UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)
☒	ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019

Or

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from            to   

Commission file number 001-37483

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware	47-3298624
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)	(I.R.S. employer identification no.)

6280 America Center Drive,	San Jose,	California	95002
(Address of principal executive offices)			(Zip code)

Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (650) 687-5817

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of each class	Trading Symbol(s)	Name of each exchange on which registered
Common stock, par value $0.01 per share	HPE	New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes x No ¨ 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ¨ No x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No ¨ 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes x No ¨ 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer", "smaller reporting company" and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Large accelerated filer	☒	Accelerated filer	☐	Non-accelerated filer (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)	☐	Smaller reporting company	☐
						Emerging growth company	☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No x

The aggregate market value of the registrant's common stock held by non-affiliates was $21,263,421,512 based on the last sale price of common stock on April 30, 2019.

The number of shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company common stock outstanding as of November 30, 2019 was 1,292,925,893 shares.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION	10-K PART
Portions of the Registrant's proxy statement related to its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed pursuant to Regulation 14A within 120 days after Registrant's fiscal year end of October 31, 2019 are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Report.	III

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Form 10-K

For the Fiscal Year ended October 31, 2019

Table of Contents

		Page
	PART I
Item 1.	Business	2
Item 1A.	Risk Factors	12
Item 1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	27
Item 2.	Properties	27
Item 3.	Legal Proceedings	27
Item 4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	27
	PART II
Item 5.	Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	28
Item 6.	Selected Financial Data	30
Item 7.	Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	32
Item 7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk	56
Item 8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	57
Item 9.	Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	136
Item 9A.	Controls and Procedures	136
Item 9B.	Other Information	136
	PART III
Item 10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	137
Item 11.	Executive Compensation	137
Item 12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	137
Item 13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	137
Item 14.	Principal Accounting Fees and Services	137
	PART IV
Item 15.	Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules	138

Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K, including "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in Item 7, contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If the risks or uncertainties ever materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company and its consolidated subsidiaries ("Hewlett Packard Enterprise") may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. The words "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "optimistic", "intend", "aim", "will", "should" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including but not limited to any projections of revenue, margins, expenses, effective tax rates, the impact of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, earnings, net earnings, net earnings per share, cash flows, benefit plan funding, deferred tax assets, share repurchases, currency exchange rates or other financial items; any projections of the amount, timing or impact of cost savings or restructuring charges; any statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations, as well as the execution of corporate transactions or contemplated acquisitions, transformation and restructuring plans and any resulting benefit, cost savings, revenue or profitability improvements; any statements concerning the expected development, performance, market share or competitive performance relating to products or services; any statements regarding current or future macroeconomic trends or events and the impact of those trends and events on Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its financial performance; any statements regarding pending investigations, claims or disputes; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements or assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the need to address the many challenges facing Hewlett Packard Enterprise's businesses; the competitive pressures faced by Hewlett Packard Enterprise's businesses; risks associated with executing Hewlett Packard Enterprise's strategy; the impact of macroeconomic and geopolitical trends and events; the need to manage third-party suppliers and the distribution of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's products and the delivery of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's services effectively; the protection of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's intellectual property assets, including intellectual property licensed from third parties and intellectual property shared with its former Parent; risks associated with Hewlett Packard Enterprise's international operations; the development and transition of new products and services and the enhancement of existing products and services to meet customer needs and respond to emerging technological trends; the execution and performance of contracts by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its suppliers, customers, clients and partners; the hiring and retention of key employees; integration and other risks associated with business combination and investment transactions; the execution, timing and results of any transformation or restructuring plans, including estimates and assumptions related to the costs (including any possible disruption of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's business) and anticipated benefits of implementing the transformation and restructuring plans; the effects of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and related guidance and regulations that may be implemented; the resolution of pending investigations, claims and disputes; and other risks that are described herein, including but not limited to the items discussed in "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of Part I of this report and that are otherwise described or updated from time to time in Hewlett Packard Enterprise's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hewlett Packard Enterprise assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

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PART I

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 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"). To effect the spin-off, HP Inc. distributed all of the shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company ("HPE") common stock owned by HP Inc. to its stockholders on November 1, 2015. Holders of HP Inc. common stock received one share of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company stock for every share of HP Inc. stock held as of the record date. As a result of the Separation, we now operate as an independent, publicly-traded company.

Separation Transactions

On April 1, 2017, we completed the separation and merger of our Enterprise Services business with Computer Sciences Corporation (“CSC”) (collectively, the “Everett Transaction”). The Everett Transaction was accomplished by a series of transactions among CSC, HPE, Everett SpinCo, Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of HPE) (“Everett”), and New Everett Merger Sub Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Everett (“Merger Sub”). We transferred the Enterprise Services business to Everett and distributed all of the shares of Everett to HPE stockholders. Following the distribution of shares, the Merger Sub merged with and into CSC, which became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Everett. At the time of the merger, Everett changed its name to DXC Technology Company (“DXC”).

On September 1, 2017, we completed the separation and merger of our Software business segment with Micro Focus International plc (“Micro Focus”) (collectively, the “Seattle Transaction”). The Seattle Transaction was accomplished by a series of transactions among HPE, Micro Focus, Seattle SpinCo, Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of HPE) (“Seattle”), and Seattle MergerSub, Inc., an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Micro Focus (“Merger Sub”). We transferred the Software business to Seattle and distributed all of the shares of Seattle to HPE stockholders. Following the distribution of shares, the Merger Sub merged with and into Seattle which became an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Micro Focus.

Upon the completion of the Everett and Seattle Transactions, we reclassified the historical financial results of our former Enterprise Services segment ("former ES segment") and our former Software segment to Net loss from discontinued operations in our Consolidated Statements of Earnings, and to assets and liabilities of discontinued operations in our Consolidated Balance Sheets.

HPE Next

During the third quarter of fiscal 2017, we launched an initiative called HPE Next, through which we are in the process of putting in place a purpose-built company designed to compete and win in the markets where we participate. Through this initiative, we are simplifying our operating model and the way we work, streamlining our offerings and business processes to improve our execution. More importantly, we will continue to shift our investments in innovation towards high growth and higher-margin solutions and services.

This initiative includes consolidating our manufacturing and support services locations, streamlining our business systems and reducing the number of countries in which we have a direct sales presence, while simultaneously migrating to a channel-only model in the remaining countries.

The HPE Next initiative is expected to be implemented through fiscal 2020. During the remaining implementation period, we expect to incur expenses for workforce reductions, to upgrade and simplify our IT infrastructure, and for other non-labor actions. These expenses will be partially offset by proceeds received from the remaining real estate sales.

Our Strategy

Digital transformation is creating countless possibilities in a world where billions of users and devices and trillions of things are connected. The applications and data that create and run our enterprises, live everywhere - in the cloud, on- and off-premises, and increasingly at the edge.

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As the edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-Service company, HPE’s strategy is to help enterprises accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on decades of re-imagining the future and innovating to advance the way we live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions, with a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, to help customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance.

No matter what stage of digital transformation, HPE has the expertise, the right tools and solutions with a flexible delivery model to help enterprises harness the power of their data across all their clouds and edges.

• Through HPE Pointnext Services, we have the expertise to assess, design, implement, optimize and manage our customers’ digital transformation.

• We have the right tools to help customers accelerate their business - be it automation, AI, security or predictive analytics.

• We have the as-a-Service consumption model to provide flexibility and optimize IT investments.

• Through Financial Services, we can help customers manage and monetize their existing assets in new ways and free up capital for innovation.

At HPE, we help our customers thrive, from every edge to any cloud.

Our Business Segments, Products and Services

We organize our business into the following four segments:

• Hybrid IT provides a broad portfolio of services-led and software-enabled infrastructure and solutions including secure, software-defined servers, storage and HPE Pointnext services, thereby combining HPE's hardware, software and services capabilities to make Hybrid IT simple for its customers.

• Intelligent Edge provides a portfolio of secure Edge-to-Cloud solutions operating under the Aruba brand that include wireless local area network ("LAN"), campus and data center switching, software-defined wide-area-networking, security, and associated services to enable secure connectivity for businesses of any size.

