惠普企業 (HPE) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2017 Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Earnings Conference Call. My name is Austin, and I'll be your conference moderator for today's call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

下午好，歡迎來到 2017 年第四季度惠普企業收益電話會議。我叫奧斯汀，我將擔任今天電話會議的會議主持人。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，正在錄製此會議以供重播。

I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Mr. Andrew Simanek, Head of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

現在，我想將演示文稿轉交給今天電話會議的主持人，投資者關係主管 Andrew Simanek 先生。請繼續。

Good afternoon. I'm Andy Simanek, Head of Investor Relations for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and I'd like to welcome you to our fiscal 2017 fourth quarter earnings conference call with Meg Whitman, HPE's Chief Executive Officer; and Tim Stonesifer, HPE's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

下午好。我是 Hewlett-Packard Enterprise 投資者關係主管 Andy Simanek，歡迎您參加我們與 HPE 首席執行官 Meg Whitman 舉行的 2017 財年第四季度收益電話會議； HPE 執行副總裁兼首席財務官 Tim Stonesifer。

Before handing the call over to Meg, let me remind you that this call is being webcast. A replay of the webcast will be made available shortly after the call for approximately 1 year. We posted a press release and a slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release on our HPE Investor Relations web page at investors.hpe.com.

在將電話轉給 Meg 之前，讓我提醒您，此電話正在進行網絡直播。網絡廣播的重播將在電話會議結束後不久提供大約 1 年。我們在我們的 HPE 投資者關係網頁 investors.hpe.com 上隨今天的收益發布發布了新聞稿和幻燈片演示。

As always, elements of this presentation are forward-looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. For more detailed information, please see the disclaimers on the earnings materials relating to forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. For a discussion of some of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, please refer to HPE's filings with the SEC, including its most recent Form 10-K. HPE assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. We also note that the financial information discussed on this call reflects estimates based on information available at this time and could differ materially from the amounts ultimately reported on HPE's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2017.

與往常一樣，本次演講的內容具有前瞻性，並且基於我們對當今世界和我們業務的最佳看法。有關更多詳細信息，請參閱與涉及風險、不確定性和假設的前瞻性陳述相關的收益材料的免責聲明。有關其中一些風險、不確定性和假設的討論，請參閱 HPE 向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，包括其最新的 10-K 表格。 HPE 不承擔任何義務，也不打算更新任何此類前瞻性陳述。我們還注意到，本次電話會議討論的財務信息反映了基於目前可用信息的估計，可能與 HPE 截至 2017 年 10 月 31 日止財政年度的 10-K 表格年度報告中最終報告的金額存在重大差異。

Finally, for financial information that has been expressed on a non-GAAP basis, we have provided reconciliations to the comparable GAAP information on our website. Throughout this conference call, all revenue growth rates, unless noted otherwise, are presented on a year-over-year basis and beginning with fiscal year 2016 are adjusted to exclude the impact of divestitures and currency. We believe this approach helps provide a better representation of HPE's operational performance. Please refer to the tables and slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release on our website for details.

最後，對於在非 GAAP 基礎上表達的財務信息，我們在我們的網站上提供了與可比 GAAP 信息的調節。在整個電話會議中，除非另有說明，否則所有收入增長率均按年計算，並從 2016 財年開始進行調整，以排除資產剝離和貨幣的影響。我們相信這種方法有助於更好地展示 HPE 的運營績效。有關詳細信息，請參閱我們網站上今天的收益發布隨附的表格和幻燈片演示。

With that, let me turn it over to Meg.

有了這個，讓我把它交給梅格。

Thanks, Andy, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. As you've all seen, we've just announced that I will be stepping down as CEO of HPE at the end of Q1. Antonio Neri, HPE's President, will become President and CEO and join the HP Board on February 1, 2018. I will remain a director on HPE's board. I've said for many years that the next leader of HPE should come from within the company, and Antonio Neri is exactly the type of leader I had in mind. Antonio is a 22-year veteran of our company who began his HP career as a customer service engineer in the EMEA call center. He's a computer engineer by training, has a deep technology background and is passionate about our customers, partners, employees and culture. The board unanimously agreed that Antonio should be my successor.

謝謝安迪，感謝大家今天加入我們的電話會議。正如你們所見，我們剛剛宣布我將在第一季度末辭去 HPE 首席執行官一職。 HPE 總裁 Antonio Neri 將於 2018 年 2 月 1 日成為總裁兼首席執行官並加入惠普董事會。我將繼續擔任 HPE 董事會董事。多年來我一直說 HPE 的下一任領導者應該來自公司內部，而安東尼奧·內裡正是我心目中的領導者類型。 Antonio 在我們公司工作了 22 年，他在 HP 的職業生涯始於 EMEA 呼叫中心的客戶服務工程師。他是一名經過培訓的計算機工程師，擁有深厚的技術背景，對我們的客戶、合作夥伴、員工和文化充滿熱情。董事會一致同意安東尼奧應該是我的繼任者。

This transition is possible because of all the work we've done during the past 6 years to transform HP. Many of you will recall the challenges the company faced when I became CEO and will recognize how far we've come. During the first couple of years, we focused on strengthening the company across a number of metrics. We stabilized and strengthened the leadership team, improved productivity and reinvigorated the culture. We significantly improved customer satisfaction, driving NPS scores from negative, in some cases, to an industry-leading 80 for our services today. And we pivoted hard back towards partners, rebuilding our entire partner ecosystem and shifting resources to this critical go-to-market channel. We also rebuilt our balance sheet, paying off the nearly $12 billion of operating company net debt that existed when I joined the company. I'm proud that, today, HPE is exiting the year with nearly $6 billion in net cash. Most importantly, we reignited innovation and delivered groundbreaking, new technology solutions. For example, we invested in The Machine research project, which is focused on creating an entirely new computing architecture for the big data era, putting memory at the core. We introduced the first prototype earlier this year and have also begun incorporating certain technologies from the project into solutions available today.

由於我們在過去 6 年中為轉變 HP 所做的所有工作，這種轉變是可能的。你們中的許多人會記得我擔任 CEO 時公司面臨的挑戰，並且會認識到我們已經走了多遠。在最初的幾年裡，我們專注於通過多個指標來加強公司的實力。我們穩定和加強了領導團隊，提高了生產力並重振了文化。我們顯著提高了客戶滿意度，將 NPS 分數從某些情況下的負值提高到今天我們服務行業領先的 80 分。我們努力轉向合作夥伴，重建我們的整個合作夥伴生態系統，並將資源轉移到這個關鍵的上市渠道。我們還重建了資產負債表，還清了我加入公司時存在的近 120 億美元的運營公司淨債務。我感到自豪的是，今天，HPE 以近 60 億美元的淨現金結束了這一年。最重要的是，我們重新點燃了創新並提供了突破性的新技術解決方案。比如我們投資了The Machine研究項目，專注於為大數據時代打造全新的計算架構，以內存為核心。我們在今年早些時候推出了第一個原型，並且還開始將項目中的某些技術整合到當今可用的解決方案中。

From a much stronger position, we then looked in our portfolio and made a number of strategic decisions to further sharpen our focus and accelerate performance. The first critical step was a separation into 2 independent Fortune 100 companies: HPE and HP Inc. This was exactly the right decision because it allowed both companies to optimize for strengths and invest in core strategies. From there, we further separated the company by spinning off and merging our Enterprise Services business with CSC, creating the world's largest pure-play IT services company. Next, we spun off and merged our application Software business with Micro Focus, creating the seventh largest pure-play software company in the world. The ES and Software transactions delivered more than $20 billion in value for HPE and our shareholders. We also made a number of smaller divestitures, including TippingPoint and Mphasis; and we divested 51% of our China business to Tsinghua Holdings, creating New H3C Group, the leading Chinese provider of technology infrastructure. This unique approach has put us in a strong position to capitalize on the second-largest IT market in the world. We also made a number of strategic additions to strengthen our portfolio in key growth areas. For example, in hybrid IT, we acquired SGI to strengthen our high-performance compute business; SimpliVity, to bolster our Hyper Converged offering; and Nimble Storage to complete our storage offering from entry level to the high end and accelerate our transition to all-flash. We acquired Aruba, the leader in wireless networking, which has become the heart of our intelligent edge strategy. Since then, we've strengthened Aruba with Niara, bringing machine learning and big data analytics to network security; and Rasa Networks for network performance management and analytics. And we've also enhanced our services capabilities. We acquired Cloud Technology Partners to extend our cloud consulting expertise and Cloud Cruiser to enhance our IT consumption models like our Flexible Capacity offering. All of these acquisitions are highly complementary to our core business. These companies are all in growth markets, and we are accelerating their performance by leveraging our go-to-market channels.

然後，我們從更強大的位置審視了我們的投資組合，並做出了一系列戰略決策，以進一步集中我們的注意力並加快績效。第一個關鍵步驟是拆分為兩家獨立的財富 100 強公司：HPE 和 HP Inc。這是一個完全正確的決定，因為它允許兩家公司優化優勢並投資於核心戰略。從那時起，我們通過剝離我們的企業服務業務並將其與 CSC 合併，進一步分離了公司，創建了世界上最大的純 IT 服務公司。接下來，我們將我們的應用軟件業務剝離並與 Micro Focus 合併，創建了全球第七大純軟件公司。 ES 和軟件交易為 HPE 和我們的股東帶來了超過 200 億美元的價值。我們還進行了一些規模較小的資產剝離，包括 TippingPoint 和 Mphasis；我們將 51% 的中國業務剝離給清華控股，創建了中國領先的技術基礎設施提供商新華三集團。這種獨特的方法使我們處於有利地位，可以利用世界第二大 IT 市場。我們還進行了一些戰略性的補充，以加強我們在關鍵增長領域的產品組合。例如，在混合 IT 方面，我們收購了 SGI 以加強我們的高性能計算業務； SimpliVity，支持我們的超融合產品；和 Nimble Storage 來完成我們從入門級到高端的存儲產品，並加速我們向全閃存的過渡。我們收購了無線網絡領域的領導者 Aruba，這已成為我們智能邊緣戰略的核心。從那時起，我們通過 Niara 加強了 Aruba，將機器學習和大數據分析引入網絡安全；以及用於網絡性能管理和分析的 Rasa Networks。我們還增強了我們的服務能力。我們收購了 Cloud Technology Partners 以擴展我們的雲諮詢專業知識，收購 Cloud Cruiser 以增強我們的 IT 消費模型，例如我們的 Flexible Capacity 產品。所有這些收購都與我們的核心業務高度互補。這些公司都處於成長型市場，我們正在通過利用我們的上市渠道來加速他們的業績。

We also continued to invest organically and introduced exciting new products and services. For example, we launched the industry's first composable offering called Synergy, and we now have more than 1,100 customers on the platform. In high-performance compute, we launched Apollo, which is helping to bring supercomputing capabilities to the enterprise. To address explosion in industrial IoT, we launched our highly differentiated Edgeline Converged Systems. With security becoming a board-level issue, we launched the industry's most secure standard server. And beyond product innovation, we continued to introduce new service offerings like our Flexible Capacity, which provides flexible, pay-per-use IT for customers. The industry recognizes the progress we have made. For the first time, HPE is a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader in all of its core business categories. As a whole, these moves have paid off, and I'm very proud of the shareholder value we've created along the way.

