Item 1. Business

We are a global technology leader focused on developing intelligent solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze and act upon data seamlessly from edge to cloud. We enable customers to accelerate business outcomes by driving new business models, creating new customer and employee experiences, and increasing operational efficiency today and into the future. Our customers range from small-and-medium-sized businesses ("SMBs") to large global enterprises and governmental entities. Our legacy dates back to a partnership founded in 1939 by William R. Hewlett and David Packard, and we strive every day to uphold and enhance that legacy through our dedication to providing innovative technological solutions to our customers.

On November 1, 2015, HP Inc. ("former Parent"), formerly known as Hewlett-Packard Company ("HP Co.") spun-off Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company ("we", "us", "our", "Hewlett Packard Enterprise", "HPE", or "the Company") pursuant to a separation agreement (the "Separation and Distribution Agreement") (collectively the "Separation"). Since the Separation, we have operated as an independent, publicly-traded company.

On April 1, 2017, we completed the separation and merger of our Enterprise Services business with DXC Technology Company ("DXC", "the Everett Transaction" or "Everett").

On September 1, 2017, we completed the separation and merger of our Software business segment with Micro Focus International plc ("Micro Focus", "the Seattle Transaction" or "Seattle").

Transformation Programs

Cost Optimization and Prioritization Plan

During the third quarter of fiscal 2020, we launched a cost optimization and prioritization plan which focuses on realigning our workforce to areas of growth, including a new hybrid workforce model called Edge-to-Office, real estate strategies and simplifying and evolving our product portfolio strategy. The implementation period for the cost optimization and prioritization plan is through fiscal 2023. During this implementation period, we expect to incur transformation costs predominantly related to labor restructuring, non-labor restructuring, IT investments and design and execution charges.

HPE Next

During the third quarter of fiscal 2017, we launched an initiative called HPE Next to put in place a purpose-built company designed to compete and win in the markets where we participate. Through this program, we are simplifying our operating model, streamlining our offerings, business processes and business systems to improve our execution. The implementation period for HPE Next has been extended to fiscal 2023. During the remaining implementation period we expect to incur transformation costs predominantly related to IT infrastructure costs for streamlining, upgrading and simplifying back-end operations, and real estate initiatives. These costs are expected to be partially offset by gains from real estate sales.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on HPE's Business

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 resulted in a global slowdown of economic activity including worldwide travel restrictions, prohibitions of non-essential work activities, disruption and shutdown of businesses and greater uncertainty in global financial markets, all of which resulted in COVID-19 having an impact on our financial performance in fiscal 2020. As this pandemic endures and continues to have an impact on global economic activity, the extent to which COVID-19 adversely impacts our future business operations, financial performance and results of operations is uncertain and will depend on many factors outside the Company's control. For a further discussion of the risks, uncertainties and actions taken in response to COVID-19, refer to Item 1A "Risk Factors" and Item 7 "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations".

Our Strategy

The pace of technology disruption continues to accelerate. The global pandemic has served as a catalyst making digital transformation a strategic imperative for enterprises. Enterprises now require more resilient IT to ensure continuity in their operations. They also need to deliver secure connectivity, remote work solutions, data analytics capabilities and mobile-first, cloud-like experiences to their employees and customers, while preserving liquidity to navigate the macro economic uncertainty and to adapt to the new world.

We are answering the call for transformation with our edge-to-cloud strategy and solutions that are aligned to the evolving needs of our customers. We help enterprises transform and digitize their businesses so that they may accelerate their business outcomes by delivering new digital experiences and unlocking insights from their data. We saw that the foundation of

every business would be edge-to-cloud and in response HPE brings industry-leading IT infrastructure, software, services, financing resources and as-a-service capabilities to meet this demand.

Human Capital Resources

At HPE we are united by our purpose, which is to advance the way people live and work. We believe technology’s greatest promise lies in its potential for positive change. This is the guidepost for each decision we make at HPE. We believe it not only helps guide our contribution to society, but also makes good business sense. Our company has always been an engine of innovation, and our approximately 59,400 employees as of October 31, 2020, are proud of the ways our technology enables our customers to achieve meaningful outcomes like curing disease, modernizing farming to cure world-hunger and democratizing transportation through autonomous vehicles.

Our Culture**:** We recognize the critical importance of talent and culture to the success of HPE and our ability to fulfill our purpose. We are passionate about the values that have underpinned the success of the company over years. This is why we believe in investing in our employees and communities where we live and work. HPE has intensified its focus on creating a superior team member experience and a highly engaged workforce, driving improvements across our communications, our culture, our reward programs, and our work environment and fostering a collaborative, inclusive and inspiring experience for all our team members. Our most recent global engagement survey shows how these intentional efforts are making a difference, with our overall Employee Engagement Index measuring 83%. More than 80% of team members would recommend HPE as a great place to work, and 87% say they are proud to work for HPE.