• Financial Services ("FS") enables flexible IT consumption models, financial architectures and customized investment solutions for our customers.

• Corporate Investments includes Communication and Media Solutions ("CMS"), Hewlett Packard Labs and certain business incubation projects.

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

Hybrid IT

Hybrid IT provides a broad portfolio of services-led and software-enabled infrastructure and solutions including secure, software-defined servers, storage, and HPE Pointnext services, thereby combining HPE's hardware, software and services capabilities to make Hybrid IT simple for its customers. Described below are the business unit capabilities within Hybrid IT.

• Hybrid IT Product includes Compute and Storage.

◦ Compute. We offer both Industry Standard Servers ("ISS"), which are general purpose servers for multi-workload computing, as well as Mission Critical Servers ("MCS"), which are servers optimized for particular workloads, to address the full array of the customers' computing needs. Our general purpose servers include the HPE ProLiant, secure and versatile rack and tower servers; HPE BladeSystem, a modular infrastructure that converges server, storage and networking; and HPE Synergy, a composable infrastructure for traditional and cloud-native applications. Our workload optimized server portfolio includes the HPE Apollo and products from the acquisition of Cray, for high performance computing and artificial intelligence, HPE Cloudline for cloud data centers, HPE Edgeline for computing at the network edge and HPE Integrity for mission-critical applications.

◦ Storage. With storage offerings that are AI-driven and built for cloud environments with as-a-service consumption and flexible investment options, HPE provides the right workload optimized destinations for data.  Powered by HPE InfoSight advanced analytics and machine learning and HPE Cloud Volumes data mobility, HPE delivers intelligent storage for hybrid cloud environments so that customers can unlock data’s full potential and derive business insights. Key solutions include HPE SimpliVity, a hyper-converged platform for virtualization,

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technology from the Blue Data and MapR acquisitions for expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics data management, HPE 3PAR Storage and HPE Nimble Storage all-flash arrays for mission critical workloads and general purpose workloads, respectively, and big data solutions running on HPE Apollo Servers. Storage also provides comprehensive data protection with HPE StoreOnce and HPE Recovery Manager Central, solutions for secondary workloads and traditional tape, storage networking and disk products, such as HPE Modular Storage Arrays ("MSA") and HPE XP.

• HPE Pointnext Services creates preferred IT experiences that power the digital business. The HPE Pointnext Services team and our extensive partner network provide value across the IT life cycle delivering advice, transformation projects, professional services, support services and operational services for Hybrid IT and the Intelligent Edge. HPE Pointnext Services is also a provider of on-premises flexible consumption models, such as HPE GreenLake, that enable IT agility, simplify operations and align cost to business value. HPE Pointnext Services offerings includes Operational Services and Advisory and Professional Services.

Intelligent Edge

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

◦ HPE Aruba Product includes wired and wireless LAN, wide area network ("WAN"), data center networking such as Wi-Fi access points, switches, routers, sensors, and software products that include cloud-based management, network management, network access control, analytics and assurance, and location services.

◦ HPE Aruba Services includes professional and support services, as well as as-a-Service ("aaS") and consumption models for the Intelligent Edge portfolio of products.

 Financial Services

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

Corporate Investments

Corporate Investments includes CMS, Hewlett Packard Labs and certain business incubation projects.

Pending Segment Realignments

In order to align our segment financial reporting more closely with our current business structure, bring more visibility and transparency to Hybrid IT and further align to the evolving market landscape, effective November 1, 2019, we will report the following four new reportable segments: Compute; High Performance Compute ("HPC") & Mission Critical Servers ("MCS"); Storage; and Advisory & Professional Services ("A&PS"). As a result of this change, Operational Services, which was previously reported within HPE Pointnext Services, will be reported within each of the related individual new segments. The Intelligent Edge, Financial Services and Corporate Investments segments will remain largely unchanged.

Our Strengths

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

• Strong solutions portfolio that spans edge to cloud. 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.

• Multi-year innovation roadmap. We have been in the technology and innovation business for over 75 years. Our vast intellectual property portfolio and global research and development capabilities are part of a broader innovation roadmap designed to help organizations take advantage of the expanding amount of data available and leverage the latest technology

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developments like cloud, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity to drive business outcomes now and in the future. We also have a strong balance sheet that provides the flexibility and speed to take advantage of acquisition opportunities.

• Ability to deliver flexible consumption-based IT solutions. We have developed IT consumption models to facilitate the delivery of our products and services to our customers that includes pay-per-use or subscription-based options with a sophisticated set of metering, financial and managed services components. We have a head start over other companies that has allowed us to build capabilities and partnerships that are unique in the industry including the ability to deliver our as-a-Service portfolio in more than 50 countries and with over 500 channel partners that can sell the as-a-Service portfolio.

• 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 manage and monetize their existing assets in new ways and free up capital for innovation. Financial Services is unique in its ability to help customers address the entire product lifecycle to reduce the cost and resource demands of IT, in what we call the “circular economy.” Through Financial Services’ Global Asset Recovery Centers, we are processing more than 4 million assets every year, which also helps our customers achieve their own sustainability goals.

• Experienced leadership team with track record of successful performance. 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. Moreover, we have a deep bench of management and technology talent that we believe provides us with an unparalleled pipeline of future leaders and innovators.

• Open Platforms. Many of our competitors want to lock customers into one flavor of cloud and cloud stack. We believe that the cloud experience should be open and seamless across all our customers’ clouds - and the best cloud transformation partner is one who is unbiased, offers choice, neutral without an agenda. We are unique in our ability to enable any hybrid cloud strategy and a consistent experience that is open to any cloud and differentiated with our partner integrations.

Sales, Marketing and Distribution

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

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

• distribution partners that supply our solutions to resellers;

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

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

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

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

The mix of our business conducted by direct sales or channel differs substantially by business and region. We believe that customer buying patterns and different regional market conditions require us to tailor our sales, marketing and distribution efforts accordingly. We are focused on driving the depth and breadth of our coverage, in addition to identifying efficiencies and productivity gains, in both our direct and indirect businesses. For example, through our HPE Next initiative, we have reduced the number of countries in which we have a direct sales presence, while simultaneously migrating to a channel-only model in the remaining countries. We typically assign an account manager to manage relationships across our business with large enterprise customers.

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The account manager is supported by a team of specialists with product and services expertise. For other customers and for consumers, our businesses collaborate to manage relationships with commercial resellers targeting SMBs where appropriate.

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 sole sources for certain customized parts (although some of these sources have operations in multiple locations in the event of a disruption). We are dependent upon Intel and AMD as suppliers of x86 processors; however, we believe that disruptions with these suppliers would result in industry-wide dislocations and therefore would not disproportionately disadvantage us relative to our competitors.

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

International

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

A summary of our domestic and international results is set forth in Note 3, "Segment Information", to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of Part II. Approximately 67% of our overall net revenue in fiscal 2019 came from outside the United States.

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

Research and Development

Innovation is a key element of our culture and critical to our success. Our research and development efforts 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 research and development were $1.8 billion in fiscal 2019, $1.7 billion in fiscal 2018 and $1.5 billion in fiscal 2017. We anticipate that we will continue to have significant research and development expenditures in the future to support the design and development of innovative, high-quality products, services and solutions to maintain and enhance our competitive

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position. For a discussion of risks attendant to our research and development 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. At present, our worldwide patent portfolio includes approximately 15,000 issued and pending patents.

Patents generally have a term of up to 20 years from the date they are filed. As our patent portfolio has been built over time, the remaining terms of the individual patents across our patent portfolio vary. We believe that our patents and patent applications are important for maintaining the competitive differentiation of our products and services, enhancing our freedom of action to sell our products and services in markets in which we choose to participate, and maximizing our return on research and development investments. No single patent is in itself essential to our company as a whole or to any of our business segments.

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

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

Backlog

We believe that our backlog is not a meaningful indicator of our future business prospects due to our diverse product and service portfolio, including the large volume of products delivered from finished goods or channel partner inventories and the shortening of product life cycles. Therefore, we believe that backlog information is not material to an understanding of our overall business.