我們還繼續有機投資並推出令人興奮的新產品和服務。例如，我們推出了業界首個名為 Synergy 的可組合產品，我們現在在該平台上擁有 1,100 多家客戶。在高性能計算方面，我們推出了Apollo，它正在幫助為企業帶來超級計算能力。為了應對工業物聯網的爆炸式增長，我們推出了高度差異化的 Edgeline 融合系統。隨著安全成為板級問題，我們推出了業界最安全的標準服務器。除了產品創新之外，我們還繼續推出新的服務產品，例如我們的 Flexible Capacity，它為客戶提供靈活的按使用付費的 IT。業界認可我們取得的進步。 HPE 首次成為所有核心業務類別的 Gartner 魔力像限領導者。總的來說，這些舉措得到了回報，我為我們一路創造的股東價值感到非常自豪。

HP and then HPE have returned nearly $18 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends since 2012. And since the birth of HPE on November 2, 2015, we've delivered a total shareholder return of 89%, which is more than 3x that of the S&P 500. I know Antonio will have the same focus on delivering value for our shareholders going forward.

自 2012 年以來，惠普和後來的 HPE 已通過股票回購和派息向股東返還近 180 億美元。自 2015 年 11 月 2 日 HPE 誕生以來，我們已經實現了 89% 的股東總回報率，是 3 倍多標準普爾 500 指數。我知道安東尼奧將同樣專注於為我們的股東創造價值。

By fixing, improving and repositioning the company I joined, HPE has worked its way into a strong competitive position, ready to drive the next phase of shareholder value. And you're starting to see the payoff in our results.

通過修復、改進和重新定位我加入的公司，HPE 已經努力進入強大的競爭地位，準備推動下一階段的股東價值。您開始在我們的結果中看到回報。

In Q4 FY '17, we grew revenue 5% year-over-year, capping a full year FY '17, where we grew the top line 1% when adjusted for currency and divestitures. We have stabilized our core RAC and tower server business, which grew 6% and 7% year-over-year in Q3 and Q4, respectively. Services grew 3% in Q4, and our investments in key growth areas like the intelligent edge, high-performance compute and all-flash storage are clearly paying off. Aruba performance continues to accelerate and outpace the market, growing 19% in Q4 and 22% for the year. Our high-performance compute portfolio is the best in the industry, and we continue to win deals and extend our market leadership position. HPC was up 28% in Q4 and 37% for the year.

在 17 財年第四季度，我們的收入同比增長 5%，為 17 財年全年畫上了句號，經貨幣和資產剝離調整後，我們的收入增長了 1%。我們已經穩定了我們的核心 RAC 和塔式服務器業務，它們在第三季度和第四季度分別同比增長了 6% 和 7%。服務在第四季度增長了 3%，我們在智能邊緣、高性能計算和全閃存存儲等關鍵增長領域的投資顯然得到了回報。 Aruba 的表現繼續加速並超越市場，第四季度增長 19%，全年增長 22%。我們的高性能計算產品組合是業內最好的，我們繼續贏得交易並擴大我們的市場領導地位。 HPC 在第四季度增長了 28%，全年增長了 37%。

From a profitability perspective, we are on the right track towards getting margins back to historic levels despite continued challenges in commodity pricing. In Q4, EG margins improved sequentially for the second quarter in a row to 10.6% as we executed our cost takeout plans and shifted resources to align with our market segmentation. We are confident in our ability to achieve our full year target of 11% to 12% in FY '18.

從盈利能力的角度來看，儘管商品定價面臨持續挑戰，但我們正走在使利潤率回到歷史水平的正確軌道上。在第四季度，隨著我們執行成本削減計劃並轉移資源以適應我們的市場細分，EG 利潤率連續第二個季度提高至 10.6%。我們有信心在 18 財年實現 11% 至 12% 的全年目標。

At every turn, HPE is preparing itself for the future. In Q4, we moved into the execution phase of HPE Next, our program to redesign the company to be purpose-built for today's and tomorrow's competitive environment. HPE Next is all about simplifying the way we work, driving execution and investing in innovation that will differentiate our solutions in the years ahead.

慧與每時每刻都在為未來做準備。在第四季度，我們進入了 HPE Next 的執行階段，我們的計劃旨在重新設計公司以適應當今和未來的競爭環境。 HPE Next 旨在簡化我們的工作方式、推動執行並投資於創新，這將使我們的解決方案在未來幾年脫穎而出。

While executing HPE Next, we made sure to minimize disruption to the business, and particularly, our sales force. I'm very pleased that we saw no disruption in Q4. In fact, HPE Next has galvanized the entire company around our vision to drive tremendous value for customers, partners, and ultimately, shareholders. And all of this is being driven by the strong leadership team we have in place. In addition to Antonio, I hope it was clear at our Analyst Day last month what a deep leadership bench we have with Alain Andreoli, running hybrid IT; Ana Pinczuk, running Pointnext Services; and Keerti Melkote, running Aruba. Phil Davis, our new Chief Sales Officer, has already brought tremendous energy to the new role; and Irv Rothman continues to do an excellent job running Financial Services. Together, this team has honed and refined our go-forward strategy, which is crystal clear and laser-focused.

在執行 HPE Next 時，我們確保將對業務的干擾降到最低，尤其是對我們的銷售人員。我很高興我們在第四季度沒有看到中斷。事實上，HPE Next 已經圍繞我們的願景激勵了整個公司，為客戶、合作夥伴並最終為股東創造巨大價值。所有這一切都是由我們現有的強大領導團隊推動的。除了 Antonio 之外，我希望在上個月的分析師日上清楚地表明我們與運行混合 IT 的 Alain Andreoli 有多麼深厚的領導地位； Ana Pinczuk，運行 Pointnext 服務；和經營阿魯巴島的 Keerti Melkote。我們的新任首席銷售官 Phil Davis 已經為這個新角色帶來了巨大的活力； Irv Rothman 繼續出色地管理金融服務。這個團隊一起磨練和完善了我們的前進戰略，該戰略非常清晰且專注於激光。

First, the world is becoming hybrid, and we make hybrid IT simple. We do that through offerings that help customers optimize their core IT environments with secure software-defined technologies that seamlessly integrate across traditional IT and multiple public and private clouds. Hybrid IT will give; customers a new level of transparency and manageability for all their applications and data from the core to the cloud to the intelligent edge. But our vision doesn't end there. Simplicity ultimately means IT that is invisible and autonomous, and that is exactly what we plan to deliver.

首先，世界正在變得混合，而我們讓混合 IT 變得簡單。我們通過提供可幫助客戶優化其核心 IT 環境的產品來實現這一目標，這些產品採用安全的軟件定義技術，可無縫集成傳統 IT 和多個公有云和私有云。混合 IT 將提供；客戶從核心到雲再到智能邊緣的所有應用程序和數據的透明度和可管理性都達到了新的水平。但我們的願景並不止於此。簡單最終意味著 IT 是無形的和自主的，而這正是我們計劃提供的。

To that end, just this morning, we announced that we have rolled out HPE InfoSight, our highly differentiated predictive AI technology across our entire 3PAR portfolio. This is going to be a game changer for our storage business. HPE InfoSight, which came with the Nimble acquisition, is the industry-leading predictive analytics platform that brings software-defined intelligence to the data center with the ability to predict and prevent infrastructure problems before they happen. Leveraging advanced machine learning, HPE InfoSight is the next step in our vision for an autonomous data center.

為此，就在今天上午，我們宣布推出了 HPE InfoSight，這是我們在整個 3PAR 產品組合中高度差異化的預測人工智能技術。這將改變我們存儲業務的遊戲規則。收購 Nimble 後附帶的 HPE InfoSight 是行業領先的預測分析平台，可將軟件定義的智能引入數據中心，能夠在基礎設施問題發生之前進行預測和預防。利用先進的機器學習，HPE InfoSight 是我們實現自主數據中心願景的下一步。

And next week at Discover Madrid, we will officially introduce Project New Stack. New Stack is all about what our customers want most: simplicity and control. It's a hybrid IT management platform that lets you deploy, operate and optimize public cloud and on-prem private cloud environments through a simple and unified experience, and it will accelerate app development and deployment with integrated DevOps capabilities. This is what our customers have been asking for, and no one else in the market can match the platform we've created.

下週在 Discover Madrid 上，我們將正式介紹 Project New Stack。 New Stack 就是我們客戶最想要的：簡單和控制。它是一個混合 IT 管理平台，可讓您通過簡單統一的體驗部署、運營和優化公共雲和本地私有云環境，並將通過集成的 DevOps 功能加速應用程序開發和部署。這是我們的客戶一直要求的，市場上沒有其他人可以與我們創建的平台相媲美。

Second, we power the intelligent edge. We have highly differentiated offerings in this area that are helping customers drive a revolution across their business from the factory floor to the retail store. Whether it is with our wired and wireless connectivity offerings from Aruba that allow customers to securely connect edge environments and drive new experiences for their customers employees and new revenue streams for their bottom line, our Edgeline Converged Systems that bring storage and compute directly to the source of the data that needs to be analyzed or our universal IoT software platform that seamlessly integrates data from these IoT systems at massive scale.

其次，我們為智能邊緣提供動力。我們在這一領域提供高度差異化的產品，幫助客戶推動從工廠車間到零售店的業務革命。無論是我們 Aruba 的有線和無線連接產品讓客戶能夠安全地連接邊緣環境並為他們的客戶員工帶來新體驗並為他們的底線帶來新的收入流，我們的 Edgeline 融合系統將存儲和計算直接帶到源頭需要分析的數據或我們的通用物聯網軟件平台無縫集成來自這些物聯網系統的大規模數據。

These are all areas where we are well ahead of the market, and the industry is taking notice. Earlier this fall, Aruba was named the leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for wired and wireless networking and placed first for vision. This is the first time that Cisco has ever been displaced from this position.

