The cuts comes as CEO Meg Whitman looks to reposition the legacy tech company as a nimble, cloud-focused business.
SAN FRANCISCO — Job cuts are coming to Hewlett Packard Enterprise despite recent Street-beating third-quarter results that saw the company’s stock jump 5%.
HPE will look to begin cutting 10% of its global workforce of 50,000 by the end of the year, according to a Bloomberg report citing unnamed sources.
HPE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. HPE’s stock closed up 1.1% Thursday and rose another 0.6% in after hours trading. HPE stock has inched up 3% this year, lagging the Nasdaq 100’s 21% gain.
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The cost-saving measure is part of an ongoing strategy by CEO Meg Whitman to shed underperforming divisions and focus on the demands for services anchored to cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Four years after taking over Hewlett Packard in 2011, Whitman split the company into two $50 billion divisions, one focused on printers and PCs (HP) and the other targeting servers and storage (HPE). The former eBay CEO’s turnaround work at HPE has included spinning off its enterprise services business and merging its enterprise software business.
Like a few other legacy tech companies, HPE is playing catch up in the enterprise cloud game to industry leaders Amazon Web Services and Google.
Whitman’s commitment to leading HPE was in question recently when her name was associated with Uber’s search for a new CEO. Whitman publicly shot down the rumors with a LinkedIn post in July. Uber went on to select Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as its new chief executive.
“(Uber) was not the right fit, and had nothing to do with (my situation at) HPE,” Whitman told USA TODAY earlier this month while discussing HPE’s third-quarter results. “We have a very special opportunity here. I’ve devoted six years of my life here, and we have plenty of work to do.”
Follow USA TODAY reporter Marco della Cava on Twitter @MarcoDellaCava