Seasonality

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

Competition

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

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

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

Hybrid IT operates in the highly competitive data center infrastructure market, which is characterized by rapid and ongoing technological innovation and price competition. Our primary competitors include technology vendors such as Dell Technologies Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., NetApp, Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., International Business Machines Corporation, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Amazon.com, Inc., Oracle Corporation, Fujitsu Limited, Juniper Networks, Inc., Inspur Co., Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., Extreme Networks, Inc., Pure Storage, Inc., VMware, Nutanix, Inc., Google Inc., and Rackspace 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.

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 include technology vendors such as Cisco Systems, Inc., Extreme Networks, Inc., Juniper Networks, Inc., Fortinet, Inc., Ruckus Wireless, Inc., Arista Networks, Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. 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 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.

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.

Environment

Our operations are subject to regulation under various federal, state, local, and foreign laws concerning the environment, including 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. We could incur substantial costs, including clean-up costs, fines and civil or criminal sanctions and third-party damage or personal injury claims, if we were to violate or become liable under environmental laws.

Many of our products are subject to various federal, state, local, and foreign laws governing chemical substances in products and their safe use, including laws restricting the presence of certain substances in electronics products and in some cases, laws regulating the manufacture and distribution of chemical substances. Some of our products and services also are, or may in the future be, subject to requirements applicable to their energy consumption. In addition, we face increasing complexity in our product design, procurement operations, and transportation and shipping infrastructure as we adjust to new and future requirements relating to recycling and reuse of materials as part of the transition to a circular economy, the chemical and materials composition of our products, appropriate product packaging and labeling, their safe use and their energy efficiency, including requirements relating to climate change. 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"). In the event our products become non-compliant with these laws, our products could be restricted from entering certain jurisdictions and we could face other sanctions, including fines.

Our operations, services and ultimately our products are expected to become increasingly subject to federal, state, local, and foreign laws, regulations and international treaties relating to climate change. As these laws, regulations, treaties, and similar initiatives and programs are adopted and implemented throughout the world, we will be required to comply or potentially face market access limitations or other sanctions, including fines. However, we believe that technology will be fundamental to finding solutions to achieve compliance with and manage those requirements, and we are collaborating with industry, business groups and governments to find and promote ways that our technology can be used to address climate change and to facilitate compliance

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with related laws, regulations and treaties. See "Risk Factors-Our business is subject to various federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations that could result in costs or other sanctions that adversely affect our business and results of operations" in Item 1A.

We are committed to maintaining compliance with all environmental laws applicable to our operations, products and services, and to reducing our environmental impact across all aspects of our business. We meet this commitment with a comprehensive environmental, health and safety policy, strict environmental management of our operations and worldwide environmental programs and services.

Environmental costs and accruals are presently not material to our operations, cash flows or financial position. Although there is no assurance that existing or future environmental laws applicable to our operations, services or products will not have a material adverse effect on our operations, cash flows or financial condition, we do not currently anticipate material capital expenditures for environmental control facilities.

Employees

We had approximately 61,600 employees as of October 31, 2019.

Additional Information

Intel® and Itanium® are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries. AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Information about our Executive Officers

The following are our current executive officers:

Name	Age	Position
Antonio Neri	52	President and Chief Executive Officer
Philip Davis	52	President, Hybrid IT
Kirt P. Karros	50	Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer
Alan May	61	Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer
Keerti Melkote	49	President, Intelligent Edge
Jeff T. Ricci	58	Senior Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer
Tarek Robbiati	54	Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Irv Rothman	73	President and Chief Executive Officer, HPE Financial Services
John Schultz	55	Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Secretary

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

Philip Davis; President, Hybrid IT

Mr. Davis has served as President of our Hybrid IT business segment since August 2018 and concurrently as our Chief Sales Officer from November 2017 to October 2019. Prior to that, Mr. Davis served as Senior Vice President and Regional Managing Director of our Enterprise Group in the Asia Pacific Japan region, from November 2016 to October 2017. Mr. Davis previously served as Vice President and General Manager, Storage of our Enterprise Group in the Asia Pacific Japan region from November 2015 to October 2016. Prior to that, Mr. Davis served in a similar role at HP Co. from September 2014 to November 2015. Before joining HP Co., Mr. Davis served as Vice President and General Manager of Dell’s Enterprise Solutions Group in the Asia Pacific Japan region from January 2008 to September 2014.

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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.

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.

Keerti Melkote; President, Intelligent Edge

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

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

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

Tarek Robbiati; Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Robbiati has served as our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer since September 2018. Before joining Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mr. Robbiati served as Chief Financial Officer of Sprint Corporation from August 2015 to February 2018. Mr. Robbiati previously served as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of FlexiGroup Limited in Australia from January 2013 to August 2015. Prior to that, from December 2009 to December 2012, Mr. Robbiati was Group Managing Director and President of Telstra International Group in Hong Kong and Executive Chairman of Hong Kong CSL Limited (“CSL”), a subsidiary of Telstra Corporation Limited. From July 2007 to May 2010, Mr. Robbiati served as the Chief Executive Officer of CSL in Hong Kong.

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

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

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

Mr. Schultz has served as our Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Secretary since December 2017. Prior to that, Mr. Schultz served as our 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. Mr. Schultz previously 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.

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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

6280 America Center Dr

San Jose, CA 95002

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

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ITEM 1A. Risk Factors.

        You should carefully consider the following risks and other information in this Form 10-K in evaluating Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its common stock. Any of the following risks could materially and adversely affect our results of operations or financial condition. The following risk factors should be read in conjunction with Part II, Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation" and the Consolidated Financial Statements and related notes in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Form 10-K.

Risks Related to Our Business

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.

Our long-term strategy is focused on leveraging our portfolio of hardware, software and services as we deliver global edge to cloud platform-as-a-service to help customers accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions, with a consistent experience across all clouds and edge computing platforms. To successfully execute this strategy, we must address business model shifts and optimize go-to-market execution by improving cost structure, aligning sales coverage with strategic goals, improving channel execution and strengthening our capabilities in our areas of strategic focus, while continuing to pursue new product innovation that builds on our strategic capabilities in areas such as cloud and data center computing, software-defined networking, converged storage, high-performance compute, and wireless networking. Any failure to successfully execute this strategy, including any failure to invest sufficiently in strategic growth areas, could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

The process of developing new high-technology products, software, services and solutions and enhancing existing hardware and software products, services and solutions is complex, costly and uncertain, and any failure by us to anticipate customers' changing needs and emerging technological trends accurately could significantly harm our market share, results of operations and financial condition. For example, as the transition to an environment characterized by cloud-based computing and software being delivered as a service progresses, we must continue to successfully develop and deploy cloud-based solutions for our customers. We must make long-term investments, develop or obtain and protect appropriate intellectual property, and commit significant research and development and other resources before knowing whether our predictions will accurately reflect customer demand for our products, services and solutions. Any failure to accurately predict technological and business trends, control research and development costs or execute our innovation strategy could harm our business and financial performance. Our research and development initiatives may not be successful in whole or in part, including research and development projects which we have prioritized with respect to funding and/or personnel.

After we develop a product, we must be able to manufacture appropriate volumes quickly while also managing costs and preserving margins. To accomplish this, we must accurately forecast volumes, mixes of products and configurations that meet customer requirements, and we may not succeed at doing so within a given product's life cycle or at all. Any delay in the development, production or marketing of a new product, service or solution could result in us not being among the first to market, which could further harm our competitive position.

We operate in an intensely competitive industry and competitive pressures could harm our business and financial performance.

We encounter aggressive competition from numerous and varied competitors in all areas of our business, and our competitors have targeted and are expected to continue targeting our key market segments. We compete primarily on the basis of our technology, innovation, performance, price, quality, reliability, brand, reputation, distribution, product range and ease of use, account relationships, customer training, service and support, and security of our offerings. If our products, services, support and cost structure do not enable us to compete successfully based on any of those criteria, our results of operations and business prospects could be harmed.

