HP Cloud Leader Biri Singh Exits: Should Partners Worry?

By samdizzy

HP cloud computing leader Zorawar “Biri” Singh has exited the company, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) has confirmed. At a time when the struggling computer giant needs consistency and strong execution, Singh’s exit may raise eyebrows among HP’s cloud and managed services partners.

HP’s Converged Cloud vision involves traditional IT, private cloud, managed cloud and public cloud services. It also leans heavily upon OpenStack, the open source cloud standard. Singh’s leadership was particularly critical to the public cloud push, where HP has been beta testing and rolling out services that strive to compete against Amazon Web Services (NYSE: AWS) and Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) as well as evolving IT vendors like Dell, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle.

Voice of Reason?

Singh’s official title at HP had been senior VP, HP Converged Cloud and GM, HP Clud Services.

At a time when HP was stumbling on multiple fronts (mobile, Autonomy, EDS), Singh was a calming voice who inspired confidence across the emerging HP cloud partner community. During an early 2012 meeting with Talkin’ Cloud, Singh described how channel partners will participate in the public cloud ecosystem. He also connected the dots between cloud services and managed services providers (MSPs). 

We don’t have a feel for how effective Singh was with day-to-day execution within HP, but the HP Public Cloud effort seemed to be moving in the right direction. By November 2012, HP’s public cloud push surpassed 100 partners and the company was seeking more systems integrators for the effort.

Now Singh is gone. Roger Levy, vice president, Technology and Customer Operations of HP Cloud Services, will serve as the interim leader for HP Cloud Services, according to All Things D.

Pardon me for reading between the lines, but whenever I see the term “interim” in front of somebody’s title, it suggests that the staffing changes came as a surprise or were unplanned.

Next Moves

Why did Singh exit and where is he potentially going? Talkin’ Cloud is still searching for answers.

In terms of HP, we will closely track Levy’s role and strategy with HP Cloud Services. And to HP’s credit, the company’s software executives are set to hit the road later this month to describe the company’s overall strategy.