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

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

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

While great progress has been made in the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic ("COVID-19" or "pandemic"), it remains a global challenge. In fiscal 2021, due to an unprecedented demand for electronic devices and related industry-wide supply constraints, the global economy encountered a challenging supply chain environment. The pandemic continues to have an impact on our financial performance and we are currently unable to predict the extent to which it may adversely impact our future business operations, financial performance and results of operations. 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 Part I, Item 1A.

In 2021, COVID-19 vaccines were broadly distributed and administered, and beginning October 4, 2021, we adopted a policy to require proof of vaccination from HPE personnel, contingent workers, and guests in order to return to our sites, where permitted by local laws and regulations and on the timeline determined appropriate for the geography (as of end of fiscal 2021, the policy was operationalized only in the U.S.). On October 20, 2021, we updated our vaccination policy to require vaccination as a condition of employment for all HPE personnel covered by President Biden's executive order, effective January 18, 2022. We recognize that there are existing legal challenges to the executive order, and we will ensure that the timing and scope of the implementation of our vaccination requirement is consistent with the legal status of the executive order. We are committed to help support costs for the vaccine through HPE health benefits or other programs, to the extent not covered by government programs, medical plans or other sources.

Our Strategy

The pace of technology disruption continues to increase, and the pandemic has accelerated several megatrends. First, data at the edge is increasing exponentially, driven by the proliferation of devices. Secure connectivity is essential to enable the digital experiences we now rely on – and power new, engaging digital experiences in the future. Second, enterprises need a cloud experience everywhere to manage data and workloads wherever they live across a distributed enterprise. Third, data growth is creating countless new opportunities. Enterprises need ways to generate insights from this data to build new business models. Across these trends is the shift in how enterprises are consuming their technology. Increasingly, customers want to digitally transform while preserving capital and eliminating operating expense by paying only for the IT they use.

Data insights are critical to deliver business outcomes, but extracting value from data is challenging. Data is growing and evolving rapidly. Its characteristics are shifting, as it becomes more unstructured, more time-sensitive and more distributed. Frequently, data is siloed and spread across different multi-gen IT systems, often trapped in critical legacy architecture. Many organizations cannot adequately extract insights from their data at the edge or face cloud migration challenges because of their legacy applications. Customers need a data-first modernization approach across edge to data center to cloud.

We declared our vision to be the edge-to-cloud company. Our HPE GreenLake platform accelerates multi-generation IT transformation through a unified cloud services experience that enables customers to access, control and maximize the value of all their workloads and data. Our solutions across connectivity, cloud and data – which are increasingly being delivered as-a-service through HPE GreenLake – are complemented by HPE Pointnext services that provide unique transformation capabilities, as well as HPE Financial Services, which helps customers unlock financial capacity.

Table of Content

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 60,400 employees as of October 31, 2021, 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 drive our success, which is why we believe in investing in our employees and in the communities where we live and work. HPE has intensified its focus on embedding these values into a vibrant culture that creates a superior team member experience and a highly engaged workforce, driving improvements across our communications, our reward programs, and our work environment. Through such efforts, we are 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 increasing year-over-year and measuring 84%. More than 85% of team members would recommend HPE as a great place to work, and 89% 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 we can”, and in being a force for good. We embed these beliefs in a deep-rooted DNA that puts customers first, enabling us to partner, innovate and act with integrity. Our empowered and engaging culture is making HPE a destination for 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. At the close of fiscal 2021, the representation of women in our workforce had increased 1 percentage point since the prior year, with increased representation at every level worldwide, exceeding the goals in both technical and executive roles. We also increased our representation of all underrepresented minorities in the U.S., increasing such representation by 1.6 percentage points overall. The leadership standards 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 60,400 team members completed over 455,000 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.

Table of Content

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

In October 2021, we renamed the segment previously known as High Performance Computing and Mission Critical Solutions ("HPC & MCS") to High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence ("HPC & AI").

Our operations are organized into six business segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services ("FS"), and Corporate Investments and Other. 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 2021 - Compute products, Compute services, Storage products

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

• Fiscal 2019 - Compute products, Storage products

A summary of our net revenue, earnings from operations and assets for our segments can be found in Note 2, "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; 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 ("VDI"), data management, transcoding and visualization. Compute offerings also include operational and support services. HPE GreenLake for Compute provides flexible Compute as-a-service ("aaS") IT infrastructure on a consumption basis.