We have a large portfolio of products and services and must allocate our financial, personnel and other resources across all of our products and services while competing with companies that have smaller portfolios or specialize in one or more of our product or service lines. As a result, we may invest less in certain areas of our business than our competitors do, and our competitors may have greater financial, technical and marketing resources available to them compared to the resources allocated to our products and services that compete against their products and services. Industry consolidation may also affect competition by creating larger, more homogeneous and potentially stronger competitors in the markets in which we operate. Additionally, our competitors may affect our business by entering into exclusive arrangements with our existing or potential customers or suppliers.

Companies with whom we have alliances in certain areas may be or become our competitors in other areas. In addition, companies with whom we have alliances also may acquire or form alliances with our competitors, which could reduce their business with us. If we are unable to effectively manage these complicated relationships with alliance partners, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.

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We face aggressive price competition and may have to continue lowering the prices of many of our products and services to stay competitive, while simultaneously seeking to maintain or improve our revenue and gross margin. In addition, competitors who have a greater presence in some of the lower-cost markets in which we compete, or who can obtain better pricing, more favorable contractual terms and conditions or more favorable allocations of products and components during periods of limited supply may be able to offer lower prices than we are able to offer. Our cash flows, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected by these and other industry-wide pricing pressures.

Because our business model is based on providing innovative and high-quality products, we may spend a proportionately greater amount of our revenues on research and development than some of our competitors. If we cannot proportionately decrease our cost structure (apart from research and development expenses) on a timely basis in response to competitive price pressures, our gross margin and, therefore, our profitability could be adversely affected. In addition, if our pricing and other facets of our offerings are not sufficiently competitive, or if there is an adverse reaction to our product decisions, we may lose market share in certain areas, which could adversely affect our financial performance and business prospects.

Even if we are able to maintain or increase market share for a particular product, its financial performance could decline because the product is in a maturing industry or market segment or contains technology that is becoming obsolete. For example, our Storage business unit is experiencing the effects of a market transition towards converged products and solutions, which has led to a decline in demand for our traditional storage products. Financial performance could decline due to increased competition from other types of products. For example, the development of cloud-based solutions has reduced demand for some of our existing hardware products.

If we cannot continue to produce quality products and services, our reputation, business and financial performance may suffer.

In the course of conducting our business, we must adequately address quality issues associated with our products, services and solutions, including defects in our engineering, design and manufacturing processes and unsatisfactory performance under service contracts, as well as defects in third-party components included in our products and unsatisfactory performance or even malicious acts by third-party contractors or subcontractors or their employees. In order to address quality issues, we work extensively with our customers and suppliers and engage in product testing to determine the causes of problems and to develop and implement appropriate solutions. However, the products, services and solutions that we offer are complex, and our regular testing and quality control efforts may not be effective in controlling or detecting all quality issues or errors, particularly with respect to faulty components manufactured by third parties. If we are unable to determine the cause, find an appropriate solution or offer a temporary fix (or "patch") to address quality issues with our products, we may delay shipment to customers, which could delay revenue recognition and receipt of customer payments and could adversely affect our revenue, cash flows and profitability. In addition, after products are delivered, quality issues may require us to repair or replace such products. Addressing quality issues can be expensive and may result in additional warranty, repair, replacement and other costs, adversely affecting our financial performance. If new or existing customers have difficulty operating our products or are dissatisfied with our services or solutions, our results of operations could be adversely affected, and we could face possible claims if we fail to meet our customers' expectations. In addition, quality issues can impair our relationships with new or existing customers and adversely affect our brand and reputation, which could, in turn, adversely affect our results of operations.

If we fail to manage the distribution of our products and services properly, our business and financial performance could suffer.

We use a variety of distribution methods to sell our products and services around the world, including third-party resellers and distributors and both direct and indirect sales to enterprise accounts and consumers. Successfully managing the interaction of our direct and indirect channel efforts to reach various potential customer segments for our products and services is a complex process. Moreover, since each distribution method has distinct risks and gross margins, our failure to implement the most advantageous balance in the delivery model for our products and services could adversely affect our revenue and gross margins and therefore our profitability.

Our financial results could be materially adversely affected due to distribution channel conflicts or if the financial conditions of our channel partners were to weaken. Our results of operations may be adversely affected by any conflicts that might arise between our various distribution channels or the loss or deterioration of any alliance or distribution arrangement. Moreover, some of our wholesale distributors may have insufficient financial resources and may not be able to withstand changes in business conditions, including economic weakness, industry consolidation and market trends. Many of our significant distributors operate on narrow margins and have been negatively affected by business pressures in the past. Considerable trade receivables that are not covered by collateral or credit insurance are outstanding with our distribution channel partners. Revenue from indirect sales could suffer, and we could experience disruptions in distribution, if our distributors' financial conditions, abilities to borrow funds in the credit markets or operations weaken.

Our inventory management is complex, as we continue to sell a significant mix of products through distributors. We must manage both owned and channel inventory effectively, particularly with respect to sales to distributors, which involves forecasting

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demand and pricing challenges. Distributors may increase orders during periods of product shortages, cancel orders if their inventory is too high or delay orders in anticipation of new products. Distributors also may adjust their orders in response to the supply of our products and the products of our competitors and seasonal fluctuations in end-user demand. Our reliance upon indirect distribution methods may reduce our visibility into demand and pricing trends and issues, and therefore make forecasting more difficult. If we have excess or obsolete inventory, we may have to reduce our prices and write down inventory. Moreover, our use of indirect distribution channels may limit our willingness or ability to adjust prices quickly and otherwise to respond to pricing changes by competitors. We also may have limited ability to estimate future product rebate redemptions in order to price our products effectively.

Our transition to a subscription-based business model may adversely affect our business, operating results and free cash flow. 

We are currently transitioning to an as-a-Service company, providing our entire portfolio through a range of subscription-based, pay-per-use and as-a-Service offerings. We will also continue to provide our hardware and software in a capital expenditure and license-based model, ultimately giving our customers choice in consuming HPE products and services in a traditional or as-a-Service offering. Such business model changes entail significant risks and uncertainties, and we may be unable to complete the transition to a subscription-based business model, or manage the transition successfully and in a timely manner; and our ability to accurately forecast our future operating results may be adversely affected. Additionally, we may not realize all of the anticipated benefits of the subscription transition, even if we successfully complete the transition. The transition to a subscription-based business model also means that our historical results, especially those achieved before we began the transition, may not be indicative of our future results. Further, as customer demand for our consumption model offerings increases, we will experience differences in the timing of revenue recognition between our traditional offerings (for which revenue is generally recognized at the time of delivery) and our as-a-Service offerings (for which revenue is generally recognized ratably over the term of the arrangement).

In addition, the transition to an as-a-Service company is expected to require incremental capital requirements, resulting in a negative impact to cash flows in the near term, and may require us to dedicate additional resources, including sales and marketing costs. Furthermore, we anticipate needing to redesign our go-to-market structure, to better align with the subscription-based business model. There is no assurance that we will be able to successfully implement these adjustments in a timely or cost-effective manner, or that we will be able to realize all or any of the expected benefits from such adjustments.

Due to the international nature of our business, political or economic changes or other factors could harm our future revenue, costs and expenses, and financial condition.

Our business and financial performance depend significantly on worldwide economic conditions and the demand for technology hardware, software and services in the markets in which we compete. Economic weakness and uncertainty may adversely affect demand for our products, services and solutions, may result in increased expenses due to higher allowances for doubtful accounts and potential goodwill and asset impairment charges, and may make it more difficult for us to manage inventory and make accurate forecasts of revenue, gross margin, cash flows and expenses.

Economic weakness and uncertainty could cause our expenses to vary materially from our expectations. Any financial turmoil affecting the banking system and financial markets or any significant financial services institution failures could negatively impact our treasury operations, as the financial condition of such parties may deteriorate rapidly and without notice in times of market volatility and disruption. Poor financial performance of asset markets combined with lower interest rates and the adverse effects of fluctuating currency exchange rates could lead to higher pension and post-retirement benefit expenses. Interest and other expenses could vary materially from expectations depending on changes in interest rates, borrowing costs, currency exchange rates, and costs of hedging activities and the fair value of derivative instruments. Economic downturns also may lead to restructuring actions and associated expenses. Further, ongoing U.S. federal government spending priorities may limit demand for our products, services and solutions from organizations that receive funding from the U.S. government, and could negatively affect macroeconomic conditions in the United States, which could further reduce demand for our products, services and solutions.