Building a Vibrant Culture: We have identified four key cultural beliefs that guide how we lead on a daily basis: belief in accelerating what’s next, in bold moves, in the “power of yes”, and in being a force for good. We embed these beliefs in an unshakable DNA that puts customers first, ensuring we partner, innovate and act with uncompromising integrity. Our empowered and engaging culture is making HPE a destination for the best talent while driving innovation and excellence for our customers.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: We are committed to being unconditionally inclusive to capture the ideas and perspectives that fuel innovation and enable our workforce, customers, and communities to succeed in the digital age. This is because, by harnessing the potential of our technologies and our team members, we can be a force for good. Annual goals are set to increase the representation of both women and ethnically diverse talent by at least 1 percentage point year-over-year. In 2020, HPE increased our female workforce at every level worldwide, including technical and executive roles. We also increased our representation of all underrepresented minorities in the U.S. The leadership standards sponsored, clearly articulate that all people leaders are expected to continuously develop their inclusive leadership capabilities. Our Board, CEO and Executive Committee role model high standards for diversity, equity and inclusion and are leading sustainable change, with strong governance and oversight via our Inclusion and Diversity Council.

Talent: We invest in attracting, developing and retaining the best talent. We do this by communicating a clear purpose and strategy, transparent goal setting, driving accountability, continuously assessing, developing, advancing talent, and a leadership-driven talent strategy. The dynamism of our industry and our company enables team members to grow in their current roles and build new skills. Over the past year, our approximately 59,400 team members completed over 330,000 online and instructor-led courses across a broad range of categories – leadership, inclusion and diversity, professional skills, technical and compliance. HPE is deeply committed to identifying and developing the next generation of top tier leadership with a special focus on diverse and technical talent. We conduct an in-depth annual talent and succession review with our CEO and Executive Committee members. The process focuses on accelerating talent development, strengthening succession pipelines, and advancing diversity representation for our most critical roles.

Work That Fits Your Life: This global initiative, which was launched in 2019, is an important example of how HPE is investing in our culture and creating a team member experience that makes HPE a destination of choice for the best talent in the industry. It includes an industry-leading paid parental leave program (minimum 6 months), part-time work opportunities for new parents or team members transitioning to retirement, and "Wellness Fridays" encouraging team members to leave work early one Friday per month to focus on their well-being. HPE's broader wellness program offers flexibility built around team member needs while continuing to deliver on critical business results. Key features include mental health support including employee assistance programs and free headspace accounts, physical fitness activities, and financial wellness programs.

Total Rewards: HPE requires a uniquely talented workforce and is committed to providing total rewards that are market-competitive and performance based, driving innovation and operational excellence. Our compensation programs, practices, and policies reflect our commitment to reward short- and long-term performance that aligns with, and drives, stockholder value. Total direct compensation is generally positioned within a competitive range of the market median, with differentiation based on tenure, skills, proficiency, and performance to attract and retain key talent.

HPE’s strong and healthy culture is critical to accelerating what’s next for our customers and partners – and the success of our company. Our team is energized and more engaged than ever and will enable our ability to pivot and grow, which will, in turn, power the next chapter at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Our Business Segments, Products and Services

Our operations are organized into seven business segments: Compute, High Performance Compute and Mission Critical Systems ("HPC & MCS"), Storage, Advisory and Professional Services ("A & PS"), Intelligent Edge, Financial Services ("FS"), and Corporate Investments. The class of similar product categories within each segment which accounted for more than 10% of our consolidated net revenue in each of the past three years were as follows:

• Fiscal 2020 - Compute products, Storage products, Compute Services

• Fiscal 2019 - Compute products, Storage products

• Fiscal 2018 - Compute products, Storage products

A summary of our net revenue, earnings from operations and assets for our segments can be found in Note 3, "Segment Information", to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of Part II. A discussion of certain factors potentially affecting our operations is set forth in Item 1A, "Risk Factors."

Compute

Our Compute portfolio offers both general purpose servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers which offer the best performance and value for demanding applications. This portfolio of products includes our secure and versatile HPE ProLiant rack and tower servers; HPE BladeSystem, a modular infrastructure that converges server, storage and networking; and HPE Synergy, a composable infrastructure for traditional and cloud-native applications. HPE ProLiant servers are the compute foundation for the fastest growing workloads in the industry including hyperconverged infrastructure ("HCI"), virtual workspaces, and artificial intelligence ("AI"). Compute offerings also include operational and support services. The Compute support team is also a provider of on-premises flexible consumption models, such as HPE GreenLake.

HPC & MCS

Our HPC & MCS portfolio offers specialized compute servers designed to support specific use cases. The HPC portfolio includes the HPE Apollo and Cray products that are sold as supercomputing systems, including exascale supercomputers (systems which have exaflops performance or a billion billion calculations per second), to support data-intensive workloads for high performance computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence applications. The MCS portfolio includes the HPE Superdome Flex, HPE Nonstop and HPE Integrity product lines for critical applications such as payments and transaction processing that require high availability, fault-tolerant computing infrastructure. The HPC & MCS segment also includes the Edge Compute business which consists of the HPE Moonshot and HPE Edgeline products for computing at the network edge. HPC & MCS offerings also include operational and support services. HPC & MCS products can also be purchased through on-premises flexible consumption models, such as HPE GreenLake. With offerings that are artificial intelligence-driven and built for hybrid cloud environments with as-a-service consumption and flexible investment options, we provide the right workload optimized destinations for data.

A portion of HPC and MCS revenue is generated by sales to government entities, which are subject to the terms and rights for the convenience of the government entity. These terms and rights include in some instances a dependence on the appropriation of future funding and also termination rights contingent upon not achieving certain milestones. For a discussion of certain risks related to contracts with government entities, see "Risk Factors—Failure to comply with government contracting regulations could adversely affect our business and results of operations."