HPC & AI

Our HPC & AI business offers standard and custom hardware and software solutions designed to support specific use cases. Our hardware solutions are segmented into several categories, High Performance Compute ("HPC"), Data Solutions, and Edge Compute. 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 Data Solutions portfolio (previously named Mission Critical Solutions) 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 Edge Compute product portfolio includes HPE Edgeline products for computing at the network edge. In connection with our hardware offerings, HPE offers a suite of software products, including AI-powered technologies designed to play a critical role in turning data into readily available, actionable information to fuel growth and innovation for our customers. These include the recently acquired Determined AI, which provides a software stack to train AI models using its open source machine learning platform.

HPC & AI offerings also include operational and support services and solutions delivered as-a-service through HPE GreenLake cloud services, which is a flexible as-a-service platform that HPE can provide on-premises or in a colocation facility. With offerings that are artificial intelligence-driven and built for hybrid cloud environments with GreenLake consumption models, we provide the right workload optimized destinations for data.

A portion of HPC & AI 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 Item 1A, "Risk Factors—Failure to comply with government contracting regulations could adversely affect our business and results of operations".

Storage

HPE Storage is transforming the customer experience with storage as-a-service and cloud data services through the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform and data infrastructure to enable customers to simplify IT and unlock greater levels of agility with a cloud operational experience. The customer experience transformation also includes AI and data-driven intelligence with

Table of Content

HPE InfoSight and HPE CloudPhysics. Customers can store and serve their data with speed and high availability to applications, secure and protect their data across hybrid clouds from ransomware and cyber threats, and gain data mobility across private cloud, public cloud, and multi-cloud environments.

The Storage portfolio includes primary storage with HPE Alletra that offers cloud-native data infrastructure, HPE Primera, HPE Nimble Storage and HPE 3PAR; software-powered hyper-converged infrastructure consisting of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI and HPE SimpliVity; disaster recovery and ransomware recovery with Zerto, our recent acquisition; backup as-a-service with HPE Backup and Recovery Service, 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. We make our data infrastructure portfolio available as-a-service through HPE GreenLake. Storage offerings also include operational and support services, software subscription services, and solutions delivered as-a-service through HPE GreenLake.

Intelligent Edge

The Intelligent Edge business is comprised of a portfolio of secure edge-to-cloud solutions operating under the Aruba brand that include wired and wireless local area network ("LAN"), campus and data center switching, software-defined wide area networking (from the Silver Peak acquisition), network security, and associated services to enable secure connectivity for businesses of any size. The primary business drivers for Intelligent Edge solutions are work from anywhere environments, mobility, and internet-of-things ("IoT"). The insights from data generated at the edge are key to driving new business outcomes and experiences.

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

We also offer Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), which takes a cloud-native approach to helping customers meet their connectivity, security, and financial requirements across campus, branch, data center, and remote worker environments, covering all aspects of wired, wireless LAN, and wide area networking ("WAN").

Financial Services

Financial Services ("FS") 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 and Other

Corporate Investments and Other includes the Advisory and Professional Services ("A & PS") business which primarily offers consultative-led services, HPE and partner technology expertise and advice, implementation services as well as complex solution engagement capabilities; the Communications and Media Solutions ("CMS") business which primarily offers software and related services to the telecommunications industry; the Software business which offers HPE Ezmeral Container Platform and HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric; and Hewlett Packard Labs which is responsible for research and development.

Our Strengths

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

• Edge-to-cloud strategy and solutions uniquely solve customer challenges. As data grows and evolves and enterprises become increasingly distributed, HPE’s edge-to-cloud strategy is uniquely designed to enable customers to securely access, control and maximize the value of all their workloads and data assets to accelerate business outcomes. The HPE GreenLake platform is an open, secure, fully integrated platform that brings a unified experience across the edge, data center, colocation and cloud. It is automated and easy to consume with capacity available to scale up and down on demand. It offers true pay per use consumption so customers only pay for what they use, and they can have the entire hybrid cloud experience managed for them through our HPE GreenLake managed services offering.

Table of Content

• Comprehensive portfolio. We have a distinctive and industry leading portfolio of edge-to-cloud solutions and unique capabilities to help accelerate our customers' digital transformations. 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.

• Multi-year innovation roadmap and strong balance sheet. We have been in the technology and innovation business for over 80 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 recovering over 3 million IT assets in fiscal 2020 and refurbishing close to 90% for reuse.

• Experienced leadership team. 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. 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.

• 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 a 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 and offers choice. 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;

Table of Content

• 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. This has resulted in a combined go-to-market model, in which we have a direct sales presence in a number of countries, while we sell and deliver our products, solutions and services through 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 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 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 supplier relationships properly" in Item 1A.