Sales outside the United States constituted approximately 67% of our net revenue in fiscal 2019. Our future business and financial performance could suffer due to a variety of international factors, including:

• ongoing instability or changes in a country's or region's economic or political conditions, including inflation, recession, interest rate fluctuations and actual or anticipated military or political conflicts, including uncertainties and instability in economic and market conditions caused by the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union;

• longer collection cycles and financial instability among customers;

• trade regulations and procedures and actions affecting production, pricing and marketing of products, including policies adopted by countries that may champion or otherwise favor domestic companies and technologies over foreign competitors, or federal and state tax reforms;

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• local labor conditions and regulations, including local labor issues faced by specific suppliers and original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs"), or changes to immigration and labor law policies which may adversely impact our access to technical and professional talent;

• managing our geographically dispersed workforce;

• changes in the international, national or local regulatory and legal environments;

• differing technology standards or customer requirements;

• import, export or other business licensing requirements or requirements relating to making foreign direct investments, which could increase our cost of doing business in certain jurisdictions, prevent us from shipping products to particular countries or markets, affect our ability to obtain favorable terms for components, increase our operating costs or lead to penalties or restrictions;

• difficulties associated with repatriating earnings in restricted countries, and changes in tax laws; and

• fluctuations in freight costs, limitations on shipping and receiving capacity, and other disruptions in the transportation and shipping infrastructure at important geographic points of exit and entry for our products and shipments.

The factors described above also could disrupt our product and component manufacturing and key suppliers located outside of the United States. For example, we rely on suppliers in Asia for product assembly and manufacture.

In many foreign countries, particularly in those with developing economies, there are companies that engage in business practices prohibited by laws and regulations applicable to us, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended (the "FCPA"). Although we implement policies, procedures and training designed to facilitate compliance with these laws, our employees, contractors and agents, as well as those of the companies to which we outsource certain of our business operations, may take actions in violation of our policies. Any such violation, even if prohibited by our policies, could have an adverse effect on our business and reputation.

We are exposed to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

Currencies other than the U.S. dollar, including the euro, the British pound, Chinese yuan (renminbi) and the Japanese yen, can have an impact on our results as expressed in U.S. dollars. Currency volatility contributes to variations in our sales of products and services in impacted jurisdictions. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, most notably the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the euro, could adversely affect our revenue growth in future periods. In addition, currency variations can adversely affect margins on sales of our products in countries outside of the United States and margins on sales of products that include components obtained from suppliers located outside of the United States.

From time to time, we may use forward contracts and options designated as cash flow hedges to protect against foreign currency exchange rate risks. The effectiveness of our hedges depends on our ability to accurately forecast future cash flows, which is particularly difficult during periods of uncertain demand for our products and services and highly volatile exchange rates. We may incur significant losses from our hedging activities due to factors such as demand volatility and currency variations. In addition, certain or all of our hedging activities may be ineffective, may expire and not be renewed or may not offset any or more than a portion of the adverse financial impact resulting from currency variations. Losses associated with hedging activities also may impact our revenue and to a lesser extent our cost of sales and financial condition.

The revenue and profitability of our operations have historically varied, which makes our future financial results less predictable.

Our revenue, gross margin and profit vary among our diverse products and services, customer groups and geographic markets and therefore will likely be different in future periods than our historical results. Our revenue depends on the overall demand for our products and services. Delays or reductions in IT spending by our customers or potential customers could have a material adverse effect on demand for our products and services, which could result in a significant decline in revenue. In addition, revenue declines in some of our businesses may affect revenue in our other businesses as we may lose cross-selling opportunities. Overall gross margins and profitability in any given period are dependent partially on the product, service, customer and geographic mix reflected in that period's net revenue. Competition, lawsuits, investigations, increases in component and manufacturing costs that we are unable to pass on to our customers, component supply disruptions and other risks affecting our businesses may have a significant impact on our overall gross margin and profitability. Variations in fixed cost structure and gross margins across business units and product portfolios may lead to significant operating profit volatility on a quarterly or annual basis. In addition, newer geographic market opportunities may be relatively less profitable due to our investments associated with entering those markets and local pricing pressures, and we may have difficulty establishing and maintaining the operating infrastructure necessary to support the high growth rate associated with some of those markets. Market trends, industry shifts, competitive pressures, commoditization of products, increased component or shipping costs, regulatory impacts and other factors may result in reductions in revenue or pressure on gross margins of certain segments in a given period, which may lead to adjustments to our operations.

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Moreover, our efforts to address the challenges facing our business could increase the level of variability in our financial results because the rate at which we are able to realize the benefits from those efforts may vary from period to period.

We depend on third-party suppliers, and our financial results could suffer if we fail to manage our suppliers properly.

Our operations depend on our ability to anticipate our needs for components, products and services, as well as our suppliers' ability to deliver sufficient quantities of quality components, products and services at reasonable prices and in time for us to meet critical schedules for the delivery of our own products and services. Given the wide variety of solutions that we offer, the large and diverse distribution of our suppliers and contract manufacturers, and the long lead times required to manufacture, assemble and deliver certain solutions, problems could arise in production, planning and inventory management that could seriously harm our business. In addition, our ongoing efforts to optimize the efficiency of our supply chain could cause supply disruptions and be more expensive, time-consuming and resource-intensive than expected. Furthermore, certain of our suppliers may decide to discontinue conducting business with us. Other supplier problems that we could face include component shortages, excess supply, and contractual, relational and labor risks, each of which is described below.

Component shortages.  We may experience a shortage of, or a delay in receiving, certain components as a result of strong demand, capacity constraints, supplier financial weaknesses, the inability of suppliers to borrow funds in the credit markets, disputes with suppliers (some of whom are also our customers), disruptions in the operations of component suppliers, other problems experienced by suppliers or problems faced during the transition to new suppliers. If shortages or delays persist, the price of certain components may increase, we may be exposed to quality issues, or the components may not be available at all. We may not be able to secure enough components at reasonable prices or of acceptable quality to build products or provide services in a timely manner in the quantities needed or according to our specifications. Accordingly, our business and financial performance could suffer if we lose time-sensitive sales, incur additional freight costs or are unable to pass on price increases to our customers. If we cannot adequately address supply issues, we might have to reengineer some product or service offerings, which could result in further costs and delays.

• Excess supply.  In order to secure components for our products or services, at times we may make advance payments to suppliers or enter into non-cancelable commitments with vendors. In addition, we may purchase components strategically in advance of demand to take advantage of favorable pricing or to address concerns about the availability of future components. If we fail to anticipate customer demand properly, a temporary oversupply could result in excess or obsolete components, which could adversely affect our business and financial performance.

• Contractual terms.  As a result of binding long-term price or purchase commitments with vendors, we may be obligated to purchase components or services at prices that are higher than those available in the current market and be limited in our ability to respond to changing market conditions. If we commit to purchasing components or services for prices in excess of the then-current market price, we may be at a disadvantage to competitors who have access to components or services at lower prices, our gross margin could suffer, and we could incur additional charges relating to inventory obsolescence. Any of these developments could adversely affect our future results of operations and financial condition.

• Contingent workers.  We also rely on third-party suppliers for the provision of contingent workers, and our failure to manage our use of such workers effectively could adversely affect our results of operations. We have been exposed to various legal claims relating to the status of contingent workers in the past and could face similar claims in the future. We may be subject to shortages, oversupply or fixed contractual terms relating to contingent workers. Our ability to manage the size of, and costs associated with, the contingent workforce may be subject to additional constraints imposed by local laws.