這些都是我們遠遠領先於市場的領域，並且引起了業界的注意。今年秋天早些時候，Aruba 在 Gartner 的有線和無線網絡魔力像限中被評為領導者，並在願景方面名列第一。這是思科有史以來第一次從這個位置上被取代。

Third, services are more critical than ever. More and more everything we do is driven by our services expertise across advisory, professional and operational services. We are also seeing growing interest in consumption services as our customers look to us for financial flexibility through pay-per-use models. Our offering in this area of Flexible Capacity is different than anything else on the market. Through our services-led solutions, combining hardware, software and financing, we make operating IT simple and elastic. And because we offer a pay-per-use model based on metered usage, customers never overpay on technology they don't use. Look out for more news in this area at Discover next week.

第三，服務比以往任何時候都更加重要。我們所做的越來越多的事情都是由我們在諮詢、專業和運營服務方面的服務專業知識驅動的。我們還看到，隨著客戶希望我們通過按使用付費模式獲得財務靈活性，人們對消費服務的興趣也越來越大。我們在靈活容量領域提供的產品與市場上的任何其他產品都不一樣。通過我們以服務為主導的解決方案，結合硬件、軟件和融資，我們使 IT 運營變得簡單而富有彈性。由於我們提供基於計量使用的按使用付費模式，因此客戶永遠不會為他們不使用的技術多付錢。下週在 Discover 上留意這方面的更多新聞。

Let me say in closing that it has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead the company founded by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. I'm proud of what we've accomplished during the past 6 years. We've laid out a strong foundation for a prosperous future and now is the right time for Antonio and a new generation of leaders to take the reins. I look forward to experiencing HPE's progress as a board member, and I'm very confident that Antonio will enjoy tremendous success.

最後讓我說，領導這家由 Bill Hewlett 和 Dave Packard 創立的公司是我一生的榮幸。我為我們在過去 6 年中取得的成就感到自豪。我們已經為繁榮的未來奠定了堅實的基礎，現在正是安東尼奧和新一代領導人掌權的合適時機。我期待作為董事會成員體驗 HPE 的進步，我非常有信心 Antonio 會取得巨大的成功。

And now, I will hand the call over to Tim, who will provide details on the financial results.

現在，我將把電話轉給蒂姆，他將提供有關財務結果的詳細信息。

Thanks, Meg. Before I jump into the results, I just want to thank you for your tireless leadership of HP and personal mentorship to me over the past 2 years. I'll miss our day-to-day interaction but look forward to working with you as a board member and partnering closely with Antonio going forward. In fact, I joined HP as a CFO of Antonio's business, so we have a long-standing relationship that will make this transition seamless.

謝謝，梅格。在我進入結果之前，我只想感謝您在過去 2 年中對 HP 的不懈領導和對我的個人指導。我會想念我們的日常互動，但期待著作為董事會成員與您合作，並在未來與 Antonio 密切合作。事實上，我加入惠普時擔任 Antonio 業務的首席財務官，因此我們有著長期的合作關係，可以使這一過渡無縫銜接。

So turning to our performance. In Q4, we saw solid revenue growth, sequential operating margin improvement and better-than-expected earnings. Our results in the quarter gives me confidence that we're making the right moves to deliver on our fiscal year '18 commitments and drive long-term shareholder value.

所以轉向我們的表現。在第四季度，我們看到穩健的收入增長、環比營業利潤率改善和好於預期的收益。我們在本季度的業績讓我相信，我們正在採取正確的舉措來兌現我們 18 財年的承諾並推動長期股東價值。

Total revenue for the quarter was $7.8 billion. This includes $174 million or 1 month of Software, which is accounted for in discontinued operations. Revenue from continuing operations was $7.7 billion, up 5%, and when excluding tier 1 server sales, was up over 11%. I'll dive into the business segment performance in a minute.

本季度總收入為 78 億美元。這包括 1.74 億美元或 1 個月的軟件，計入已終止的業務。持續經營收入為 77 億美元，增長 5%，如果不包括一級服務器銷售，增長超過 11%。我將在一分鐘內深入探討業務部門的表現。

From a macro perspective, we continued to see a broadly improving IT spend environment, but competitive pricing and commodities remain headwinds. The exchange rate improved in the quarter, leading to a neutral impact year-over-year in Q4.

從宏觀角度來看，我們繼續看到 IT 支出環境普遍改善，但具有競爭力的定價和商品仍然是不利因素。本季度匯率有所改善，導致第四季度同比產生中性影響。

By region, HPE's performance in the Americas remained steady as core compute stabilized and networking growth accelerated, offset somewhat by softer organic storage results. Revenue in Europe was also driven by networking and continued to grow with mid-single-digit growth in Germany, France and Iberia. Asia Pacific delivered strong core server sales with growth in Japan, Australia, India and China.

按地區劃分，隨著核心計算穩定和網絡增長加速，HPE 在美洲的業績保持穩定，但有機存儲業績疲軟在一定程度上抵消了這一影響。歐洲的收入也受到網絡的推動，並隨著德國、法國和伊比利亞的中個位數增長而繼續增長。亞太地區在日本、澳大利亞、印度和中國實現了強勁的核心服務器銷售增長。

Turning to margins. The gross margin of 29.7% was down 210 basis points year-over-year but up 40 basis points sequentially. Non-GAAP operating profit of 8.2% was down 100 basis points year-over-year but up 130 basis points sequentially. In addition to normal seasonality, we saw a continued benefit from our cost takeout actions and from a better mix as we continue to shift our focus towards the value and growth segments of the market and away from custom commoditized servers. These benefits help offset the continued challenging pricing environment and elevated commodity costs with DRAM increasing another 5% to 10% over the prior quarter.

轉向利潤率。毛利率為 29.7%，同比下降 210 個基點，但環比上升 40 個基點。非美國通用會計準則營業利潤為 8.2%，同比下降 100 個基點，但環比上升 130 個基點。除了正常的季節性之外，隨著我們繼續將重點轉移到市場的價值和增長部分，而不是定製商品化服務器，我們看到我們的成本削減行動和更好的組合帶來了持續的好處。這些好處有助於抵消持續具有挑戰性的定價環境和高漲的商品成本，DRAM 比上一季度又增加了 5% 到 10%。

Non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share of $0.31 is above our previous outlook of $0.26 to $0.30 primarily due to more cost savings, a lower tax rate and favorable other income and expense. Non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share primarily excludes pretax amounts for transformation and restructuring charges of $439 million, separation cost of $272 million, amortization of intangible assets of $96 million and Hurricane Harvey-related charges of $93 million, offset by separation-related income tax adjustments of $785 million.

非 GAAP 攤薄後每股淨收益為 0.31 美元，高於我們之前預期的 0.26 美元至 0.30 美元，這主要是由於更多的成本節約、較低的稅率以及有利的其他收入和支出。非美國通用會計準則每股攤薄淨收益主要不包括 4.39 億美元的轉型和重組費用稅前金額、2.72 億美元的離職成本、9600 萬美元的無形資產攤銷和 9300 萬美元的颶風哈維相關費用，這些費用被與離職相關的收入抵消7.85 億美元的稅收調整。

GAAP diluted net earnings per share was $0.32, above our previously provided outlook range of $0.00 to $0.04, due primarily to a noncash income tax benefit as a result of transactions we undertook in connection with the Software spin-merge and in anticipation of potential tax reform.

GAAP 攤薄後每股淨收益為 0.32 美元，高於我們之前提供的 0.00 美元至 0.04 美元的展望範圍，這主要是由於我們進行的與軟件分拆合併相關的交易以及對潛在稅制改革的預期帶來的非現金所得稅收益.

Now turning to the results by business. In the Enterprise Group, revenue was up 1% year-over-year and up 7%, excluding tier 1 server sales, as we stabilized the core RAC and tower servers business and saw strong momentum in key growth areas like Aruba wireless, campus switching, all-flash storage and Pointnext. Operating margins were down 270 basis points year-over-year. However, they improved 130 basis points sequentially to 10.6%. The sequential margin improvement is primarily the result of the cost-savings plans we are executing and mix benefits from lower tier 1 server sales and higher Pointnext revenue. Server revenue was down 5% year-over-year but grew 6%, excluding tier 1, as we executed our plans to exit the custom commoditized server market. We executed well in our core RAC and tower server business, driving 7% growth as richer attached configurations drove higher AUPs.

現在轉向業務結果。在企業集團，收入同比增長 1%，不包括一級服務器銷售增長 7%，因為我們穩定了核心 RAC 和塔式服務器業務，並在 Aruba 無線、園區交換等關鍵增長領域看到了強勁勢頭、全閃存存儲和 Pointnext。營業利潤率同比下降 270 個基點。然而，他們連續提高了 130 個基點至 10.6%。連續利潤率的提高主要是我們正在執行的成本節約計劃的結果，以及來自較低一級服務器銷售和較高 Pointnext 收入的混合收益。服務器收入同比下降 5%，但增長 6%，不包括第 1 層，因為我們執行了退出定製商品化服務器市場的計劃。我們在核心 RAC 和塔式服務器業務中表現良好，推動了 7% 的增長，因為更豐富的附加配置推動了更高的 AUP。

Looking forward, as discussed at our analyst meeting, we're changing our approach to the volume server segment by exiting custom commoditized servers and moving to a low- or no-touch model for core RAC and tower. This will make us easier to work with and will help us further expand our profitability.

展望未來，正如在我們的分析師會議上所討論的那樣，我們正在通過退出定製商品化服務器並轉向核心 RAC 和塔式的低接觸或無接觸模型來改變我們對卷服務器部分的方法。這將使我們更容易合作，並將幫助我們進一步擴大盈利能力。

In our value and growth portfolio, which carries higher margins and better services attached, high-performance compute grew almost 30% with SGI and 2% organically. And Synergy also continues to ramp, growing over 60% sequentially and now has over 1,100 customers.

在我們的價值和增長組合中，它具有更高的利潤率和更好的附加服務，高性能計算通過 SGI 增長了近 30%，有機增長了 2%。 Synergy 也在繼續增長，環比增長超過 60%，現在擁有超過 1,100 家客戶。

Storage revenue was up 5%, driven by the Nimble acquisition. All-flash arrays grew 16% year-over-year with Nimble up over 80%, which continues to outpace expectations. 3PAR performance was soft due to a tough competitive environment in the midrange and some go-to-market challenges in America. We're addressing these challenges head-on by bringing together the Nimble and 3PAR sales team under a new leader, Keegan Riley, who led sales at Nimble and are aggressively hiring more storage specialists for the field. As Meg mentioned, we're also rolling out InfoSight, Nimble's predictive AI technology across our entire 3PAR portfolio. We're confident that these actions will quickly turn things around.