Storage

We provide workload-optimized products and service offerings that are AI-driven and built for cloud environments with flexible consumption models from HPE GreenLake and flexible investment options. Powered by HPE InfoSight-advanced artificial intelligence operations, HPE solutions deliver an intelligent data platform that enables customers to unleash the power of their data. Key offerings include an intelligent HCI portfolio with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, a disaggregated HCI solution for the enterprise data center and HPE SimpliVity, a hyperconverged platform for general purpose and edge workloads. The portfolio also includes HPE Primera, HPE Nimble Storage and HPE 3PAR primary storage solutions, comprehensive data protection solutions with HPE Cloud Volumes Backup and HPE StoreOnce, and big data solutions running on HPE Apollo servers. Storage also provides solutions for secondary workloads and traditional tape, storage networking and disk products, such as HPE Modular Storage Arrays ("MSA") and HPE XP. Storage offerings also include operational and support services.

A & PS

Our A & PS business provides consultative-led services, HPE and partner technology expertise and advice, implementation services and complex solution engagement capabilities. Our advisors and experts engage early with customers to lead them through their digital transformations and to improve their business outcomes. A & PS is also a provider of on-premises flexible consumption models that enable IT agility, simplify operations, and align cost to value. A & PS is of strategic importance to HPE as it drives large value sales of HPE infrastructure products and services such as HPE GreenLake, HPE Ezmeral, HPC & MCS and other Compute & Storage infrastructure products.

Intelligent Edge

The Intelligent Edge business is comprised of a portfolio of secure edge-to-cloud solutions operating under the Aruba brand that include wireless local area network ("LAN"), campus and data center switching, software-defined wide-area-networking, which now includes Silver Peak, security, and associated services to enable secure connectivity for businesses of any size. The primary business drivers for Intelligent Edge solutions are mobility and IoT.

The HPE Aruba Product portfolio includes wired and wireless LAN hardware products such as Wi-Fi access points, switches, routers and sensors. The HPE Aruba software and services portfolio of products includes cloud-based management, network management, which now includes Silver Peak, network access control, analytics and assurance, location services software and professional and support services, as well as as-a-Service and consumption models for the Intelligent Edge portfolio of products.

Financial Services

Financial Services provides flexible investment solutions, such as leasing, financing, IT consumption, and utility programs and asset management services, for customers that facilitate unique technology deployment models and the acquisition of complete IT solutions, including hardware, software and services from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others. FS also supports financial solutions for on-premise flexible consumption models, such as HPE Greenlake. In order to provide flexible services and capabilities that support the entire IT life cycle, FS partners with customers globally to help build investment strategies that enhance their business agility and support their business transformation. FS offers a wide selection of investment solution capabilities for large enterprise customers and channel partners, along with an array of financial options to SMBs and educational and governmental entities.

Corporate Investments

Corporate Investments includes Hewlett Packard Labs which is responsible for research and development, the Communications and Media Solutions ("CMS") business and certain business incubation projects.

Forthcoming Segment Realignments

In order to align our segment financial reporting structure more closely with our current business structure, effective November 1, 2020, we will report the following changes to our reportable segments: the lifecycle event services business which was previously reported within the A & PS segment will be reported within each of the related hardware segments; certain software related business offerings previously reported within Compute, Storage and A & PS will be combined and reported within the Corporate Investments segment; and the remainder of A & PS, which was previously reported as a reportable segment, will be reported within the Corporate Investments segment. Additionally, the stock-based compensation expense which was previously reported within segment operating results will be now be reported as a corporate cost.

Our Strengths

We believe that we possess a number of competitive advantages that distinguish us from our competitors, including:

• Digital transformation is at the forefront of our business priorities. We have a distinctive and industry leading portfolio of edge-to-cloud solutions and unique capabilities to help accelerate our customers' digital transformation. We combine our software-defined infrastructure and services capabilities to provide what we believe is the strongest portfolio of enterprise solutions in the IT industry. Our ability to deliver a comprehensive IT strategy and connect our customers' data from edge to cloud, through our high-quality products and high-value consulting and support services in a single package, is one of our principal differentiators.

• Differentiated consumption-based IT solutions for a growing opportunity. Enterprises of all sizes are looking to digitally transform in order to develop next-generation cloud-native applications, create actionable insights from their data, and drive business growth, but they face many challenges including lack of in-house IT skills, limited budgets and options for financing, and lack of flexibility to choose the technology foundation that best meets their needs.

Consumption-based IT offers solutions to these challenges by providing greater agility, empowering people to shift from managing infrastructure to driving innovation by leveraging insights from their data, while eliminating capital and operating expenses tied to infrastructure over-provisioning. HPE is distinctly differentiated in delivering a true consumption-based IT experience. We saw the opportunity early, and that has allowed us to build capabilities and partnerships that are unique in the industry including the ability to deliver our as-a-Service portfolio with over 700 channel partners that can sell the as-a-Service portfolio.

• Multi-year innovation roadmap and strong balance sheet. We have been in the technology and innovation business for over 75 years. Our vast intellectual property portfolio and global research and development capabilities are part of a broader innovation roadmap designed to help organizations take advantage of the expanding amount of data available and leverage the latest technology developments like cloud, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity to drive business outcomes now and in the future. We also have a strong balance sheet and liquidity profile that provides the financial flexibility and speed to take advantage of acquisition opportunities.