• Single-source suppliers.  We obtain a significant number of components from single sources due to technology, availability, price, quality, scale or customization needs. Replacing a single-source supplier could delay production of some products as replacement suppliers may be subject to capacity constraints or other output limitations. For some components, such as customized components, alternative sources either may not exist or may be unable to produce the quantities of those components necessary to satisfy our production requirements. In addition, we sometimes purchase components from single-source suppliers under short-term agreements that contain favorable pricing and other terms but that may be unilaterally modified or terminated by the supplier with limited notice and with little or no penalty. The performance of such single-source suppliers under those agreements (and the renewal or extension of those agreements upon similar terms) may affect the quality, quantity and price of our components. The loss of a single-source supplier, the deterioration of our relationship with a single-source supplier or any unilateral modification to the contractual terms under which we are supplied components by a single-source supplier could adversely affect our business and financial performance.

Business disruptions could seriously harm our future revenue and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.

Our worldwide operations could be disrupted by natural or human induced disasters including, but not limited to, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, fires, extreme weather conditions, power or water shortages, telecommunications failures, materials scarcity and price volatility, and medical epidemics or pandemics. We are predominantly self-insured to mitigate the

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impact of most catastrophic events. Climate change serves as a risk multiplier increasing both the frequency and severity of natural disasters that may affect our worldwide business operations. Therefore, forecasting disruptive events and building additional resiliency into our operations accordingly will become an increasing business imperative. The occurrence of business disruptions could result in significant losses, seriously harm our revenue, profitability and financial condition, adversely affect our competitive position, increase our costs and expenses, and require substantial expenditures and recovery time in order to fully resume operations. Our corporate headquarters and a portion of our research and development activities are located in California, which suffers from drought conditions and catastrophic wildfires affecting the health and safety of our employees. To mitigate wildfire risk, electric utilities are deploying public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), which affects electricity reliability to our facilities and our communities. Other critical business operations and some of our suppliers are located in California and Asia, near major earthquake faults known for seismic activity. In 2017, our principal worldwide IT data centers in Houston were flooded due Hurricane Harvey. Since then, HPE has increased its resiliency through site selection and infrastructure investments to mitigate physical risks from climate change. The manufacture of product components, the final assembly of our products and other critical operations are concentrated in certain geographic locations, including the Czech Republic, Mexico, China and Singapore. We also rely on major logistics hubs, which are strategically located near manufacturing facilities in the major regions and in proximity to HPE’s distribution channels and customers. Our operations could be adversely affected if manufacturing, logistics or other operations in these locations are disrupted for any reason, including natural disasters, IT system failures, military actions or economic, business, labor, environmental, public health, regulatory or political issues. The ultimate impact on us, our significant suppliers and our general infrastructure of being located near vulnerable locations is continuing to be assessed.

Our uneven sales cycle makes planning and inventory management difficult and future financial results less predictable.

In some of our businesses, our quarterly sales have periodically reflected a pattern in which a disproportionate percentage of each quarter's total sales occurs towards the end of the quarter. This uneven sales pattern makes predicting revenue, earnings, cash flow from operations and working capital for each financial period difficult, increases the risk of unanticipated variations in our quarterly results and financial condition and places pressure on our inventory management and logistics systems. If predicted demand is substantially greater than orders, there may be excess inventory. Alternatively, if orders substantially exceed predicted demand, we may not be able to fulfill all of the orders received in each quarter and such orders may be canceled. Depending on when they occur in a quarter, developments such as a systems failure, component pricing movements, component shortages or global logistics disruptions, could adversely impact our inventory levels and results of operations in a manner that is disproportionate to the number of days in the quarter affected.

We experience some seasonal trends in the sale of our products that also may produce variations in our quarterly results and financial condition. For example, sales to governments (particularly sales to the U.S. government) are often stronger in the third calendar quarter, and many customers whose fiscal year is the calendar year spend their remaining capital budget authorizations in the fourth calendar quarter prior to new budget constraints in the first calendar quarter of the following year. European sales are often weaker during the summer months. Typically, our third fiscal quarter is our weakest and our fourth fiscal quarter is our strongest. Many of the factors that create and affect seasonal trends are beyond our control.

Changes in U.S. trade policy, including the imposition of tariffs and the resulting consequences, may have a material adverse impact on our business and results of operations.

The U.S. government has adopted a new approach to trade policy and in some cases to renegotiate, or potentially terminate, certain existing bilateral or multi-lateral trade agreements. It has also imposed tariffs on certain foreign goods, including information and communication technology products. These measures may materially increase costs for goods imported into the United States. This in turn could require us to materially increase prices to our customers which may reduce demand, or, if we are unable to increase prices, result in lowering our margin on products sold. Changes in U.S. Trade policy have resulted in, and could result in more, U.S. trading partners adopting responsive trade policy making it more difficult or costly for us to export our products to those countries.

Any failure by us to identify, manage and complete acquisitions, divestitures and other significant transactions successfully could harm our financial results, business and prospects.

As part of our business strategy, we may acquire companies or businesses, divest businesses or assets, enter into strategic alliances and joint ventures and make investments to further our business (collectively, "business combination and investment transactions"). For example, in September 2019, we acquired Cray Inc., a global supercomputer leader. In May 2016, we completed the sale to Tsinghua Holdings Co., Ltd. ("Tsinghua"), the asset management arm of Tsinghua University in China, of a 51% interest in our wholly owned subsidiary that owns and operates H3C Technologies and our China-based server, storage and technology services businesses for approximately $2.6 billion. On April 1, 2017 and September 1, 2017, we spun off our Enterprise Services and Software businesses, respectively. See also the risk factors below under the heading “Risks Related to the Separations of our Former Enterprise Services Business and our Former Software Segment”.

Risks associated with business combination and investment transactions include the following, any of which could adversely affect our revenue, gross margin, profitability and financial results:

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• Managing business combination and investment transactions requires varying levels of management resources, which may divert our attention from other business operations.

• We may not fully realize all of the anticipated benefits of any particular business combination and investment transaction, and the timeframe for realizing the benefits of a particular business combination and investment transaction may depend partially upon the actions of employees, advisors, suppliers, other third parties or market trends.

• Certain previous business combination and investment transactions have resulted, and in the future any such transactions by us may result, in significant costs and expenses, including those related to severance pay, early retirement costs, employee benefit costs, charges from the elimination of duplicative facilities and contracts, inventory adjustments, assumed litigation and other liabilities, legal, accounting and financial advisory fees, and required payments to executive officers and key employees under retention plans.

• Any increased or unexpected costs, unanticipated delays or failure to meet contractual obligations could make business combination and investment transactions less profitable or unprofitable.

• Our ability to conduct due diligence with respect to business combination and investment transactions, and our ability to evaluate the results of such due diligence, is dependent upon the veracity and completeness of statements and disclosures made or actions taken by third parties or their representatives.

• Our due diligence process may fail to identify significant issues with the acquired company's product quality, financial disclosures, accounting practices or internal control deficiencies.

• The pricing and other terms of our contracts for business combination and investment transactions require us to make estimates and assumptions at the time we enter into these contracts, and, during the course of our due diligence, we may not identify all of the factors necessary to estimate accurately our costs, timing and other matters or we may incur costs if a business combination is not consummated.

• In order to complete a business combination and investment transaction, we may issue common stock, potentially creating dilution for our existing stockholders.

• We may borrow to finance business combination and investment transactions, and the amount and terms of any potential future acquisition-related or other borrowings, as well as other factors, could affect our liquidity and financial condition.

• Our effective tax rate on an ongoing basis is uncertain, and business combination and investment transactions could adversely impact our effective tax rate.

• An announced business combination and investment transaction may not close on the expected timeframe or at all, which may cause our financial results to differ from expectations in a given quarter.

• Business combination and investment transactions may lead to litigation, which could impact our financial condition and results of operations.

• If we fail to identify and successfully complete and integrate business combination and investment transactions that further our strategic objectives, we may be required to expend resources to develop products, services and technology internally, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage.

We have incurred and will incur additional depreciation and amortization expense over the useful lives of certain assets acquired in connection with business combination and investment transactions and, to the extent that the value of goodwill or intangible assets acquired in connection with a business combination and investment transaction becomes impaired, we may be required to incur additional material charges relating to the impairment of those assets.

