HPE acquires leading Microsoft Azure partner to bolster cloud play

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has unveiled plans to acquire RedPixie, a cloud consultancy and application developer specialising in Microsoft Azure.

Terms of the deal - of which financial details were not disclosed - will see the tech giant merge the partner into its Pointnext division, in a bid to expand capabilities across hybrid cloud.

Headquartered in the UK, RedPixie specialises in cloud advisory services, as well as application development and migration offerings specific to moving workloads to the public cloud.

“At HPE, we continue to strategically build a portfolio that helps our customers take advantage of digital transformation and the resulting explosion of apps and data,” HPE senior vice president of Pointnext, Ana Pinczuk, said.

“We are focused on helping our customers accelerate business outcomes by extracting critical insights from their data, wherever it lives, from edge to core to cloud.”

Within the wider HPE portfolio, Pointnext provides advisory, integration, migration and operational consulting services, designed to help customers deploy and manage workloads across entire IT systems.

“At HPE Pointnext, we always begin by understanding our customers’ digital transformation ambitions and organising ourselves around their desired outcomes,” Pinczuk explained.

“With this acquisition, we will continue to expand our comprehensive hybrid IT portfolio and will be even better positioned to help our customers build new digital experiences and drive better business outcomes now and into the future.”

Founded in 2010, RedPixie’s team consists of business consultants, cloud architects and data scientists, with key customers spanning financial services, insurance and healthcare companies, including KPMG, Hiscox, and Care UK.

“RedPixie has helped their customers migrate legacy systems to the cloud, speed up the adoption of data analytics, and drive cost-cutting, while accelerating time to market and increasing agility,” Pinczuk added.

“Today, RedPixie has significant customer traction, with particular strength among leading financial services, insurance and healthcare companies, including KPMG, Hiscox, and Care UK.

According to Pinczuk, the acquisition was motivated by a significant market shift towards hybrid cloud, with spending on consulting and development growing over 18 per cent year-on-year.

“The reality today is that enterprises face a hybrid IT world,” Pinczuk said. “Some workloads are best suited to the public cloud, some should live in a private cloud environment and others need to stay in traditional on-premises infrastructure.

“Finding the right mix will enable businesses to analyse data quickly, efficiently manage workloads and ultimately accelerate business outcomes by driving new business models, creating new customer and employee experiences, and improving operational performance.”

Furthermore, the move follows the acquisition of Cloud Technology Partners (CTP) in September 2017, a consultancy firm specialising in migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

As reported by ARN, CTP provides expertise across consulting, design and operational advisory services, with the purchase designed to provide HPE with added firepower specific to hybrid IT advisory capabilities.

Operating as a cloud agnostic provider, US-based CTP targets enterprises moving to cloud platforms through AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google and OpenStack.