• Global distribution and partner ecosystem. We are experts in delivering innovative technological solutions to our customers in complex multi-country, multi-vendor and/or multi-language environments. We have one of the largest go-to-market capabilities in our industry, including a large ecosystem of channel partners, which enables us to market and deliver our product offerings to customers located virtually anywhere in the world.

• Custom financial solutions. Through Financial Services we can help customers create investment capacity to accelerate their transformations by helping them free up capital, capture value from older assets, achieve sustainability goals, invest in new technologies as a service, and weather financial volatility. Financial Services is also an enabler of our consumption-based IT models by helping spread our upfront solution costs over the duration of the customer contract. Through Financial Services' Global Asset Recovery Centers, we are helping customers achieve their own sustainability goals by processing more than 4 million assets every year.

• Experienced leadership team and business group leaders aligned to market trends and financial segmentation. Our management team has an extensive track record of performance and execution. We are led by our President and Chief Executive Officer, Antonio Neri, who has proven experience in developing transformative business models, building global brands and driving sustained growth and expansion in the technology industry. Mr. Neri's experience includes over 20 years combined at HPE and HP Co. in various leadership positions. This year we simplified our operating model and have aligned it to the financial segmentation providing more visibility and accountability in our business segments. Our senior management team has many years of experience in our industry and possesses extensive knowledge of and experience in the enterprise IT business and the markets in which we compete. Moreover, we have a deep bench of management and technology talent that we believe provides us with an unparalleled pipeline of future leaders and innovators.

• Open platforms. The world is shifting from centralized and closed approaches in large data centers to a future of centers of data everywhere which are highly decentralized and distributed. This shift demands a common cloud platform that can put the agility and intelligence close to the customers data sources to create real-time insights, everywhere. Many of our competitors want to lock customers into one flavor of cloud and cloud stack. Conversely, we believe that the cloud experience should be open and seamless across all our customers' clouds — and the best cloud transformation partner is one who is unbiased, offers choice, and is neutral without an agenda. We are unique in our ability to enable any hybrid cloud strategy and a consistent experience that is open to any cloud and differentiated with our partner integrations.

Sales, Marketing and Distribution

We manage our business and report our financial results based on the segments described above. Our customers are organized by commercial and large enterprise groups, including business and public sector enterprises, and purchases of our products, solutions and services may be fulfilled directly by us or indirectly through a variety of partners, including:

• resellers that sell our products and services, frequently with their own value-added products or services, to targeted customer groups;

• distribution partners that supply our solutions to resellers;

• original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs") that integrate our products and services with their own products and services, and sell the integrated solution;

• independent software vendors that provide their clients with specialized software products and often assist us in selling our products and services to clients purchasing their products;

• systems integrators that provide expertise in designing and implementing custom IT solutions and often partner with us to extend their expertise or influence the sale of our products and services; and

• advisory firms that provide various levels of management and IT consulting, including some systems integration work, and typically partner with us on client solutions that require our unique products and services.

The mix of our business conducted by direct sales or channel differs substantially by business and region. We believe that customer buying patterns and different regional market conditions require us to tailor our sales, marketing and distribution efforts accordingly. We are focused on driving the depth and breadth of our coverage, in addition to identifying efficiencies and productivity gains, in both our direct and indirect businesses. For example, through our HPE Next Initiative, we reduced the number of countries in which we have a direct sales presence, while simultaneously migrating to a channel-only model in the remaining countries. In those countries where we have a direct sales presence, we typically assign an account manager to manage relationships across our business with large enterprise customers as well as with large public sector accounts. The account manager is supported by a team of specialists with product and services expertise. For other customers, our businesses collaborate to manage relationships with commercial resellers targeting smaller accounts, both in the commercial and public sector space.

Manufacturing and Materials

We utilize a significant number of outsourced and contract manufacturers around the world to manufacture products that we design. The use of outsourced and contract manufacturers is intended to generate cost efficiencies and reduce time to market for our products as well as create manufacturing flexibility in our supply chain and processes. In some circumstances, third-party OEMs produce products that we purchase and resell under our brand. In addition to our use of outsourced and contract manufacturers, we currently manufacture a limited number of finished products from components and subassemblies that we acquire from a wide range of vendors.

Historically, we have utilized two primary methods of fulfilling demand for products: building products to order and configuring products to order. We build products to order to maximize manufacturing and logistics efficiencies by producing high volumes of basic product configurations. Alternatively, configuring products to order enables units to match a customer's particular hardware and software customization requirements. Our inventory management and distribution practices in both building products to order and configuring products to order seek to minimize inventory holding periods by taking delivery of the inventory and manufacturing shortly before the sale or distribution of products to our customers.

We purchase materials, supplies and product subassemblies from a substantial number of vendors. For most of our products, we have existing alternate sources of supply or such alternate sources of supply are readily available. However, we do rely on single-source suppliers for certain customized parts (although some of these sources have operations in multiple locations in the event of a disruption) and a disruption or loss of a single-source supplier could delay production of some products. In some instances, our single-source suppliers (e.g. Intel and AMD as suppliers of certain x86 processors) are also the single-source suppliers for the entire market; disruptions with these suppliers would result in industry-wide dislocations and therefore would not disproportionately disadvantage us relative to our competitors.