As part of our business strategy, we regularly evaluate the potential disposition of assets and businesses that may no longer help us meet our objectives. When we decide to sell assets or a business, we may encounter difficulty in finding buyers or alternative exit strategies on acceptable terms in a timely manner, which could delay the achievement of our strategic objectives. We may also dispose of a business at a price or on terms that are less desirable than we had anticipated. In addition, we may experience greater dis-synergies than expected, and the impact of the divestiture on our revenue growth may be larger than projected. After reaching an agreement with a buyer or seller for the acquisition or disposition of a business, we are subject to satisfaction of pre-closing conditions as well as to necessary regulatory and governmental approvals on acceptable terms, which, if not satisfied or obtained, may prevent us from completing the transaction. Dispositions may also involve continued financial involvement in the divested business, such as through continuing equity ownership, guarantees, indemnities or other financial obligations. Under these arrangements, performance by the divested businesses or other conditions outside of our control could affect our future financial results.

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Integrating acquisitions may be difficult and time-consuming. Any failure by us to integrate acquired companies, products or services into our overall business in a timely manner could harm our financial results, business and prospects.

In order to pursue our strategy successfully, we must identify candidates for and successfully complete business combination and investment transactions, some of which may be large or complex, and manage post-closing issues such as the integration of acquired businesses, products, services or employees. Integration issues are often time-consuming and expensive and, without proper planning and implementation, could significantly disrupt our business and the acquired business. The challenges involved in integration include:

• successfully combining product and service offerings, including under the single Hewlett Packard Enterprise brand, and entering or expanding into markets in which we are not experienced or are developing expertise;

• convincing customers and distributors that the transaction will not diminish customer service standards or business focus;

• persuading customers and distributors to not defer purchasing decisions or switch to other suppliers (which could result in our incurring additional obligations in order to address customer uncertainty), minimizing sales force attrition and expanding and coordinating sales, marketing and distribution efforts;

• consolidating and rationalizing corporate IT infrastructure, which may include multiple legacy systems from various acquisitions and integrating software code and business processes;

• minimizing the diversion of management attention from ongoing business concerns;

• persuading employees that business cultures are compatible, maintaining employee morale and retaining key employees, engaging with employee works councils representing an acquired company's non-U.S. employees, integrating employees, correctly estimating employee benefit costs and implementing restructuring programs;

• coordinating and combining administrative, manufacturing, research and development and other operations, subsidiaries, facilities and relationships with third parties in accordance with local laws and other obligations while maintaining adequate standards, controls and procedures;

• achieving savings from supply chain integration; and

• managing integration issues shortly after or pending the completion of other independent transactions.

We may not achieve some or all of the expected benefits of our restructuring plans and our restructuring may adversely affect our business.

We have announced restructuring plans, including the HPE Next initiative and previously announced 2012 Plan and the 2015 Plan (each as defined below), in order to realign our cost structure due to the changing nature of our business and to achieve operating efficiencies that we expect to reduce costs, as well as simplify our organizational structure, upgrade our IT infrastructure and redesign business processes. We may not be able to obtain the cost savings and benefits that were initially anticipated in connection with our restructuring. Additionally, as a result of restructuring initiatives, we may experience a loss of continuity, loss of accumulated knowledge and/or inefficiency during transitional periods. Reorganization and restructuring can require a significant amount of management and other employees' time and focus, which may divert attention from operating and growing our business. If we fail to achieve some or all of the expected benefits of restructuring, it could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. For more information about our restructuring plans, including details regarding the 2012 Plan and the 2015 Plan, and the HPE Next initiative, see Note 4, "Restructuring", and Note 5, “HPE Next”, to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Our financial performance may suffer if we cannot continue to develop, license or enforce the intellectual property rights on which our businesses depend.

We rely upon patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property laws in the United States, similar laws in other countries, and agreements with our employees, customers, suppliers and other parties, to establish and maintain intellectual property rights in the products and services we sell, provide or otherwise use in our operations. However, any of our intellectual property rights could be challenged, invalidated, infringed or circumvented, or such intellectual property rights may not be sufficient to permit us to take advantage of current market trends or to otherwise provide competitive advantages. Further, the laws of certain countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Therefore, in certain jurisdictions we may be unable to protect our proprietary technology adequately against unauthorized third-party copying or use; this, too, could adversely affect our ability to sell products or services and our competitive position.

Our products and services depend in part on intellectual property and technology licensed from third parties.

Much of our business and many of our products rely on key technologies developed or licensed by third parties. For example, many of our software offerings are developed using software components or other intellectual property licensed from third parties, including through both proprietary and open source licenses. These third-party software components may become obsolete,

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defective or incompatible with future versions of our products, or our relationship with the third party may deteriorate, or our agreements with the third party may expire or be terminated. We may face legal or business disputes with licensors that may threaten or lead to the disruption of inbound licensing relationships. In order to remain in compliance with the terms of our licenses, we must carefully monitor and manage our use of third-party software components, including both proprietary and open source license terms that may require the licensing or public disclosure of our intellectual property without compensation or on undesirable terms. Additionally, some of these licenses may not be available to us in the future on terms that are acceptable or that allow our product offerings to remain competitive. Our inability to obtain licenses or rights on favorable terms could have a material effect on our business, including our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, it is possible that as a consequence of a merger or acquisition, third parties may obtain licenses to some of our intellectual property rights or our business may be subject to certain restrictions that were not in place prior to such transaction. Because the availability and cost of licenses from third parties depends upon the willingness of third parties to deal with us on the terms we request, there is a risk that third parties who license to our competitors will either refuse to license us at all, or refuse to license us on terms equally favorable to those granted to our competitors. Consequently, we may lose a competitive advantage with respect to these intellectual property rights or we may be required to enter into costly arrangements in order to terminate or limit these rights.

Third-party claims of intellectual property infringement, including patent infringement, are commonplace in the IT industry and successful third-party claims may limit or disrupt our ability to sell our products and services.

Third parties may claim that we or customers indemnified by us are infringing upon their intellectual property rights. For example, patent assertion entities may purchase intellectual property assets for the purpose of asserting claims of infringement and attempting to extract settlements from companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its customers. If we cannot or do not license allegedly infringed intellectual property at all or on reasonable terms, or if we are required to substitute similar technology from another source, our operations could be adversely affected. Even if we believe that intellectual property claims are without merit, they can be time-consuming and costly to defend against and may divert management's attention and resources away from our business. Claims of intellectual property infringement also might require us to redesign affected products, discontinue certain product offerings, enter into costly settlement or license agreements, pay costly damage awards or face a temporary or permanent injunction prohibiting us from importing, marketing or selling certain of our products. Even if we have an agreement to indemnify us against such costs, the indemnifying party may be unable or unwilling to uphold its contractual obligations to us.

Failure to comply with our customer contracts or government contracting regulations could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our contracts with our customers may include unique and specialized performance requirements. In particular, our contracts with federal, state, provincial and local governmental customers are subject to various procurement regulations, contract provisions and other requirements relating to their formation, administration and performance. Any failure by us to comply with the specific provisions in our customer contracts or any violation of government contracting regulations could result in the imposition of various civil and criminal penalties, which may include termination of contracts, forfeiture of profits, suspension of payments and, in the case of our government contracts, fines and suspension from future government contracting. Such failures could also cause reputational damage to our business. In addition, our former Parent has in the past been, and we may in the future be, subject to qui tam litigation brought by private individuals on behalf of the government relating to our government contracts, which could include claims for treble damages. Further, any negative publicity related to our customer contracts or any proceedings surrounding them, regardless of its accuracy, may damage our business by affecting our ability to compete for new contracts. If our customer contracts are terminated, if we are suspended or disbarred from government work, or if our ability to compete for new contracts is adversely affected, our financial performance could suffer.

We make estimates and assumptions in connection with the preparation of our Consolidated Financial Statements and any changes to those estimates and assumptions could adversely affect our results of operations.

In connection with the preparation of our Consolidated Financial Statements, we use certain estimates and assumptions based on historical experience and other factors. Our most critical accounting estimates are described in the section entitled "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations." In addition, as discussed in Note 18, "Litigation and Contingencies", to our Consolidated Financial Statements, we make certain estimates, including decisions related to provisions for legal proceedings and other contingencies. While we believe that these estimates and assumptions are reasonable under the circumstances, they are subject to significant uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control. Should any of these estimates and assumptions change or prove to have been incorrect, it could adversely affect our results of operations.