在收購 Nimble 的推動下，存儲收入增長了 5%。全閃存陣列同比增長 16%，其中 Nimble 增長超過 80%，繼續超出預期。由於中端市場的激烈競爭環境以及美國的一些上市挑戰，3PAR 的表現疲軟。我們通過將 Nimble 和 3PAR 銷售團隊召集到新領導 Keegan Riley 的領導下來應對這些挑戰，他領導 Nimble 的銷售工作，並正在積極招聘更多該領域的存儲專家。正如 Meg 所提到的，我們還在整個 3PAR 產品組合中推出了 Nimble 的預測人工智能技術 InfoSight。我們相信這些行動將迅速扭轉局面。

Networking continues to perform very well with revenue up 21% driven by campus switching, which was up 28%; and Aruba wireless solutions, which grew over 19%. We continued to be encouraged by the very strong Aruba-led pull-through of wired switching, reinforcing both the Aruba investment thesis and the strength of the new Aruba-branded switching portfolio. We're also getting excellent feedback from our new Aruba core aggregation switch. In total, networking grew across all product groups and geographies.

網絡繼續表現良好，收入增長 21%，增長了 28%； Aruba 無線解決方案增長超過 19%。我們繼續對 Aruba 主導的有線交換的強大推動力感到鼓舞，這加強了 Aruba 的投資論點和新的 Aruba 品牌交換產品組合的實力。我們還從我們的新 Aruba 核心匯聚交換機中獲得了極好的反饋。總的來說，所有產品組和地區的網絡都在增長。

Technology Services, including Pointnext, grew revenue for the sixth consecutive quarter, up 3% year-over-year. Orders returned to growth up 3% year-over-year, led by better than 4% growth in support. Within support, both attached and nonattached orders grew with double-digit growth in Flex Capacity and Datacenter Care. We also continued to increase our services intensity, which offset lower hardware unit sales.

包括 Pointnext 在內的技術服務收入連續第六個季度增長，同比增長 3%。在支持增長超過 4% 的帶動下，訂單恢復同比增長 3%。在支持方面，附加和非附加訂單都隨著 Flex Capacity 和 Datacenter Care 的兩位數增長而增長。我們還繼續提高服務強度，這抵消了較低的硬件單位銷售額。

HPE Financial Services revenue grew 22%, driven by a large onetime lease buyout and continued lease conversions. Excluding these items, revenue increased 1%, the sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Financing volume was down 2% as solid growth in our direct business was offset by declines in our indirect business. Operating profit declined 250 basis points year-over-year to 7.7%, reflecting onetime items and the increased operating lease mix. The return on equity for Q4 was 13.2%, up 210 basis points sequentially.

HPE 金融服務收入增長 22%，主要受一次性租賃收購和持續租賃轉換的推動。排除這些項目，收入增長 1%，連續第六個季度實現同比增長。由於我們直接業務的穩健增長被間接業務的下滑所抵消，融資額下降了 2%。營業利潤同比下降 250 個基點至 7.7%，反映了一次性項目和經營租賃組合的增加。第四季度的股本回報率為 13.2%，環比上升 210 個基點。

So looking back at the quarter, I'm pleased with the progress we've made and encouraged by not only our improving financial performance but also many customer wins. For instance, the NASA Langley Research Center is now using our HPC clusters to test and help solve problems, involving the physics of advanced propulsion. We expect our relationship with NASA to grow as we add capabilities to their new HPC data center going forward. CenturyLink, the second-largest U.S. communications provider, chose 3PAR with Datacenter Care support for a recent IT refresh. Aruba announced a partnership with Purdue University's College of Agriculture to help develop and deliver a digital agricultural program that will revolutionize farming and food production for a growing global population. Pointnext won a significant deal with the Walt Disney Company. And we're helping the biggest and oldest bank in India, the State Bank of India, with its digital transformation. These are just a few of the many wins we had in the quarter, but I think they demonstrate the solid momentum we're seeing and some of the opportunity ahead.

因此，回顧本季度，我對我們取得的進步感到高興，並且不僅因為我們不斷改善的財務業績而且贏得了許多客戶而感到鼓舞。例如，美國宇航局蘭利研究中心現在正在使用我們的 HPC 集群來測試和幫助解決問題，涉及先進推進的物理學。隨著我們在未來為其新的 HPC 數據中心增加功能，我們預計我們與 NASA 的關係會得到發展。美國第二大通信提供商 CenturyLink 選擇了 3PAR 和 Datacenter Care 支持進行最近的 IT 更新。 Aruba 宣布與普渡大學農學院建立合作夥伴關係，以幫助開發和提供數字農業計劃，該計劃將為不斷增長的全球人口徹底改變農業和糧食生產。 Pointnext 贏得了與華特迪士尼公司的重要交易。我們正在幫助印度最大和歷史最悠久的銀行印度國家銀行進行數字化轉型。這些只是我們在本季度取得的眾多勝利中的一小部分，但我認為它們展示了我們看到的強勁勢頭和未來的一些機會。

Now turning to cash flow. Free cash flow was better than expected at $370 million, benefiting from continued improvement in working capital. The cash conversion cycle improved 6 days sequentially to negative 27 days driven primarily by increased payment terms.

現在轉向現金流。受益於營運資金的持續改善，自由現金流好於預期的 3.7 億美元。現金周轉週期連續縮短 6 天至負的 27 天，這主要是由於付款條件增加所致。

We returned $725 million to shareholders during the quarter, including $105 million in dividend payments and $620 million of share repurchases. For the full year, we returned $3 billion to shareholders, in line with the commitment we laid out at the beginning of the year.

本季度我們向股東返還了 7.25 億美元，其中包括 1.05 億美元的股息支付和 6.2 億美元的股票回購。全年，我們根據年初做出的承諾向股東返還了 30 億美元。

We ended the year with an operating company net cash balance of $5.8 billion, slightly below our guided range of $6 billion to $6.5 billion due to the timing of a payment associated with the spin-merge balance sheet true-ups. We anticipate receiving this payment of approximately $200 million in Q1 of '18.

由於與分拆合併資產負債表相關的付款時間安排，我們在年底運營公司的淨現金餘額為 58 億美元，略低於我們 60 億美元至 65 億美元的指導範圍。我們預計將在 18 年第一季度收到大約 2 億美元的付款。

Turning to our outlook. We recently gave detailed fiscal year '18 guidance at our Security Analyst Day, and I encourage you to review my presentation for a more detailed discussion of that outlook. However, I think it's worth reiterating a few points. We continue to expect fiscal year '18 non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share of $1.15 to $1.25. We expect normalized free cash flow of $2 billion and as-reported free cash flow of $1 billion, and we remain committed to returning $2.5 billion of capital to shareholders in the form of $2 billion of share buybacks and $500 million of dividends, which we just increased by 15% from $0.065 to $0.075 per share each quarter. Our board also recently increased our share repurchase authorization by $5 billion.

轉向我們的前景。我們最近在我們的安全分析師日提供了詳細的 18 財年指導，我鼓勵您查看我的演示文稿以更詳細地討論該前景。但是，我認為有幾點值得重申。我們繼續預計 18 財年非 GAAP 稀釋後每股淨收益為 1.15 美元至 1.25 美元。我們預計正常化自由現金流為 20 億美元，報告的自由現金流為 10 億美元，我們仍然致力於以 20 億美元的股票回購和 5 億美元的股息的形式向股東返還 25 億美元的資本，我們剛剛每季度從每股 0.065 美元增加到 0.075 美元，增幅為 15%。我們的董事會最近還增加了 50 億美元的股票回購授權。

As we discussed at our Analyst Day, fiscal year '18 EPS will be back-end loaded towards the second half. There are a few reasons for this. First, the cost savings and business simplification benefits from HPE Next will ramp throughout the year. Also, the earnings contributions from our recent acquisitions will become more accretive as the year progresses. We'll also see the benefits from share buybacks compound throughout the year, and we should get a natural mix benefit as our higher-margin value products and services become a greater percentage of our business. As a result, we expect Q1 '18 non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share of $0.20 to $0.24, and we expect GAAP diluted net earnings per share to be $0.01 to $0.05.

正如我們在分析師日討論的那樣，'18 財年 EPS 將在下半年後端加載。這有幾個原因。首先，HPE Next 帶來的成本節約和業務簡化優勢將在全年不斷增加。此外，隨著時間的推移，我們最近收購的收益貢獻將變得更加增值。我們還將看到全年股票回購帶來的好處，隨著我們的利潤率更高的產品和服務在我們業務中所佔比例越來越大，我們應該會獲得自然的混合收益。因此，我們預計 18 年第一季度非 GAAP 攤薄後每股淨收益為 0.20 美元至 0.24 美元，我們預計 GAAP 攤薄後每股淨收益為 0.01 美元至 0.05 美元。

Now before I turn it over to Q&A, I want to briefly touch on our reporting structure for next year. Beginning in fiscal year '18, we'll report 3 segments: hybrid IT, which includes servers, storage, data center networking and Pointnext; intelligent edge, which includes wireless LAN, campus and branch switching, edge compute and Aruba services; and lastly, Financial Services. This new cut of our business more accurately reflects how we go to market and how we've begun to manage the business internally in fiscal year '18. We'll provide restatement tables towards the end of our first quarter.

現在，在進行問答環節之前，我想簡要談談我們明年的報告結構。從 18 財年開始，我們將報告 3 個部分：混合 IT，包括服務器、存儲、數據中心網絡和 Pointnext；智能邊緣，包括無線局域網、園區和分支機構交換、邊緣計算和 Aruba 服務；最後，金融服務。我們業務的這一新削減更準確地反映了我們如何進入市場以及我們如何開始在 18 財年內部管理業務。我們將在第一季度末提供重述表。

So overall, like Meg, I'm very pleased with the performance this year. The work we've been doing over the past couple of years is paying off, and we are well positioned for fiscal year '18.

所以總的來說，和梅格一樣，我對今年的表現非常滿意。我們在過去幾年所做的工作正在取得回報，我們為 18 財年做好了準備。

Now let's open it up for questions.

現在讓我們打開它來提問。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question is from Sherri Scribner with Deutsche Bank.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Sherri Scribner。

I just wanted to dig a little bit into the different segments. If you look at the storage business, it decelerated a little bit. And I guess I would have thought that storage might have grown a little bit more sequentially. Was that primarily related to some of the issues at 3PAR because it sounds like the all-flash array and the Nimble business are doing well?

