8
 
Amazon Music:
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Creators and Guests

Host
Oli Chapman
Head of Networking and Security at Computacenter UK
Guest
Simon Ewington
Worldwide Channel & Partner Ecosystem Lead, HPE

What is Buzz Off?

Straight talk on networking & security!

Every week there's a new phrase, trend or acronym dominating the networking & security conversations. Too often, the buzzwords get in the way of what you really want to know: What does it actually mean? Why does it matter? And how will it help my organisation?

That's where Buzz Off comes in. Hosted by Oli Chapman, Head of Networking & Security at Computacenter, we bring together experts from leading technology and security organisations to explore the biggest topics shaping the industry today.

But there's one rule: leave the buzzwords at the door. No jargon. No marketing speak. No hiding behind industry clichés.

Instead, expect honest conversations about today's challenges, emerging technologies, evolving threats, and the practical steps organisations can take to stay secure, connected, and successful.

Hello and welcome to Buzz Off.

My name is Oliver Chapman.

I am solutions director for networking
and Security in Computacenter UK.

This is a web series designed
for our customers by our customers.

Each week
I bring on a new guest from our partners

and I have three buzz words or phrases

submitted by our customers
that they are not allowed to say.

If they say one of the buzz words
or phrases, you will hear this noise...

If they say all three of the buzz words,

then they will be forcefully ejected
from the studio.

This week's buzzwords are “Edge”, “AI
Ops”, and “Agentic”.

Good luck.

This week's guest is Simon Ewington,
Worldwide channel and partner ecosystem

leader from HPE, and he is joining us live

via video link in Geneva.

Simon Ewington, welcome to Buzz Off.

How are you feeling?

I'm super excited.

Coming to us live via video link.

This is a first for us.

Live from a different country nonetheless.

Exactly where are you, Simon?

I'm in my basement,
as you can see, in Geneva in Switzerland.

Fantastic. Well, look. Welcome.

So you know the concept

and it's a little bit different,
because usually I have three buzz words

or phrases that are selected by customers,
which I still have.

But if you sale three of them, you're

usually forcefully ejected
from the studio,

which is going to be quite hard
to do with you in Geneva.

So instead, what I'm going to do

is I'm going to kick over
all the camera equipment and

and shut down the interview, terminate
it immediately and cut you off.

I'm assuming you're happy with that?

Quite reasonable, I'll eject myself.

Okay.

Well, thank you again for joining me.

So first and foremost,
what keeps you at HPE?

Well, I've been here for a long time.

I'm 33 years across HPI,

so what is now HPI
and sales endpoint and HPE.

I think it's two things really the breadth
of personal opportunity that I've had.

So I've done many, many different roles
across many facets of the business.

And the fact that being in a big company
is, you know, working for Computacenter,

keeps the level of interest.

And secondly,

it's been like you're making a difference
from a technology perspective.

We're an innovator at heart.

We always have been.

I've always wanted to work
for an innovator who makes a difference,

who drives the industry forward,
and I have the opportunity

to not only develop my own career,
but also to help partners and customers.

And so, I mean, you talk about innovation
specifically what's changed

relatively recently at HPE that you think
customers should really care about?

Well, I mean, you had the opportunity
to be at our marquee event

that we run annually in Las Vegas.

HPE Discover.

We made a lot of exciting announcements.

In fact, in the session
I run the Partner Growth Summit.

There were almost too many announcements,
and I was asked

for an artificial intelligence summary
to make it easier for partners.

But essentially,
I probably call out two things.

The first is around
what we terms the great VM reset.

Virtualisation is a topic

that every CIO is willing to entertain,
just because

the licensing costs have become sort
of a major, major headaches.

And that's why we brought HPE
VM essentials to market.

And because of the way we price, we price

per socket versus
traditionally vendors in virtualisation

price per core,
customers have got savings of up to 80%.

And that's important
because when you think about

what's happening in the industry,
with the massive increase in commodity

due to supply shortages,
we can essentially free up IT

budget from virtualisation
to go and spend on other projects.

And then the second area
I guess is around Juniper.