Like other participants in the IT industry, we ordinarily acquire materials and components through a combination of blanket and scheduled purchase orders to support our demand requirements for periods averaging 90 to 120 days. From time to time, we may experience significant price volatility or supply constraints for certain components that are not available from multiple sources due to certain events taking place where our suppliers are geographically concentrated. When necessary, we are often able to obtain scarce components for somewhat higher prices on the open market, which may have an impact on our gross margin, but does not generally disrupt production. We may also acquire component inventory in anticipation of supply constraints, or enter into longer-term pricing commitments with vendors to improve the priority, price and availability of supply. See "Risk Factors—We depend on third-party suppliers, and our financial results could suffer if we fail to manage our suppliers relationships properly" in Item 1A.

International

Our products and services are available worldwide. We believe geographic diversity allows us to meet demand on a worldwide basis for our customers, draws on business and technical expertise from a worldwide workforce, provides stability to our operations, provides revenue streams that may offset geographic economic trends, and offers us an opportunity to access new markets for maturing products.

A summary of our domestic and international results is set forth in Note 3, "Segment Information", to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of Part II. Approximately 66% of our overall net revenue in fiscal 2020 came from outside the United States.

For a discussion of certain risks attendant to our international operations, see "Risk Factors—Due to the international nature of our business, political or economic changes or other factors could harm our future revenue, costs and expenses, and financial condition," and "—We are exposed to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates" in Item 1A, "Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosure about Market Risk" in Item 7A of Part II and Note 14, "Financial Instruments", to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of Part II, which are incorporated herein by reference.

Research and Development

Innovation is a key element of our culture and critical to our success. Our research and development efforts ("R&D") are focused on designing and developing products, services and solutions that anticipate customers' changing needs and desires and emerging technological trends. Our efforts also are focused on identifying the areas where we believe we can make a unique contribution and where partnering with other leading technology companies will leverage our cost structure and maximize our customers' experiences.

Expenditures for R&D were $1.9 billion in fiscal 2020, $1.8 billion in fiscal 2019 and $1.7 billion in fiscal 2018. We anticipate that we will continue to have significant R&D expenditures in the future to support the design and development of innovative, high-quality products, services and solutions to maintain and enhance our competitive position.

Included in the R&D work currently taking place at the Company are the following initiatives:

In Compute, we are developing high quality next-generation compute solutions (servers, server attached options, and software) that integrate the latest industry technology, which coupled with innovations from HPE are aligned to the requirements of our customers.

In HPC & MCS, we are investing in high-performance compute, storage and networking systems for the most demanding workloads from the edge-to-core. Investment in technologies in high-performance networking, memory-driven compute, and high-performance storage and data management underpin our differentiated offerings. We also invest significantly in software, including cloud native developer and highly scalable cluster operating environments, application and performance capabilities, and high-availability solutions. HPC & MCS also hosts an applied research group where we invest in long term, disruptive R&D such as silicon photonics creating a pipeline of technologies for future offerings.

In the Storage data management sphere, we are investing in new technologies to address the demand in mature and emerging markets. Our comprehensive on-premises scalable infrastructure that includes an industry-first 100% guarantee offering, is being creatively augmented by an all-inclusive as-a-service HPE Greenlake offering. The Company continues to empower the edge-to-core data pipeline with embedded AI built-to-scale and to provide deep learning analytics across its entirety.

In Intelligent Edge, we are shifting significant investment towards a "cloud first" innovation model for the comprehensive management of wireless, switching and software defined branch ("SD-Branch") with the cloud native Edge Services Platform ("ESP"). Another key investment priority is artificial intelligence based network operations for the end-to-end optimization of network performance and user experience, combined with securing the network edge infrastructure by segmenting the internet-of-things ("IoT") user traffic with dynamic context based policies.

In Hewlett Packard Labs, we are focused on disruptive innovation and applied research in collaboration with other HPE business groups to deliver differentiated intellectual property ("IP"). Our innovation agenda is focused on developing technologies in the areas of system architecture, networking, AI, accelerators and silicon photonics. We also continue to invest in our silicon design capability to accelerate the development and delivery of our technology with custom integrated circuits.

For a discussion of risks attendant to our R&D activities, see "Risk Factors—If we cannot successfully execute our go-to-market strategy and continue to develop, manufacture and market innovative products, services and solutions, our business and financial performance may suffer" in Item 1A.

Patents

Our general policy is to seek patent protection for those inventions likely to be incorporated into our products and services or where obtaining such proprietary rights will improve our competitive position. As of October 31, 2020, our worldwide patent portfolio included approximately 15,000 issued and pending patents.

Patents generally have a term of up to 20 years from the date they are filed. As our patent portfolio has been built over time, the remaining terms of the individual patents across our patent portfolio vary. We believe that our patents and patent applications are important for maintaining the competitive differentiation of our products and services, enhancing our freedom of action to sell our products and services in markets in which we choose to participate, and maximizing our return on research

and development investments. No single patent is in itself essential to our company as a whole or to any of our business segments.

In addition to developing our patent portfolio, we license intellectual property from third parties as we deem appropriate. We have also granted and continue to grant to others licenses and other rights under our patents when we consider these arrangements to be in our interest. These license arrangements include a number of cross-licenses with third parties.

For a discussion of risks attendant to intellectual property rights, see "Risk Factors—Our financial performance may suffer if we cannot continue to develop, license or enforce the intellectual property rights on which our businesses depend" and "—Our products and services depend in part on intellectual property and technology licensed from third parties" in Item 1A.