我只是想深入了解不同的細分市場。如果你看看存儲業務，它會稍微減速。而且我想我會認為存儲可能會按順序增長一點。這是否主要與 3PAR 的一些問題有關，因為聽起來全閃存陣列和 Nimble 業務表現良好？

Yes. So it's Meg. The storage revenue was up 5%, driven by the Nimble acquisition. And as you said, the all-flash arrays grew 16% with Nimble was up over 80%, so a good performance overall. But as Tim mentioned, 3PAR performance was soft due to, I think, a very tough competitive environment in the midrange and then some sales challenges in the United States. So we're taking action. We're combining the Nimble and 3PAR storage sales teams, which is going to give us more critical mass there. And that's going to be led by Keegan Riley, who led sales at Nimble. And we're also going to aggressively add some more specialists to the field. So I think you hit it right on the head, a little weakness in the U.S., and we're fixing it.

是的。所以是梅格。在收購 Nimble 的推動下，存儲收入增長了 5%。正如您所說，全閃存陣列增長了 16%，而 Nimble 增長了 80% 以上，因此整體表現良好。但正如 Tim 所提到的，3PAR 表現疲軟，我認為是由於中端市場競爭環境非常嚴峻，然後是美國的一些銷售挑戰。所以我們正在採取行動。我們正在合併 Nimble 和 3PAR 存儲銷售團隊，這將為我們提供更多的臨界質量。這將由 Nimble 的銷售主管 Keegan Riley 領導。我們還將積極地為該領域增加一些專家。所以我認為你正中要害，美國的一個小弱點，我們正在解決它。

I think also InfoSight will help as we roll that across the 3PAR portfolio.

我認為 InfoSight 也會在我們將其推廣到 3PAR 產品組合時提供幫助。

Okay, great. And then just on the server business, that also decelerated. But I know you have a strategy shift in that business. Was part of the decline in service related to that strategy shift? And as we move into '18, should we expect the server business to decline because of the less focus on the lower-margin business?

好的，太好了。然後就服務器業務而言，它也減速了。但我知道你在該業務中有戰略轉變。服務下降的部分原因與戰略轉變有關嗎？隨著我們進入 18 年，我們是否應該期望服務器業務會因為對低利潤業務的關注減少而下降？

Yes. No. I think you've got this exactly right. Servers had another strong quarter outside of tier 1. Remember, we had quite a large tier 1 service provider business that had a fair amount of revenue but not much profit associated with it. But outside that, it grew 6%. And I think that was execution, market improvement and some good traction in our higher-value offering. So in addition to stabilizing core RAC and tower, we're pivoting hard to our value and growth offerings like HPC, Synergy, SimpliVity, et cetera. But you will see some declines in the server business next year as that tier 1 business continues to bleed off.

是的。不，我認為你完全正確。服務器在第 1 層之外還有一個強勁的季度。請記住，我們有相當大的第 1 層服務提供商業務，其收入相當可觀，但與之相關的利潤並不多。但除此之外，它增長了 6%。我認為這是執行、市場改善和我們更高價值產品的一些良好牽引力。因此，除了穩定核心 RAC 和塔式之外，我們還努力轉向我們的價值和增長產品，如 HPC、Synergy、SimpliVity 等。但是明年你會看到服務器業務有所下滑，因為一級業務繼續流失。

The next question comes from Katy Huberty with Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Katy Huberty。

Yes. I just wanted to follow up on the server comments. Curious whether Intel Purley product cycle is impacting the business yet? Or is that a catalyst that you think hits in calendar 2018? And then when you think about annualizing the tier 1 base of business, when do you think the server category on a reported basis can get back to growth?

是的。我只是想跟進服務器評論。想知道英特爾 Purley 產品週期是否正在影響業務了嗎？還是您認為這是 2018 年的催化劑？然後，當您考慮對 1 級業務基礎進行年度化時，您認為報告基礎上的服務器類別何時可以恢復增長？

So why don't you take the ex Tier 1 server growth, and I'll take the other question?

那麼你為什麼不考慮前 1 級服務器的增長，而我來回答另一個問題？

Sorry about that. Yes. As far as the tier 1 component, I would say that probably runs off to an immaterial amount, probably in the late 2019, 2020 time frame.

對於那個很抱歉。是的。至於第 1 層組件，我想說可能會在 2019 年末、2020 年的時間框架內耗盡到一個無關緊要的數量。

Great. And then listen, our Gen10 server, which is on the new Intel chip called Skylake, is off to a good start. There's some concern in the industry that because there's not quite the features and functionality advancement that there normally is in their ticktock, but that might be a slower ramp. But thus far, we're not seeing that. So we're cautiously optimistic about Gen10. What I will say about -- based on Skylake, what I will say about Gen10 is we have a real point of difference in Gen10, which is we have produced the most secure server in the world. Security is built in as a root of trust into the silicon. No one else has anything like this, and this is making a real difference because security continues to be an enormous issue for everyone. So let's stay tuned on Skylake. We're not seeing any diminution of that tick-tock, but we'll have to see how it plays out.

偉大的。然後聽著，我們的 Gen10 服務器在名為 Skylake 的新英特爾芯片上運行良好，開局良好。業內存在一些擔憂，因為他們的 ticktock 中通常沒有完全的特性和功能進步，但這可能是一個較慢的斜坡。但到目前為止，我們還沒有看到這一點。因此，我們對 Gen10 持謹慎樂觀態度。我要說的是——基於 Skylake，關於 Gen10，我要說的是我們在 Gen10 中有一個真正的不同點，那就是我們生產了世界上最安全的服務器。安全性作為矽的信任根而內置。沒有其他人擁有這樣的東西，這正在產生真正的影響，因為安全對每個人來說仍然是一個巨大的問題。因此，讓我們繼續關注 Skylake。我們沒有看到滴答聲有任何減少，但我們必須看看它是如何發揮作用的。

Our next question comes from Toni Sacconaghi with Bernstein.

我們的下一個問題來自 Toni Sacconaghi 和 Bernstein。

Yes. One for Meg and then maybe one for Tim or Meg. Meg, just in terms of the timing of your announcement to hand over the reins to Antonio, I got to say I'm a little surprised. I think in the last 3 months, you've said things like I'm not going anywhere, and there is still more work to do and I have no plans to leave. And so this, in light of those comments, feels a little abrupt. I'm wondering if maybe you can add some color in terms of was there a change of heart? I would certainly say that there's still a long ways to go in terms of improvement in the server business, and margins were down almost 300 basis points year-over-year. So there still is a lot of work. And so it's not entirely obvious to an outsider that HP is at some ready point for a change. So maybe you could add some color.

是的。一份給梅格，然後一份給蒂姆或梅格。梅格，就你宣布將權力移交給安東尼奧的時間而言，我不得不說我有點驚訝。我想在過去的 3 個月裡，你說過我哪兒也不去，還有很多工作要做，我沒有離開的計劃。因此，鑑於這些評論，這感覺有點突然。我想知道您是否可以添加一些顏色，說明是否改變了主意？我肯定會說，服務器業務的改進還有很長的路要走，利潤率同比下降了近 300 個基點。所以還有很多工作要做。因此，對於局外人來說，惠普已經準備好進行變革並不完全明顯。所以也許你可以添加一些顏色。

Yes. So there hasn't been a change in sentiment. What I think is absolutely true is Antonio is ready to take the reins and go the distance. And if you think about it, we have a much smaller, much nimbler, much more focused company, and I think it is absolutely the right time for Antonio and a new generation of leaders to take the reins. We've got a very good leadership bench. We've got a strategy that is crystal clear and focused, and Antonio is a deep technologist. And I think I have added a lot of value here in terms of shareholder value creation, financial restructuring, ignition of the innovation engine. But the next CEO of this company needs to be a deeper technologist, and that's exactly what Antonio is. He's been with the company 22 years. He's a trained computer engineer and has worked in almost every business of this company. So I just think it's the right thing. And I also think Antonio is going to lead the next phase of value creation. We've created a lot of shareholder value here. I think over 220% shareholder value from -- right before the announcement of the turnaround in the fall of 2012. Just HPE, alone, 89% increase since the separation, which is 3x the S&P 500. And HPE Next, and the simplification of our business and the execution of the strategy that Antonio and I put together between the 2 of us, he's going to lead that next generation of shareholder value creation.

是的。因此，情緒沒有發生任何變化。我認為絕對正確的是，安東尼奧已經準備好接管一切並堅持到底。如果你仔細想想，我們的公司要小得多、靈活得多、專注得多，我認為現在絕對是安東尼奧和新一代領導者掌權的正確時機。我們有一個非常好的領導替補席。我們有一個非常清晰和專注的戰略，而安東尼奧是一位深厚的技術專家。我認為我在股東價值創造、財務重組、創新引擎點火方面增加了很多價值。但是這家公司的下一任 CEO 需要成為一名更深層次的技術專家，而 Antonio 正是這樣的人。他在公司工作了 22 年。他是一名訓練有素的計算機工程師，幾乎在這家公司的每個業務部門都工作過。所以我認為這是正確的事情。而且我還認為安東尼奧將領導下一階段的價值創造。我們在這裡創造了很多股東價值。我認為超過 220% 的股東價值來自 - 就在 2012 年秋季宣布轉機之前。僅 HPE，自分離以來增長了 89%，是標準普爾 500 指數的 3 倍。還有 HPE Next，以及簡化我們的業務以及安東尼奧和我在我們兩人之間制定的戰略的執行，他將領導下一代股東價值創造。

And then just secondly and separately, you had commented on DRAM prices being up another 5% or 10% this quarter. I'm wondering, a, if you can comment on why that doesn't make you less confident about your ability to hit margin targets; and b, whether you can comment on whether the competitive pricing environment has improved at all. Quite frankly, I was looking for more in terms of sequential margin improvement in the Enterprise Group, especially given all the cost cutting you were doing. And I'm wondering if you gave some of that back because of DRAM and competition.

其次，您曾評論說 DRAM 價格本季度又上漲了 5% 或 10%。我想知道，a，你是否可以評論一下為什麼這不會讓你對自己達到利潤率目標的能力降低信心？ b，您是否可以評論競爭性定價環境是否有所改善。坦率地說，我一直在尋找企業集團連續利潤率改善方面的更多信息，特別是考慮到您正在削減的所有成本。我想知道你是否因為 DRAM 和競爭而回饋了一些。

Yes. I would say the margin expansion, if you look at Q4, the 10.6% was up 130 basis points. So we were to continue to improve margins, primarily driven by the $200 million to $300 million cost actions that we talked about in Q2 of '17. What gives us confidence despite DRAM is up another 5% to 10% in Q4, as we look forward into 2018, we still have a lot of tailwinds, right. We talked about it at SAM. So if you look at HPE Next at $250 million of net savings, we are on track to do that. Now I will say that is roughly 2/3 of that is in the back half of the year. So as you think about quarterly splits and margins, I would take that into account. But we feel very good about what's going on there. We continue to rightsize the cost envelopes of the recent acquisitions that we've done. Those will become more and more accretive as we go through 2018, so we have a lot of things that we think will continue to improve margins. And we still feel -- based off of what everything we see today, we feel good about the 11% to 12%.