As a result of the pandemic, the industry is being impacted by an increased worldwide demand for electronic components that is anticipated to last at least through the end of this calendar year. This global shortage impacts HPE and the technology market segment as a whole. While we anticipate further industry-wide tightening we took proactive inventory buffering measures in order to position us well during the second half of the fiscal year and going forward. We will take additional inventory actions as appropriate in alignment to the market demand, and will continue to leverage strong partnerships and long-term agreements with our suppliers.

Backlog

Backlog represents the price of orders related to current or prior periods for which work has not been performed or goods have not been delivered as of the reporting period.

Table of Content

The higher levels of backlog we experienced in the prior-year period due to the pandemic were largely delivered by the end of fiscal 2020. At the same time, the global pandemic resulted in an unprecedented demand for electronic devices, which, coupled with related industry-wide supply constraints, has led to a challenging supply chain environment. Additionally, the pandemic continues to play a role with ongoing delays to the global logistics environment. As a result, in the second half of fiscal 2021, we experienced a shortage of electric components and logistics timing issues which resulted in significantly higher levels of order backlog and commodity costs across our hardware segments, and particularly in Compute, Storage and Intelligent Edge. Currently, we expect these challenging supply chain conditions to persist in the near term.

During the 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 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 the pandemic, see risks identified in the section entitled "Risk Factors" 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 2, "Segment Information", to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of Part II. Approximately 68% of our overall net revenue in fiscal 2021 came from sales 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 and the laws and regulatory regimes applying to international transactions 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 13, "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 $2.0 billion in fiscal 2021, $1.9 billion in fiscal 2020 and $1.8 billion in fiscal 2019. 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 other innovations from HPE are aligned to the requirements of our customers. In the area of software-as-a-service we are developing a cloud-native, cloud-based server management solution to complement our existing portfolio.

In HPC & AI, we deliver high-performance compute, storage, artificial intelligence and networking systems and solutions for the most demanding workloads. Our R&D investments are focused on developing new technologies in high-performance fabric, artificial intelligence platforms, scalable memory systems, and high-performance storage and data solutions that underpin our differentiated offerings. We also invest in software to enable our solutions. These investments include high-performance computing and artificial intelligence developer tools, cloud-native and scalable cluster management software, and transaction processing software. HPC & AI also hosts an applied research group, Labs, where we invest in long term, disruptive R&D including photonics, advanced systems architectures, and artificial intelligence software that comprise a pipeline of technologies to consider for future commercialization. All of our products are being developed with the potential to be delivered in a consumption model including integrated into our HPE GreenLake platform.

Table of Content

In the Storage data management domain, we are investing in new technologies to address the demand in current and emerging markets. Our comprehensive on-premise scalable infrastructure is transforming to utilize HPE’s leadership in Compute, Networking, and Storage to provide end-to-end cloud-native infrastructure. This infrastructure serves as a foundation for our as-a-service offering, includes the industry-first 100% guarantee, and delivers cloud-native infrastructure tightly integrated and managed by our AI engines. Creatively augmented by an all-inclusive as-a-service HPE GreenLake offering, HPE continues to power the edge-to-core-to-cloud data pipeline with embedded AI that delivers deep learning analytics across the full data lifecycle.

In Intelligent Edge, we are investing in our cloud native Edge Services Platform ("ESP"), which enables simplified operation of wired and wireless networks, together with software defined wide area network ("SD-WAN") connectivity. The ESP platform complements a broad range of network devices in our unified network infrastructure layer with security capabilities that enable us to identify and authenticate users and IoT endpoints, to enforce policy, and finely segment traffic based on context to contain security threats. We are also investing in automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence based network operations to optimize user experience and improve operator efficiency. Many of these capabilities are enabled with the Aruba Central cloud service, and we are investing to integrate Aruba Central as part of the broader HPE GreenLake as-a-service offering.

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, 2021, our worldwide patent portfolio included approximately 13,000 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.

Seasonality

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 pandemic resulted in a temporary disruption 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.

Table of Content

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 our segments operate 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 ("IBM"), 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.

HPC & AI predominantly operates in the market for data-intensive super-computing, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Our primary competitors are compute technology vendors that can design and build solutions that deliver performance scalability and connectivity necessary to handle super-compute and AI workloads, including Dell Technologies Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., and IBM. 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, coupled with our global reach and partner ecosystem.

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.

Climate Change

Living Progress - Living Progress is our business strategy for creating sustainable IT solutions that meet the technology demands of the future, while advancing the way people live and work. This strategy underpins our commitment to the environmental, social, and governance ("ESG") factors most important to stakeholders. Our edge-to-cloud strategy helps our customers transform and digitize their business while reducing our environmental footprint. A legacy of ESG leadership increases our competitiveness and differentiates us in the marketplace by helping our customers achieve their business objectives and sustainability goals. The HPE Board of Directors provides oversight of our ESG strategy, practices, and policies to ensure integration with our core business strategy.