I mean, the Juniper acquisition
I think is a stroke of genius

on behalf of Antonio and the ability
now to expand

and really deliver self-driving AI

native networking capabilities.

I think it's something that's caught
the imagination of customers and partners.

Yeah, definitely.

And it's really it was really exciting
to kind of see the storytelling come

to life around how you're starting
to bring the two portfolios together. So.

So look, you're joining us
at Computacenter for this conversation,

specifically from your perspective
and from an HPE perspective as well.

Why Computacenter?

What in your view
makes the partnership work?

I've personally known Computacenter

for most of my working life

and what I've always enjoyed
with Computacenter

is it's a truly collaborative
relationship, and collaboration for me

means shared history means

trust, respect,
but ultimately like a mutual desire

to drive real business
outcomes for our mutual customers.

And I think what Computacenter provides

working with HPE is scale
that matches our own scale.

You're serving already many of the,
you know, of our largest global customers.

And Computacenter’s
always had deep expertise,

whether that's segment
expertise, deep services capabilities.

But what we really share
is this unmatched commitment to delivering

complex projects and solutions
that deliver real outcomes.

And then on a personal level,
I think we've always had very strong

executive alignment, both centrally,
but also in all the countries

like the UK&I, you hold highest tier

in these countries and you're part
of our international partner program.

So I think, you know, what we've seen,
particularly in the last 3 or 4 years,

because I think we've had a resurgence,
is that we're a winning combination.

Yeah, a powerhouse couple, you might say.

So look, a couple of questions down.

Doing well, feeling strong.
It's all good.

So you talked about CIOs earlier
with regards to

I think virtualisation specifically.

What do you think

is a is a question that every CIO
should be asking their teams right now?

Well,
I think every CIO should be really asking

how do we build a strong enough

IT foundation that they can turn
artificial intelligence

from what is essentially still large
scale experimentation

into real business impact,
but do that securely,

do it at scale,
and without adding more complexity.

And the reality is, for many

IT teams, what this means
is that they need to really look beyond

these isolated pilots
that all our customers are driving

at the moment and asking whether or not
you've got the right foundations.

And when we're talking about foundations,

it's things like,
do we have the right data?

Is it structured in the right way?

Do we have the right networking
capabilities?

We have the right compute capabilities?

Is our security up to scratch?

Do we have the right governance in place
to turn

AI into production reality?

That's essentially what the question
I think that CIOs should be asking

themselves
is, do I have the foundations to be able

to be successful
in artificial intelligence?

Okay, fantastic.

Now you talk like - our customers
love outcomes.

And and they love it
when we support them to make a difference.

I mean, you mentioned earlier
about some cost savings.

I think you're like 80% was a
was a figure that you gave earlier.

When you think about some of the
impressive outcomes that you've seen us

deliver collectively as a partnership
- Computacenter, HPE -

what are some of the use cases
that spring to mind for you?

I've got a really good one
that we worked on together,

which is pretty recent, and it's for what
I would term as a household

national name in hospitality

and Computacenter
with HPE has really driven,

I think, pretty impressive

outcomes around the implementation
of self-driving networks.

Now, this is something that I think
we at HPE, especially with

the addition of Juniper can do,
like nobody else in the industry.

And actually with this customer
in particular, they're now benefiting

from AI automation within their own
network operation organisation.

It means that they're predicting issues
before they happen.

When they do happen,
they can automate fixes and they can

simplify management.

Essentially,
it's like having junior network

operators working 24 by seven,
delivering exceptional,

very high quality experiences
for every user.

And in the hospitality industry,
having a good networking experience

is foundational
to every guest experience that they have.

And interesting

I think, thinking about that example
specifically without naming any names,

that customer is actually using
their user experience

and their guest network
as a differentiator now in their in their

go to market, to their,
to their customers, which is once again

like it, it's a slightly different outcome
to probably

some of the more traditional ones
that you might think about from where

it's actually supporting revenue
generating services.

Revenue
generating services and reducing costs

by being able to reduce their essentially
the network operating costs.

So you mentioned Discover,

what is the long term vision right now
that you're hearing from

from the exec team that HPE are looking
to deliver for customers?