是的。我會說利潤率擴張，如果你看一下第四季度，10.6% 上升了 130 個基點。因此，我們將繼續提高利潤率，這主要是由我們在 17 年第二季度談到的 2 億至 3 億美元的成本行動推動的。儘管 DRAM 在第四季度又增長了 5% 到 10%，但讓我們充滿信心的是，當我們展望 2018 年時，我們仍然有很多順風，對吧。我們在 SAM 討論過它。因此，如果您以 2.5 億美元的淨節省來看待 HPE Next，我們有望實現這一目標。現在我要說的是，大約有 2/3 是在今年下半年。因此，當您考慮季度拆分和利潤時，我會考慮到這一點。但我們對那裡發生的事情感覺很好。我們繼續調整我們最近完成的收購的成本範圍。隨著我們度過 2018 年，這些將變得越來越增值，因此我們有很多我們認為會繼續提高利潤率的事情。我們仍然覺得——基於我們今天看到的一切，我們對 11% 到 12% 感覺良好。

The other thing I'd add to that, Toni, is this strategy to pivot to the value and the growth segments of our portfolio is absolutely critical because just a mix shift of a couple of percent actually increases the operating margin. And we anticipate that, that will happen as we realign the sales force, as we focus marketing on the value and growth segment and we realize the potential of the portfolio. I would say the competitive pricing environment is maybe slightly mitigated, but it would be hard for me to gauge that because it varies by country. It varies by product line, and it shifts from month-to-month and quarter-to-quarter. So while I would say, overall, there's been some mitigation in that pricing environment, I would not say it is universal. And we're not counting on that for the delivery of our operating margin in 2018. And then DRAM pricing appears to now be leveling out. And you talk to people in the industry, it appears that supply is now beginning to match demand. There's going to be more supply, I think, from the key vendors of memory. And so we'll see what happens. We are not counting, by the way, on -- to deliver our results on a drop in DRAM pricing. We're also not counting on another 15%, 20% increase in DRAM pricing. But we feel pretty good about where we are, and I got a lot of confidence that we're going to hit our $1.15 to $1.20 and the 11% to 12% operating margin.

托尼，我要補充的另一件事是，這種轉向我們投資組合的價值和增長部分的戰略是絕對關鍵的，因為僅僅幾個百分點的混合轉變實際上會增加營業利潤率。我們預計，這將在我們重新調整銷售隊伍時發生，因為我們將營銷重點放在價值和增長部分，並且我們意識到投資組合的潛力。我想說競爭性定價環境可能會略有緩和，但我很難衡量這一點，因為它因國家/地區而異。它因產品線而異，並且會逐月和逐季度變化。因此，雖然我會說，總體而言，定價環境有所緩解，但我不會說它是普遍的。我們並不指望在 2018 年實現營業利潤率。然後 DRAM 定價現在似乎趨於平穩。你和業內人士交談，似乎供應現在開始與需求相匹配。我認為，主要的內存供應商將會提供更多的供應。因此，我們將看看會發生什麼。順便說一下，我們並沒有指望——在 DRAM 價格下降時交付我們的結果。我們也不指望 DRAM 價格再上漲 15%、20%。但我們對自己所處的位置感覺非常好，而且我非常有信心我們將達到 1.15 美元至 1.20 美元和 11% 至 12% 的營業利潤率。

The next question comes from Shannon Cross with Cross Research.

下一個問題來自 Cross Research 的 Shannon Cross。

I wanted to dig a bit more into the issues on the sale side and how they sort of came to the forefront and obviously what you're doing to mitigate them. But then also, just want to think about as you go through and really revamp your sales structure and collapse levels that you talked about during the Analyst Day, what are you doing to make sure that you don't see softness in revenue around that shift?

我想更深入地了解銷售方面的問題，以及它們是如何走到最前沿的，顯然你正在做些什麼來減輕它們。但同時，只想想想當你經歷並真正改造你的銷售結構和你在分析師日談到的崩潰水平時，你正在做什麼以確保你不會看到圍繞這一轉變的收入疲軟？

Yes. Good question. So during Q4, we moved aggressively from the design phase of HPE Next to the execution phase of HPE Next. And we are very focused on minimizing disruption, particularly with the sales team but other areas as well. And so we're leveraging a lot of the best practices that enabled us to deliver our recent separations on time, on budget. It was the divestiture management office approach or the separation management approach. And so in Q4, we've already begun implementing the sales changes. I mean, those are done actually. We started in November 1 with a lot of changes, but we did a lot of changes in Q4 as well. We dismantled, actually, the region overhead structure. We refocused our sales force. We put more specialists in the field, and we saw no impact to frontline sales from those changes that we made in Q4. So that gives us confidence. And they went -- started November 1, all -- firing on all cylinders with the new organization and with couple months under their belt. So we feel pretty good about that. I would say the storage challenge in the U.S. was largely around not enough specialists in the field. And frankly, we need more scale in our storage sales here. And combining Nimble and 3PAR under Keegan Riley, I think, is going to really help here.

是的。好問題。因此，在第四季度，我們積極地從 HPE Next 的設計階段轉移到 HPE Next 的執行階段。我們非常專注於最大限度地減少干擾，尤其是對銷售團隊以及其他領域。因此，我們正在利用許多最佳實踐，使我們能夠在預算內按時交付我們最近的分離。這是剝離管理辦公室方法或分離管理方法。因此在第四季度，我們已經開始實施銷售變更。我的意思是，這些實際上已經完成了。我們從 11 月 1 日開始進行了很多更改，但我們在第四季度也做了很多更改。實際上，我們拆除了區域開銷結構。我們重新調整了銷售隊伍的重點。我們在該領域投入了更多專家，我們發現我們在第四季度所做的這些改變對一線銷售沒有影響。所以這給了我們信心。他們去了 - 從 11 月 1 日開始，所有 - 在新組織和幾個月的時間裡全力以赴。所以我們對此感覺很好。我想說美國的存儲挑戰主要是因為該領域的專家不足。坦率地說，我們需要擴大這裡的存儲銷售規模。我認為，在 Keegan Riley 的領導下，將 Nimble 和 3PAR 結合起來，將在這方面真正發揮作用。

I would say the other thing on the sales front is we radically simplified our comp plans. So we went from, say, 400 or so type of comp plans down to 25 core plans or so. Folks will be very focused. We've simplified that, and we think that will be helpful as well.

我想說的是，在銷售方面，我們從根本上簡化了薪酬計劃。所以我們從 400 種左右的補償計劃減少到 25 種左右的核心計劃。人們會非常專注。我們對此進行了簡化，我們認為這也會有所幫助。

And lastly, Shannon, I would say we didn't talk about it much, but Hurricane Harvey disrupted our supply chain in a reasonably dramatic fashion. Tim mentioned it was $93 million of cost to recover from Hurricane Harvey, and that does not include Puerto Rico. And so we had to divert a lot of our Houston manufacturing to Europe and then air freight those products back into the United States. So we've announced that we are no longer going to be manufacturing in Houston. Any U.S. required manufacturing will be done in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and then we are redistributing our manufacturing to locations around the world. So that was another part of the weakness -- some weakness in Q4. The good news is we go into Q1 with a nice backlog because we just simply couldn't turn the supply chain on a dime. So we've got a really nice backlog going into Q1.

最後，香農，我想說我們沒有談論太多，但哈維颶風以相當戲劇化的方式擾亂了我們的供應鏈。蒂姆提到從颶風哈維中恢復的成本為 9300 萬美元，其中不包括波多黎各。因此，我們不得不將休斯頓的許多製造業務轉移到歐洲，然後將這些產品空運回美國。所以我們已經宣布我們將不再在休斯頓生產。任何美國要求的製造都將在威斯康星州奇珀瓦福爾斯完成，然後我們將製造重新分配到世界各地。所以這是弱點的另一部分——第四季度的一些弱點。好消息是我們進入第一季度時積壓了大量訂單，因為我們根本無法在一毛錢上改變供應鏈。所以我們有一個非常好的積壓進入第一季度。

Okay. And then, Tim, can you just talk a little bit about maybe the progression of margins as we think about 2018? You said back-end loaded. But I'm just kind of curious, given all the cost cutting you've done now and that how should we really think about the ramp? And do you think you can get back to some of the more historical levels when we get toward the end of the year?

好的。然後，蒂姆，你能談談我們對 2018 年的利潤率進展嗎？你說後端加載。但我只是有點好奇，考慮到你現在所做的所有成本削減，我們應該如何真正考慮斜坡？當我們接近年底時，你認為你能回到一些更具歷史意義的水平嗎？

Yes. I think -- again, I think we feel very good about the 11% to 12% in '18. We will be low in Q1. I mean, if you go from Q4 to Q1, we have typical seasonality. So if you go back to '17 or '16 or '15 and look at the EG OP, you'll see some of that seasonality. The other thing that you have will be when we took out that $200 million to $300 million of costs in the second half of last year, not all of that was run rate. So although we'll see cost savings going forward, when you compare Q4 to Q1, we'll be a little bit lighter. So Q1 margins will be still pressured. But then as you go forward, again, if you look at that $250 million of cost savings, as I said earlier, roughly 2/3 of that or so is in the second half. So you can load it up that way. The M&A, again, as we continue to rightsize the cost envelopes of that, that will continue to progress as we go out through the course of the year. So -- and then mix, to Meg's point, as we continue to grow Aruba, all-flash, high-performance compute and those product lines become a heavier mix, we should get a natural lift. So we would expect to see Q1 margins somewhat pressured, but those will continue to improve throughout the course of the year and will end up in the 11% to 12% range.