Sustainable Value Creation - Sustainability performance has become a core business discipline within HPE. Our Living Progress program is an increasingly powerful component of our relationships with customers, and our sustainability credentials provide us with a competitive advantage, support talent acquisition and retention, and ensure ongoing access to global markets.

Table of Content

We remain committed to becoming a net zero enterprise by no later than 2050, with near-term targets set across our value chain to measure our progress.

In 2021, most of our greenhouse gas emissions ("GHG") resulted from the manufacture and use of our products. We recognize the opportunity to innovate technologies for a carbon-constrained world and are committed to delivering products and services that empower our customers to operate sustainably and efficiently while also gaining maximum productivity from their IT investments and reducing costs. For instance, as-a-service delivery models can drive the reduction of our climate impact and that of our customers, by eliminating IT inefficiencies and enabling sustainable digital transformations. HPE GreenLake, the Company's as-a-service offering, allows customers to consume IT resources and spend capital expenditures as needed, thereby reducing the energy and resource consumption of IT infrastructure through improved utilization and provisioning.

To ensure market access across the globe many of our products are certified by eco-labels such as Electronic Product Environment Assessment Tool, TCO Certified, Energy STAR, China SEPA and the China Energy Conservation Program, thus helping our customers make responsible purchasing choices.

Material Government Regulations

Our business activities 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 global trade and certain ESG 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 and other ESG-related 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 other ESG-related issues, and to facilitate compliance with related laws, regulations and treaties. We are committed to maintaining compliance with all environmental and ESG-related 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; a strict environmental management of our operations and worldwide environmental programs and services; an extensive supply chain responsibility program; and an approach to ethical standards and strong governance that are the foundations of our business.

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, see "Regulatory Risks" within "Risk Factors" in Item 1A.

Table of Content

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			54			President and Chief Executive Officer
Thomas E. Black Jr.			52			Senior Vice President, General Manager of Storage
Kirt P. Karros			52			Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer
Neil B. MacDonald			53			Senior Vice President, General Manager of Compute
Alan May			63			Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer
Philip J. Mottram			53			President, Intelligent Edge
Jeff T. Ricci			60			Senior Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer
Tarek Robbiati			56			Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Irving H. Rothman			75			President and Chief Executive Officer, HPE Financial Services
John F. Schultz			57			Executive Vice President, Chief Operating and Legal Officer
Justin Hotard			47			Senior Vice President, General Manager of High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence

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. Since December 2017, Mr. Neri has served as a director of Anthem, Inc., a health insurance provider in the U.S. From March 2012 to February 2013, Mr. Neri served as a director of MphasiS Limited, an India-based technology company.

Thomas E. Black Jr.; 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 B. 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.

Table of Content

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.

Philip J. Mottram; President, Intelligent Edge

Mr. Mottram has served as the President of our Intelligent Edge business since June 2021. Prior to that, Mr. Mottram served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Communications Technology Group from April 2019 to June 2021. Before joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, he served as the Chief Revenue Officer of Zayo Group, a communications infrastructure provider, from November 2017 to February 2019. Prior to that, Mr. Mottram served as Director of the Enterprise Business Unit of Vodafone from May 2014 to November 2017, the Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong CSL from September 2012 to May 2014, and Executive Director of Global Sales at Telstra International from September 2010 to September 2012, as well as a variety of different operational roles at other telecommunications companies.

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. Previously, Mr. Ricci served as Controller and Principal Accounting Officer at HP Co. on an interim basis from November 2013 to April 2014. Prior to that, 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.

Irving H. 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.

Justin Hotard; Senior Vice President, General Manager of HPC & AI

Mr. Hotard has served as our Senior Vice President and General Manager of HPC & AI global business group since March 2021. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Transformation from September 2020 to March 2021, where he led our transformation efforts to accelerate our pivot to as-a-service offerings. Prior to that, Mr. Hotard served as President and Managing Director of HPE Japan from October 2019 to September 2020, as Senior Vice President and General

Table of Content

Manager of the Compute Global Business Unit from January 2017 to October 2019 and as Vice President of Strategy, Planning and Operations in the Data Center Infrastructure Group from August 2015 to January 2017. Before joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mr. Hotard was President of NCR Small Business from July 2013 to November 2014 and Vice President of Corporate Development of NCR Corporation from July 2012 to August 2013. Prior to that, Mr. Hotard served in various corporate development and operational roles at Symbol Technologies and Motorola, Inc.

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

Table of Content