Backlog

In fiscal 2020 the outbreak of COVID-19 resulted in a disruption to our supply chain process. The outbreak resulted in a global slowdown of economic activity including worldwide travel restrictions, prohibitions of non-essential work activities, disruption and shutdown of businesses and greater uncertainty in global financial markets. These events introduced a disruption to our supply chain at the beginning of the calendar year resulting in significantly higher levels of backlog, particularly in Compute, HPC & MCS, and Storage as lockdown restrictions imposed across the globe disrupted our order fulfillment process and limited our ability to perform on-site installations and meet customer acceptance requirements. Subsequently, by the latter part of the fiscal period we made significant progress in clearing our backlog such that we exited the fiscal year with normalized backlog levels.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have also viewed backlog as an indication of demand health as governments around the world continue to impose restrictions on non-essential work activities and travel. As and when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides our focus on backlog may again become less relevant as a reliable indicator of future demand.

For a further discussion of the risks, uncertainties and actions taken in response to COVID-19, see risks identified in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Item 1A, and the "COVID-19 Update" in Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in Part II, Item 7.

Seasonality

General economic conditions have an impact on our business and financial results. From time to time, the markets in which we sell our products, services and solutions experience weak economic conditions that may negatively affect sales. We experience some seasonal trends in the sale of our products and services. For example, European sales are often weaker in the summer months. However, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak may result in temporary changes to the seasonal fluctuation of our business. See "Risk Factors—Our uneven sales cycle makes planning and inventory management difficult and future financial results less predictable" in Item 1A.

Competition

We have a broad technology portfolio of enterprise IT infrastructure products, solutions and services. We encounter strong competition in all areas of our business. We compete primarily on the basis of technology, innovation, performance, price, quality, reliability, brand, reputation, distribution, range of products and services, ease of use of our products, account relationships, customer training, service and support, security, and the availability of our IT infrastructure offerings.

The markets in which we compete are characterized by strong competition among major corporations with long-established positions and a large number of new and rapidly growing firms. Most product life cycles are relatively short, and to remain competitive we must develop new products and services, continuously enhance our existing products and services and compete effectively on the basis of the factors listed above, among others. In addition, we compete with many of our current and potential partners, including OEMs that design, manufacture and market their products under their own brand names. Our successful management of these competitive partner relationships is critical to our future success. Moreover, we anticipate that we will have to continue to adjust prices on many of our products and services to stay competitive.

The competitive environments in which each segment operates are described below:

The Compute and Storage businesses operate in the highly competitive enterprise data center infrastructure market, which is characterized by rapid and ongoing technological innovation and price competition. Our primary competitors are technology vendors such as Dell Technologies Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., International Business Machines Corporation, and NetApp Inc. In certain regions, we also experience competition from local companies and from generically branded or "white-box" manufacturers. Our strategy is to deliver superior products, high-value technology support services and differentiated integrated solutions that combine our infrastructure, software and services capabilities. Our competitive advantages include our broad end-to-end solutions portfolio, supported by our strong intellectual property portfolio and research and development capabilities, coupled with our global reach and partner ecosystem.

The HPC & MCS business predominantly services customers with data-intensive super-computing, analytics, and artificial intelligence needs. Our primary competitors are compute technology vendors than can design and build solutions that deliver performance scalability and connectivity necessary to handle super-compute and artificial intelligence ("AI") workloads, including Dell Technologies Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., and International Business Machines Corporation. Similar to the compute space, our strategy is to deliver superior products, high-value technology support services and differentiated integrated solutions that combine our infrastructure, software and services capabilities. Our competitive advantages include our deep expertise and capabilities designing and delivering these solutions, broad end-to-end solutions portfolio, supported by our strong intellectual property portfolio and research and development capabilities.

The A & PS business predominantly delivers digital transformation expertise to customers. The strategy of the business is to partner with customers to prioritize, define and implement the technology transformations that will achieve customers' digital transformation goals. The business has practice areas in digital transformation advisory, hybrid cloud transformation, AI and data, networking & edge, security, IoT, digital workplaces, education and management of change. Our primary competitors for this business are the consulting services arms of major technology vendors such as International Business Machines Corporation, Dell Technologies Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., and Accenture.

Intelligent Edge operates in the highly competitive networking and connectivity infrastructure market, which is characterized by rapid and ongoing technological innovation and price competition. Our primary competitors are technology vendors such as Cisco Systems, Inc., Extreme Networks, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., and Arista Networks Inc. Our strategy is to deliver superior enterprise wired and wireless local-area networking components and software, high-value technology support services and differentiated integrated solutions that combine our infrastructure, software and services capabilities. Our competitive advantage includes our broad end-to-end solutions portfolio, supported by our strong intellectual property portfolio and research and development capabilities, coupled with our global reach and partner ecosystem.

Financial Services. In our financing business, our primary competitors are captive financing companies, such as IBM Global Financing, Dell Financial Services, and Cisco Capital, as well as banks and other financial institutions. Our primary IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) competitors are ERI, Ingram Micro, Sage Sustainable Electronics, and Sims Recycling Solutions. We believe our competitive advantage over banks, other financial institutions, and ITAD providers is our ability to bring together our investment solutions with our expertise in managing technology assets. Not only are we able to deliver investment solutions that help customers create unique technology deployments based on specific business needs, but we also help them extract value from existing IT investments while more efficiently managing the retirement of those assets. All of these solutions can help customers accelerate digital transformation, create new budget streams, and meet Circular Economy objectives.