是的。我認為 - 再一次，我認為我們對 18 年的 11% 到 12% 感到非常滿意。我們將在第一季度處於低位。我的意思是，如果你從第四季度到第一季度，我們就會有典型的季節性。因此，如果你回到 17 年或 16 年或 15 年並查看 EG OP，你會看到一些季節性。你擁有的另一件事是，當我們在去年下半年拿出 2 億至 3 億美元的成本時，並非所有這些都是運行率。因此，儘管我們會看到未來的成本節約，但當您將第四季度與第一季度進行比較時，我們會更輕一些。因此，第一季度利潤率仍將面臨壓力。但是當你繼續前進時，如果你再看看那 2.5 億美元的成本節約，正如我之前所說，大約有 2/3 左右是在下半年。所以你可以這樣加載它。併購，再次，隨著我們繼續調整其成本範圍，隨著我們在這一年中的發展，這將繼續取得進展。所以——然後混合，就梅格的觀點而言，隨著我們繼續發展 Aruba、全閃存、高性能計算，這些產品線變得更重，我們應該得到自然的提升。因此，我們預計第一季度的利潤率會受到一定壓力，但全年利潤率將繼續改善，最終將在 11% 至 12% 的範圍內。

Our next question comes from Jim Suva with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗的吉姆蘇瓦。

First question for Tim -- for Antonio then a question for Tim, and I'll kind of ask them at the same time. Antonio, since you had a very...

第一個問題要問蒂姆——安東尼奧，然後是蒂姆的問題，我會同時問他們。安東尼奧，因為你有一個非常...

I'm sorry, we just have Meg and Tim on the call.

抱歉，我們只有梅格和蒂姆在通話。

Got you. Okay. Well, I guess given his very prevalent stage time, is it fair to say that, internally, the strategy of HP is what we heard from you, Meg, at the Investor Day? Or sometimes with a leadership change, they say, "Hey, we had the HPE Next program. Now it's the HPE Next 2 program or something like that?" And the question for Tim is on Financial Services, that went up a lot. And can you help us understand about that? I think it was up over 20% year-over-year, yet you talked about volumes relatively consistent. Are you offering more advantageous terms? Or how do we connect the dots of what's going on there with that Financial Services?

明白了好的。好吧，我想考慮到他非常普遍的舞台時間，在內部，惠普的戰略是我們在投資者日從你那裡聽到的，梅格，這公平嗎？或者有時隨著領導層的變動，他們會說，“嘿，我們有 HPE Next 計劃。現在是 HPE Next 2 計劃或類似的計劃？”蒂姆的問題是關於金融服務的，這個問題上升了很多。你能幫助我們理解嗎？我認為它同比增長超過 20%，但你談到的數量相對一致。你們提供更優惠的條件嗎？或者我們如何將正在發生的事情與金融服務聯繫起來？

Yes. Let me answer the strategy question. So the strategy will remain entirely consistent. It was crafted by Antonio and I. He has been leading HPE Next, so I don't think he's going to lead another one in terms of reinventing that. And we're completely aligned on the strategy as is the sales team as is the entire organization. And by the way, it's working. You can see it working in the field, so you can expect entirely consistent strategy from Antonio.

是的。讓我回答戰略問題。因此，該策略將保持完全一致。它是由 Antonio 和我製作的。他一直在領導 HPE Next，所以我認為他不會在重塑它方面領導另一個人。我們在戰略上完全一致，銷售團隊也是如此，整個組織也是如此。順便說一下，它正在運行。你可以看到它在現場發揮作用，因此你可以期待安東尼奧採用完全一致的策略。

And as far as Financial Services goes, that 22% was driven by 2 things. We did have a large onetime lease buyout as well as the fact that we have a heavier mix of operating leases as compared to last year, so that's really what's driving the 22%. If you strip those 2 items out to get a more normalized view, we have about 1% growth. But that business continues to perform well. We are growing. That was our sixth consecutive quarter. If you look at our loss ratios and our remarketing capabilities, the team is doing a nice job.

就金融服務而言，這 22% 是由兩件事驅動的。與去年相比，我們確實有大量的一次性租賃買斷，而且我們的經營租賃組合更多，所以這才是推動 22% 增長的真正原因。如果你去掉這兩項以獲得更規範化的視圖，我們會有大約 1% 的增長。但該業務繼續表現良好。我們在成長。那是我們連續第六個季度。如果您查看我們的損失率和再營銷能力，就會發現該團隊做得很好。

Our next question comes from Steve Milunovich with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的 Steve Milunovich。

My 2 questions would be, first of all, for Tim. Can you quantify the impact on gross margin from the higher commodity costs during the year? And the NAND, you had some issues earlier in the year, just getting enough NAND for storage. Is that no longer an issue? And then second for Meg. Maybe you could just kind of step back and think about over your tenure at HP, how you're -- what you've heard that's different from customers, both in terms of how they think about their investing in technology and also how they view HPE?

我的兩個問題首先是針對蒂姆的。您能否量化年內商品成本上升對毛利率的影響？而 NAND，你在今年早些時候遇到了一些問題，只是獲得足夠的 NAND 用於存儲。這不再是問題了嗎？然後是梅格的第二名。也許你可以退後一步，想想你在惠普的任期，你是如何——你所聽到的與客戶不同的地方，無論是在他們如何看待他們對技術的投資以及他們如何看待慧與？

Okay. On the commodity costs, 10% lift. If it holds for the course of the year, again, assuming the same pricing dynamics, is probably a couple hundred million dollars, so over the course of the year. So as far as NAND goes, we have had some supply constraints early in the year. Those are fairly minimal now, and there have been some limited price increases there, but not to the extent of the memory.

好的。商品成本上調 10%。如果它在一年中保持不變，假設相同的定價動態，那麼在一年中可能是幾億美元。因此，就 NAND 而言，我們在今年年初遇到了一些供應限制。這些現在已經很少了，那裡的價格漲幅有限，但還沒有達到內存的程度。

Yes. So what I would say is that HPE is a whole lot more relevant to customers and partners than it was. This was an enormous conglomerate. And you would go in front of customers, and you would be talking PCs, Superdome Integrity X servers, Enterprise Services, Software, and they weren't sure what we stood for. And it was just way too broad, and we were not executing with the right R&D against any of those segments. So now HPE is more relevant. They know what we stand for. And the core value proposition is the software-defined data center on-prem with public cloud-like economics. This whole move to Flexible Capacity and a pay-per-use model is actually encouraging people to say, "Do I need to move every workload to the public cloud?" And then our New Stack offering, our New Stack announcement at Discover next week, I think, is going to be a milestone and a capstone, in some ways, to the innovation agenda that we've driven over the last 6 years. So I'd say that those are the main things. I would also say the speed at which we move. This company was a slower company than I would have liked to have seen 6 years ago, and now we jump on opportunities. We jump on problems. It's far more nimble, far more agile. And I think, frankly, just a better-run company than it was 6 years ago.

是的。所以我想說的是，HPE 與客戶和合作夥伴的相關性比以前要高得多。這是一個巨大的企業集團。你會走到客戶面前，談論 PC、Superdome Integrity X 服務器、企業服務、軟件，他們不確定我們代表什麼。而且它太寬泛了，我們沒有針對這些細分市場中的任何一個進行正確的研發。所以現在 HPE 更重要。他們知道我們的立場。核心價值主張是具有類似公共雲經濟的軟件定義數據中心。向靈活容量和按使用付費模式的整個轉變實際上鼓勵人們說，“我需要將所有工作負載轉移到公共雲嗎？”然後我們的 New Stack 產品，我們下週在 Discover 上宣布的 New Stack，我認為，在某些方面，將成為我們在過去 6 年中推動的創新議程的里程碑和頂峰。所以我想說這些是主要的事情。我還要說我們移動的速度。這家公司是一家比 6 年前我希望看到的更慢的公司，現在我們抓住機會。我們跳問題。它要靈活得多，敏捷得多。坦率地說，我認為這只是一家比 6 年前經營得更好的公司。

Our next question is from Amit Daryanani with RBC Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Amit Daryanani。

I guess a couple of questions for me as well. When I look at the fiscal '18 guide and which you guys are talking about for Q1, historically Q1's accounted for about 22%, 23% of full year EPS. This time, I think the implication is about 17.5%, so seems like a much more back-end loaded year than normal. Could you just tell what other lever that give you comfort the back half will be so much better? And is it all really around the restructuring initiative? Is there different levers of growth vectors that you have in the back half that give you confidence here?

我想我也有幾個問題。當我查看 18 財年指南以及你們正在談論的第一季度時，從歷史上看，第一季度約佔全年每股收益的 22%、23%。這一次，我認為影響約為 17.5%，因此似乎是比往常更多的後端負載年份。你能說出還有哪一個能讓你後半部分感到舒適的槓桿會好得多嗎？這一切真的都是圍繞重組計劃展開的嗎？你在後半部分有不同的增長向量槓桿讓你在這裡充滿信心嗎？

Yes. Again, I'll go back to 2 things. As far as looking at last year's seasonality as an example, it's a little bit skewed because of, one, the memory cost increased. So again, remember last year, that increase didn't happen until, call it, the latter part of January. So whereas, when you look at this year, we have a full year impact or full quarter impact of that elevated DRAM cost pressure. Again, I'll go back. It's really -- I think the biggest driver is HPE Next. So when you look at that $250 million of cost savings, again 2/3 of that or roughly 2/3 of that is in the back half of the year. And the reason that is, is when we're doing this clean sheet exercise, we're being very thoughtful as to, one, how can we implement this correctly; and then, two, how do we minimize business disruption. So if you think, as an example, the simplification of the regional structure, the reducing the platform, the SKU rationalization, that does take a little time to work through because we want to make sure we get that right, so we minimize any business disruption. So that's really the primary driver, along with the M&A that I spoke about and some of the other things. But the HPE Next is a big driver.

是的。再一次，我會回到兩件事。就去年的季節性為例，它有點偏斜，因為第一，內存成本增加了。因此，請再次記住去年，這種增長直到 1 月下旬才發生。因此，當你回顧今年時，DRAM 成本壓力上升對我們產生了全年或整個季度的影響。再說一次，我會回去的。這真的——我認為最大的驅動力是 HPE Next。因此，當您查看 2.5 億美元的成本節約時，其中 2/3 或大約 2/3 是在今年下半年實現的。原因是，當我們進行這種干淨的工作表練習時，我們會非常深思熟慮，第一，我們如何才能正確地實施它；然後，第二，我們如何最大程度地減少業務中斷。因此，如果你認為，例如，區域結構的簡化、平台的減少、SKU 的合理化，這確實需要一點時間才能完成，因為我們想確保我們做對了，所以我們盡量減少任何業務中斷。所以這真的是主要的驅動力，還有我談到的併購和其他一些事情。但 HPE Next 是一個重要的驅動力。

Yes. And I think, Tim, you mentioned it, but -- just at the end there. But it's important to note that a number of these acquisitions, when we acquired them, were actually losing money. And so we have now worked that off, and I think, virtually, all of them will be accretive in 2018.