I mean, in the simplest terms,

I think our long term vision is to enable

customers
to become agenetic enterprises themselves,

and that means that they need to be able

to run increasingly autonomous

AI in a way that's trusted,
in a way that's efficient,

is economically sustainable for them,
so they can innovate faster,

they can automate, and they can make
better decisions at scale.

And the way we achieve
that is working with partners

like Computacenter
and providing your full stack foundation.

I mentioned earlier on
so that they can operationalise

AI, and nobody has a

the same
breadth of portfolio in the industry

as we enjoy together
across networking, cloud and AI.

So it's really enabling
the agentic enterprise of the future.

Oh, we've got a buzzword.

We've got a buzzword.
I did quite well so far.

I mean, look you've been playing
a very dangerous game, I must say.

I mean you've been dropping them left,

right and centre,
but I think we finally stumbled upon one.

So we'll continue the interview.

But that's your first warning.

Okay. So consider yourself warned.

And and yeah, we're going to need to tread
a little bit more carefully,

although there's only
a couple more questions to go.

So I'm thinking
that you're going to do well.

So you mentioned

about your tenure in HPE specifically.

And I think in in IT in general,
we're all a little bit nerdy.

So, what excites
you personally about the portfolio?

I mean, you mentioned you love
being part of an innovative organisation

when you're looking at the change
that's going on right now.

Yeah. What gets you excited?

I think it's the ability,
and it's always been the ability

to deliver outcomes for customers,
to be able to see your solutions

really having an impact on their business.

And it's not about adding
sort of new products, it's

about bringing everything together.

And I think that's something that the
IT industry is doing much better.

And I'm talking about the
IT industry as a whole and specifically in

HPE, we've had a vision around
delivering solutions across AI,

networking and hybrid cloud
to allow customers

to move from experimentation to production
much, much faster with their customers.

And I think the fact that we're now
delivering on that vision

and helping customers to to save money,
essentially to be more efficient,

to deliver better experiences
and to keep pushing

ourselves forward as an industry
is probably what it sites me the most.

And what's probably kept you,

you're working in the industry
for as long as you have as well.

Yeah.

And so
finally, you played a fantastic game.

What do you think
customers should be looking for next?

What should be on their on their radar

and any,
any teasers from from an HPE perspective?

Well, I mean, this is probably
a little bit further out,

but I think.

The whole area
around next wave of innovation

and how we can combine supercomputing
with quantum capabilities.

I think it's something that's super
interesting and it's tantalisingly

close on the horizon to move

from what's essentially very expensive

experimentation today

to real world application and tomorrow.

And the reason why
I think this is exciting for me

personally, for your customers
and also for the industry,

is because it's got the potential
that we've never seen before to unlock,

like a just a completely new area
of performance, a new era of innovation,

and to radically speed up problem

solving
that right now is either impractical

or quite often it's
just simply impossible.

And I think that's probably
the next frontier.

You saw some of that at HPE Discover,

and there have been some announcements
in the industry in the last few weeks

and start to feel that what was once
science, science fiction is turning into

technical reality at some point in the
not too distant future.

Amazing. Well, Simon, you made it.

You did a great job.

One buzzword
I mean, that is an incredible effort.

Despite, as I say, I feel like you played

an extremely aggressive game,
which I love.

But look,
thank you so much for joining me.

It's been a fantastic conversation.

Have you you enjoyed it? Enjoyed yourself?

I've enjoyed it immensely.

Oli, thank you for hosting me
and thank you

for the relationship with Computacenter.

We always enjoy working with you guys.

Thanks. Lovely stuff.

Congratulations. He made it.

I mean, one buzzword.

It did get extremely exciting,
but what a fantastic guest.

Really interesting to hear
about the storytelling of HPE and Juniper,

that combined powerhouse now coming
together to drive self automated networks.

What a fantastic guest.

Thank you. Simon, for joining us.

And the technology held up as well.

I didn't have to kick over
any camera equipment.

Thank you for joining us.

We'll be back next time with another guest
and three more buzzwords.

See you later.