For a discussion of certain risks attendant to these competitive environments, see "Risk Factors—We operate in an intensely competitive industry and competitive pressures could harm our business and financial performance" in Item 1A.

Material Government Regulations

Our business activities are worldwide and are subject to various federal, state, local, and foreign laws and our products and services are governed by a number of rules and regulations. Costs and accruals incurred to comply with these governmental regulations are presently not material to our capital expenditures, results of operations and competitive position. Although there is no assurance that existing or future government laws applicable to our operations, services or products will not have a material adverse effect on our capital expenditures, results of operations and competitive position, we do not currently anticipate material expenditures for government regulations. Nonetheless, as discussed below, we believe that environmental and global trade regulations could potentially materially impact our business.

Environment

Our products and operations are, or may in the future be, subject to various federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations concerning the environment, including, among others, laws addressing the discharge of pollutants into the air and water; the management, movement, and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and the clean-up of contaminated sites;

product safety, such as chemical composition, packaging and labeling; energy consumption of our products and services; and the manufacture and distribution of chemical substances. We are also subject to legislation in an increasing number of jurisdictions that makes producers of electrical goods, including servers and networking equipment, financially responsible for specified collection, recycling, treatment, and disposal of past and future covered products (sometimes referred to as "product take-back legislation"). Finally, as climate change laws, regulations, treaties, and similar initiatives and programs are adopted and implemented throughout the world, we will be required to comply or potentially face market access limitations or other sanctions, including fines. However, we believe that technology will be fundamental to finding solutions to achieve compliance with and manage those requirements, and we are collaborating with industry, business groups and governments to find and promote ways that our technology can be used to address climate change and to facilitate compliance with related laws, regulations and treaties. We are committed to maintaining compliance with all environmental laws applicable to our operations, products and services, and to reducing our environmental impact across all aspects of our business. We meet this commitment with a comprehensive environmental, health and safety policy, strict environmental management of our operations and worldwide environmental programs and services.

Global Trade

As a global company, the import and export of our products and services are subject to laws and regulations including international treaties, U.S. export controls and sanctions laws, customs regulations, and local trade rules around the world. Such laws, rules and regulations may delay the introduction of some of our products or impact our competitiveness through restricting our ability to do business in certain places or with certain entities and individuals, or the need to comply with domestic preference programs, laws concerning transfer and disclosure of sensitive or controlled technology or source code, unique technical standards, localization mandates, and duplicative in-country testing and inspection requirements. The consequences of any failure to comply with domestic and foreign trade regulations could limit our ability to conduct business globally. We continue to support open trade policies that recognize the importance of integrated cross-border supply chains that will continue to contribute to the growth of the global economy and measures that standardize compliance for manufacturers to ensure that products comply with safety and security requirements.

For a discussion of the risks associated with government regulations that may materially impact us, please see the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Item 1A.

Additional Information

Itanium is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.

Information about our Executive Officers

The following are our current executive officers:

Name			Age			Position
Antonio Neri			53			President and Chief Executive Officer
Tom Black			51			Senior Vice President, General Manager of Storage
Kirt P. Karros			51			Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer
Neil MacDonald			52			Senior Vice President, General Manager of Compute
Alan May			62			Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer
Keerti Melkote			50			President, Intelligent Edge
Jeff T. Ricci			59			Senior Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer
Tarek Robbiati			55			Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Irv Rothman			74			President and Chief Executive Officer, HPE Financial Services
John F. Schultz			56			Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Legal Officer
Peter Ungaro			52			Senior Vice President, General Manager of High Performance Compute and Mission-Critical Systems and Hewlett Packard Labs

Antonio Neri; President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Neri has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since June 2017 and February 2018, respectively. Mr. Neri previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of our Enterprise Group from November 2015 to June 2017. Prior to that, Mr. Neri served in a similar role for HP Co.'s Enterprise Group from October 2014 to November 2015. Mr. Neri served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the HP Servers business unit from September 2013 to October 2014 and concurrently as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the HP Networking business unit from May

2014 to October 2014. Prior to that, Mr. Neri served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the HP Technology Services business unit from August 2011 to September 2013 and as Vice President, Customer Services for the HP Personal Systems Group from 2007 to August 2011, having first joined HP Co. in 1996. From March 2012 to February 2013, Mr. Neri served as a director of MphasiS Limited, an India-based technology company.

Tom Black; Senior Vice President, General Manager of Storage

Mr. Black has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of our Storage business segment since December 2019. Prior to that, Mr. Black served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Switching within our Intelligent Edge business segment from October 2018 to December 2019. From January 2016 to October 2018, Mr. Black served as the Vice President and General Manager of Switching within our Intelligent Edge business. From June 2013 to January 2016, Mr. Black was the Vice President of Engineering for the Networking group at HP Co., and later, at HPE. Prior to that, Mr. Black served in various roles, including Vice President of Engineering and other engineering positions at Cisco Systems from November 1999 to May 2013.

Kirt P. Karros; Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer

Mr. Karros has served as our Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer since November 2015. Prior to that, Mr. Karros served in a similar role at HP Co. and led its Investor Relations from May 2015 to October 2015. Mr. Karros previously served as Principal and Managing Director of Research for Relational Investors LLC, an investment fund, from 2001 to May 2015 and concurrently as a director of PMC-Sierra, a semiconductor company, from August 2013 to May 2015 and as a director of InnerWorkings, Inc. from August 2019 to October 2020.