是的。我想，蒂姆，你提到過它，但是——就在最後。但重要的是要注意，當我們收購這些收購時，其中許多收購實際上是在虧損。所以我們現在已經解決了這個問題，我認為，實際上，所有這些都將在 2018 年實現增長。

That's really helpful. If I could just follow up, on the storage side, maybe I missed it. But could you quantify how much of a headwind or how much revenues you think you left on the table because of some of the go-to-market challenges that you alluded to and the time line to resolve it? Do you think it's done in 90 days? Or is it a bit more longer time frame?

這真的很有幫助。如果我能跟進，在存儲方面，也許我錯過了。但是，由於您提到的一些進入市場的挑戰以及解決這些挑戰的時間表，您能否量化多少逆風或您認為您留在桌面上的收入有多少？你認為這是在 90 天內完成的嗎？或者它的時間範圍更長一些？

So we can't -- I don't think we'll quantify that on this call. What I would say is I think the sales team is hitting the ground running on storage. Phil Davis, who is our new Head of Sales, comes from a storage background. So I think you'll naturally see him pivot harder to storage than perhaps some of our earlier sales leaders. And so I think you'll see improvement in the U.S. And by the way, we did very well in EMEA, very well in APJ. So I think you'll see an improvement in the U.S. in the storage space.

所以我們不能——我認為我們不會在這次電話會議上量化這一點。我要說的是，我認為銷售團隊在存儲方面取得了成功。 Phil Davis 是我們的新任銷售主管，具有倉儲背景。所以我想你自然會看到他比我們早期的一些銷售領導者更努力地轉向存儲。所以我認為你會看到美國的進步。順便說一句，我們在歐洲、中東和非洲地區做得很好，在 APJ 也做得很好。所以我認為你會看到美國在存儲空間方面的改進。

Our next question comes from Lou Miscioscia with Pivotal Research Group.

我們的下一個問題來自 Pivotal Research Group 的 Lou Miscioscia。

Meg, maybe if you could just mention to us what you're planning to do with all your extra time and maybe not mention that you'll spend more time with family. And possibly, specifically, any chance or do you have a restriction from going to a competitor? And then I have a follow-up.

梅格，也許你可以告訴我們你打算用所有額外的時間做什麼，也許不說你會花更多的時間和家人在一起。並且可能，具體來說，有沒有機會或者你是否有限制去競爭對手？然後我有一個後續行動。

So first of all, I'm going to work with Antonio through the transition at the end of January, and then I'll be a very active board member. And actually, after a 35-year nonstop career, I am actually going to take a little downtime, but there's no chance I'm going to a competitor. No chance. Listen, I have to say I've become quite loyal to Hewlett Packard and to Hewlett Packard Enterprise. I love this company, and I would never go to a competitor.

所以首先，我將在 1 月底與 Antonio 一起完成交接，然後我將成為一名非常活躍的董事會成員。事實上，在 35 年不間斷的職業生涯之後，我實際上要休息一段時間，但我不可能去競爭對手那裡。沒有機會。聽著，我不得不說我對惠普和惠普企業變得非常忠誠。我愛這家公司，我永遠不會去競爭對手那裡。

Okay. My follow-up to -- and I guess storage again. Obviously very familiar with the analyst meeting that you just had and that you've had Nimble done very well. But when you look at the product line, I think it's much more block associated, not as much unstructured. And unstructured data is really where the majority of the growth is. So I'm just wondering is it really a sales problem? Or do you actually possibly have to add more products to the product line and/or possibly do another acquisition?

好的。我的後續行動 - 我想再次存儲。顯然非常熟悉你剛剛召開的分析師會議，而且你已經讓 Nimble 做得很好。但是當你看產品線時，我認為它更多的是塊關聯，而不是非結構化。非結構化數據確實是增長的主要來源。所以我只是想知道這真的是銷售問題嗎？還是您實際上可能必須向產品線添加更多產品和/或可能進行另一次收購？

Yes. So listen, I think the storage business is benefiting from the explosion of data, and we're seeing that every single day. We're also benefiting by storage becoming embedded in server architecture. InfoSight, I think, is going to be a major game changer for our storage business. It's part of the reason that Nimble is growing at 80% is because it's AI for the storage arrays in a way that does predictive analytics and predictive maintenance. With regard to acquisitions, you know what? When I came to this company, I think we had a somewhat less-than-stellar reputation on acquisitions. And I think the acquisition profile that had been successful for us, whether it's Aruba or SimpliVity, et cetera, is the following: is there a complementary technology to one that we already own that can benefit by being -- by leveraging our distribution channel? Listen, Aruba has accelerated its growth rate under HP because we can introduce the Aruba product line to customers they had no way to get into before. And also, customers tell me every day that they buy Aruba because it's not a standalone small startup company. It's backed by big HP from a service perspective, from a warranty perspective, et cetera. So those are the kind of acquisitions that we look at. So if we found something that we thought was important in the storage business that benefited from our distribution channel and we saw a good business case and it was priced right, we might think about doing it. But I think you've seen Tim and I be very disciplined about acquisitions, returns-based, buy the company right and have a very clear business case, whether it's cost takeout or acceleration. And I promise you that Antonio and Tim will continue that disciplined approach to acquisitions, and I'll be on the board to make sure they do.

是的。所以聽著，我認為存儲業務正受益於數據的爆炸式增長，而且我們每天都在看到這一點。我們還受益於存儲嵌入到服務器架構中。我認為，InfoSight 將成為我們存儲業務的主要遊戲規則改變者。 Nimble 以 80% 的速度增長的部分原因是因為它是存儲陣列的人工智能，可以進行預測分析和預測維護。關於收購，你知道嗎？當我來到這家公司時，我認為我們在收購方面的聲譽並不盡如人意。而且我認為對我們來說成功的收購概況，無論是 Aruba 還是 SimpliVity 等等，如下所示：是否有一種互補技術可以與我們已經擁有的技術相結合，可以通過利用我們的分銷渠道獲益？聽著，Aruba 在 HP 的領導下加快了增長速度，因為我們可以將 Aruba 產品線介紹給他們以前無法接觸到的客戶。而且，客戶每天都告訴我他們購買 Aruba 是因為它不是一家獨立的小型初創公司。從服務角度、保修角度等方面來看，它得到了大型 HP 的支持。所以這些就是我們所關注的那種收購。因此，如果我們發現我們認為在存儲業務中重要的東西可以從我們的分銷渠道中獲益，並且我們看到了一個很好的商業案例並且定價合適，我們可能會考慮這樣做。但我想你已經看到蒂姆和我在收購方面非常有紀律，以回報為基礎，正確地收購公司並且有一個非常清晰的商業案例，無論是成本削減還是加速。我向你保證，安東尼奧和蒂姆將繼續採用這種有紀律的收購方式，我將加入董事會，確保他們這樣做。

The last question comes from Tim Long with BMO Capital Markets.

最後一個問題來自 BMO Capital Markets 的 Tim Long。

Can I just move to the networking business for a little bit? Two here. First, on the campus switching side, could you talk -- it's obviously done really well the last few quarters, and the synergies with Aruba have helped. Could you talk a little bit about Cisco's new product portfolio with kind of the pay-as-you-go model? What impact do you think that will have on the business will be an opportunity for you? Will it move your business to more recurring revenue models as well? And then secondly, if you could just update us on the data center piece and how the partnership with Arista is going.

我可以稍微轉向網絡業務嗎？這裡有兩個。首先，在園區交換方面，你能談談嗎——過去幾個季度顯然做得很好，與 Aruba 的協同作用也有所幫助。您能否談談思科採用即用即付模式的新產品組合？您認為這將對業務產生什麼影響，這對您來說是一個機會嗎？它也會將您的業務轉移到更多的經常性收入模式嗎？其次，您是否可以向我們介紹數據中心方面的最新情況以及與 Arista 的合作進展情況。

Yes. So you are right. Aruba, both wired and wireless, has had a really great fiscal year '17. And the thesis when we bought Aruba was the wireless would actually drag along the wired, and that has actually turned out to be the case, particularly in the United States where the wired portfolio had a great '17 and a particularly strong Q4. Increasingly, we see demand for Aruba on a Flexible Capacity model. And just like any other product that we sell, we are happy to do a Flexible Capacity model pay-as-you-go, annuity-based revenue stream for people who want to buy that way for Aruba. We also, I think, are benefiting from the Gartner Magic Quadrant that I referred to or Tim referred to in the script, where we are, for the first time, a leader in networking in the vision category. And it's been -- this is the first time in 3 decades that Cisco has not owned that top spot, and we can feel the momentum in the marketplace. So listen, a number of our competitors are talking about a clone, a flex capacity. When we dig into it, it is actually not the same thing as we are offering. It's not entwined with services, and it's not -- it's really just a sort of glorified leasing model, and that's different from what we're offering. So we think we have a competitive advantage. With regard to Arista, so that partnership continues to go along. We are opening up our channel and our direct sales group to the data center opportunity, and I think it's going along nicely. I think we can do better. At the moment, it's going along quite nicely. And I think we're both pleased with where we are, but there could be more there.

是的。所以你是對的。 Aruba，無論是有線還是無線，在 17 財年的表現都非常出色。我們購買 Aruba 時的論點是無線實際上會拖累有線，事實證明確實如此，特別是在美國，有線產品組合在 17 年表現出色，第四季度表現特別強勁。我們越來越多地看到對 Aruba 的靈活容量模型的需求。就像我們銷售的任何其他產品一樣，我們很高興為想要為 Aruba 購買這種產品的人們提供一種靈活的容量模型，即用即付，基於年金的收入流。我認為，我們也受益於我提到的或 Tim 在腳本中提到的 Gartner 魔力像限，我們第一次成為視覺類別網絡的領導者。而且它一直 - 這是 3 年來思科第一次沒有佔據頭把交椅，我們可以感受到市場的勢頭。所以聽著，我們的許多競爭對手都在談論克隆，彈性容量。當我們深入研究它時，它實際上與我們提供的不是一回事。它沒有與服務交織在一起，它不是 - 它實際上只是一種美化的租賃模式，這與我們提供的不同。所以我們認為我們有競爭優勢。關於 Arista，合作夥伴關係將繼續進行。我們正在向數據中心機會開放我們的渠道和我們的直接銷售團隊，我認為它進展順利。我認為我們可以做得更好。目前，一切進展順利。而且我認為我們都對我們所處的位置感到滿意，但那裡可能會有更多。

Thanks, Tim.

謝謝，蒂姆。

I think with that, we can wrap up today's call.

我想這樣我們就可以結束今天的電話會議了。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our call for today. Thank you.

女士們，先生們，我們今天的呼籲到此結束。謝謝。