Neil MacDonald; Senior Vice President, General Manager of Compute

Mr. MacDonald has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of our Compute business segment since February 2020. Prior to that, Mr. MacDonald served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Compute Solutions group of the then Hybrid IT business segment, from October 2018 to February 2020. Mr. MacDonald previously served as Vice President and General Manager of BladeSystem from August 2015 to October 2020, having first joined HP Co. in 1996.

Alan May; Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer

Mr. May has served as our Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer since June 2015. Before joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mr. May served as Vice President, Human Resources at Boeing Commercial Aircraft, a division of The Boeing Company, from April 2013 to June 2015. Prior to that, Mr. May served as Vice President, Human Resources for Boeing Defense, Space and Security at Boeing from April 2011 to June 2015 and as Vice President, Compensation, Benefits and Strategy at Boeing from August 2007 to April 2011. Mr. May has also served in senior human resources roles at Cerberus Capital Management and PepsiCo. He serves as a Trustee for the American Foundation for the Blind and is on the Board of Governors for the San Francisco Symphony.

Keerti Melkote; President, Intelligent Edge

Mr. Melkote has served as President of our Intelligent Edge business segment since January 2017. Mr. Melkote previously served as Chief Technology Officer of Intelligent Edge from May 2015 to December 2016. Prior to that, Mr. Melkote performed a similar role as Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Aruba Networks from February 2009 until our acquisition of Aruba Networks in May 2015. Previously, Mr. Melkote served as Co-Founder and Vice President, Products at Aruba Networks from February 2002 to January 2009.

Jeff T. Ricci; Senior Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer

Mr. Ricci has served as our Senior Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer since November 2015. Prior to that, Mr. Ricci performed a similar role at HP Co. from April 2014 to November 2015. Mr. Ricci served as Controller and Principal Accounting Officer at HP Co. on an interim basis from November 2013 to April 2014. Previously, Mr. Ricci served as Vice President, Finance for several of HP Co.'s organizations, including Technology and Operations from May 2012 to November 2013, Global Accounts and HP Financial Services from March 2011 to May 2012, and HP Software from March 2009 to March 2011.

Tarek Robbiati; Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Robbiati has served as our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer since September 2018. Before joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mr. Robbiati served as Chief Financial Officer of Sprint Corporation from August 2015 to February 2018. Mr. Robbiati previously served as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of FlexiGroup Limited in Australia from January 2013 to August 2015. Prior to that, from December 2009 to December 2012, Mr. Robbiati was Group

Managing Director and President of Telstra International Group in Hong Kong and Executive Chairman of Hong Kong CSL Limited ("CSL"), a subsidiary of Telstra Corporation Limited. From July 2007 to May 2010, Mr. Robbiati served as the Chief Executive Officer of CSL in Hong Kong.

Irv Rothman; President and Chief Executive Officer, HPE Financial Services

Mr. Rothman has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of our Financial Services business segment, our IT investment and financing subsidiary, since November 2015. Prior to that, Mr. Rothman served in a similar role at HP Co. from May 2002 to November 2015. Prior to joining HP Co., Mr. Rothman was President and Chief Executive Officer of Compaq Financial Services Corporation from January 1997 to April 2002.

John F. Schultz; Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Legal Officer

Mr. Schultz has served as our Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Legal Officer since July 2020. Prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Secretary from December 2017 to July 2020. Mr. Schultz previously served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary from November 2015 to December 2017, performing a similar role at HP Co. from April 2012 to November 2015. Prior to that, Mr. Schultz served as Deputy General Counsel for Litigation, Investigations and Global Functions at HP Co. from September 2008 to April 2012. Prior to joining HP Co., Mr. Schultz was a partner in the litigation practice at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, a law firm, from March 2005 to September 2008, where, among other clients, he supported HP Co. as external counsel on a variety of litigation and regulatory matters.

Peter Ungaro; Senior Vice President, General Manager of High Performance Compute and Mission-Critical Systems and Hewlett Packard Labs

Mr. Ungaro has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of our High Performance Compute and Mission Critical Systems business segment and Hewlett Packard Labs since September 2019. Prior to that, Mr. Ungaro was President and Chief Executive Officer of Cray from 2005 until our acquisition of Cray in September 2019. From September 2004 until March 2005, Mr. Ungaro served as Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Services at Cray and, from August 2003 until September 2004, he served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cray. Before joining Cray in 2003, Ungaro served as Vice President of Sales for Worldwide Deep Computing at IBM. Mr. Ungaro held a variety of other sales leadership positions since joining IBM in 1991.

Available Information

Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are available on our website at http://investors.hpe.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such reports with, or furnish those reports to, the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Corporate Governance Guidelines, Board of Directors' committee charters (including the charters of the Audit Committee, Finance and Investment Committee, HR and Compensation Committee, Technology Committee, and Nominating, Governance and Social Responsibility Committee) and code of ethics entitled "Standards of Business Conduct" are also available at that same location on our website. Stockholders may request free printed copies of these documents from:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Attention: Investor Relations

11445 Compaq Center West Drive

Houston, Texas 77070

http://investors.hpe.com/financial/requested-printed-reports