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Unanticipated changes in our tax provisions, the adoption of new tax legislation or exposure to additional tax liabilities could affect our financial performance.

We are subject to income and other taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Our tax liabilities are affected by the amounts we charge in intercompany transactions for inventory, services, licenses, funding and other items. We are subject to ongoing tax audits in various jurisdictions. Tax authorities may disagree with our intercompany charges, cross-jurisdictional transfer pricing or other matters, and may assess additional taxes as a result. We regularly assess the likely outcomes of these audits in order to determine the appropriateness of our tax provision. However, there can be no assurance that we will accurately predict the outcomes of these audits, and the amounts ultimately paid upon resolution of audits could be materially different from the amounts previously included in our income tax expense and therefore could have a material impact on our tax provision, net income and cash flows. In addition, our effective tax rate in the future could be adversely affected by changes to our operating structure, changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in tax laws and the discovery of new information in the course of our tax return preparation process. The carrying value of our deferred tax assets is dependent on our ability to generate future taxable income.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international association of 34 countries including the United States, has proposed changes to numerous long-standing tax principles. These proposals, if finalized and adopted by the associated countries, will likely increase tax uncertainty and may adversely affect our provision for income taxes.

As described in Note 19, “Guarantees, Indemnifications and Warranties,” during fiscal 2019, we executed a Termination and Mutual Release Agreement which terminated our Tax Matters Agreement with HP Inc. Because we now have limited indemnity rights from HP Inc., we potentially bear more economic risk for certain potential unfavorable tax assessments.

Uncertainties in the interpretation and application of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could materially affect our tax obligations and effective tax rate.

On December 22, 2017, the U.S. government enacted comprehensive federal tax legislation commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Tax Act”). The Tax Act makes changes to the corporate tax rate, business-related deductions and taxation of foreign earnings, among others, that are generally effective for our taxable years beginning after October 31, 2017. The Tax Act requires complex computations to be performed that were not previously required by U.S. tax law, significant judgments to be made in interpretation of the provisions of the Tax Act, significant estimates in calculations, and the preparation and analysis of information not previously relevant or regularly produced. The U.S. Treasury Department and other standard-setting bodies will continue to interpret and issue guidance on how provisions of the Tax Act will be applied and administered. As future guidance is issued, we may make adjustments to amounts that we have previously recorded that may materially impact our financial statements in the period in which the adjustments are made. At this stage, it is unclear how many U.S. states will incorporate these federal law changes, or portions thereof, into their tax codes. The implementation by us of new practices and processes designed to comply with, and benefit from, the Tax Act and its rules and regulations could require us to make substantial changes to our business practices, allocate additional resources, and increase our costs, which could negatively affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

In order to be successful, we must attract, retain, train, motivate, develop and transition key employees, and failure to do so could seriously harm us.

In order to be successful, we must attract, retain, train, motivate, develop and transition qualified executives and other key employees, including those in managerial, technical, development, sales, marketing and IT support positions. In order to attract and retain executives and other key employees in a competitive marketplace, we must provide a competitive compensation package,

including cash- and equity-based compensation. Our equity-based incentive awards may contain conditions relating to our stock price performance and our long-term financial performance that make the future value of those awards uncertain. If the anticipated value of such equity-based incentive awards does not materialize, if our equity-based compensation otherwise ceases to be viewed as a valuable benefit, if our total compensation package is not viewed as being competitive, or if we do not obtain the stockholder approval needed to continue granting equity-based incentive awards in the amounts we believe are necessary, our ability to attract, retain, and motivate executives and key employees could be weakened.

Our failure to successfully hire executives and key employees or the loss of any executives and key employees could have a significant impact on our operations. Further, changes in our management team may be disruptive to our business, and any failure to successfully transition and assimilate key new hires or promoted employees could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

System security risks, data protection breaches, cyberattacks and systems integration issues could disrupt our internal operations or IT services provided to customers, and any such disruption could reduce our revenue, increase our expenses, damage our reputation and adversely affect our stock price.

As a leading technology firm we are exposed to attacks from criminals, nation state actors and activist hackers (collectively, "malicious parties") who may be able to circumvent or bypass our cyber security measures and misappropriate, maliciously alter or destroy our confidential information or that of third parties, create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. Malicious parties

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also may be able to develop and deploy viruses, worms, ransomware and other malicious software programs that attack our products or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities of our products. Malicious parties may compromise our manufacturing supply chain to embed malicious software or hardware in our products for use in compromising our customers. In addition, sophisticated hardware and operating system software and applications that we produce or procure from third parties may contain defects in design or manufacture, including flaws that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation of the system. The costs to us to eliminate or alleviate cyber or other security problems, including bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs and other security vulnerabilities, could be significant, and our efforts to address these problems may not be successful and could result in interruptions, delays, cessation of service and loss of existing or potential customers that may impede our sales, manufacturing, distribution or other critical functions.

We manage and store various proprietary information and sensitive or confidential data relating to our business. In addition, our business may processes, store and transmits our client’s data, including commercially sensitive and personal data, including personal data subject to the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"). Breaches of our cyber or physical security measures or the accidental loss, inadvertent disclosure or unapproved dissemination of proprietary information, sensitive or confidential data or personal data about us, our clients or our customers, including the potential loss or disclosure of such information or data as a result of fraud, trickery or other forms of deception, could expose us, our customers or the individuals affected to a risk of loss or misuse of this information, result in litigation and potential liability for us, damage our brand and reputation or otherwise harm our business. We also could lose existing or potential customers of services or other IT solutions or incur significant expenses in connection with our customers' system failures or any actual or perceived security vulnerabilities in our products and services. In addition, the cost and operational consequences of implementing further data protection measures could be significant.

Portions of our IT infrastructure also may experience interruptions, delays or cessations of service or produce errors in connection with systems integration or migration work that takes place from time to time. We may not be successful in implementing new systems and transitioning data, which could cause business disruptions and be more expensive, time-consuming, disruptive and resource intensive. Such disruptions could adversely impact our ability to fulfill orders and respond to customer requests and interrupt other processes. Delayed sales, lower margins or lost customers resulting from these disruptions could reduce our revenue, increase our expenses, damage our reputation and adversely affect our stock price.

Terrorist acts, conflicts, wars and geopolitical uncertainties may seriously harm our business and revenue, costs and expenses and financial condition and stock price.

Terrorist acts, conflicts or wars (wherever located around the world) may cause damage or disruption to our business, our employees, facilities, partners, suppliers, distributors, resellers or customers or adversely affect our ability to manage logistics, operate our transportation and communication systems or conduct certain other critical business operations. The potential for future attacks, the national and international responses to attacks or perceived threats to national security, and other actual or potential conflicts or wars have created many economic and political uncertainties. In addition, as a major multinational company with headquarters and significant operations located in the United States, actions against or by the United States may impact our business or employees. Although it is impossible to predict the occurrences or consequences of any such events, if they occur, they could result in a decrease in demand for our products, make it difficult or impossible to provide services or deliver products to our customers or to receive components from our suppliers, create delays and inefficiencies in our supply chain and result in the need to impose employee travel restrictions. We are predominantly uninsured for losses and interruptions caused by terrorist acts, conflicts and wars.

Our business is subject to various federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations that could result in costs or other sanctions that adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We are subject to various federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations. For example, we are subject to laws and regulations concerning environmental protection, including laws addressing the energy performance of our products and operations, the discharge of pollutants, the management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, the clean-up of contaminated sites, the material content of our products and the recycling, as well as treatment and disposal of our products. In particular, we face increasing complexity in our product design and procurement operations as we adjust to new and future requirements relating to the chemical and material composition of our products, their safe use, the energy consumption associated with those products, climate change laws and regulations and product take-back legislation. If we were to violate or become liable under environmental laws or if our products become non-compliant with environmental laws, our customers may refuse to purchase our products and we could incur substantial costs or face other sanctions, which may include restrictions on our products entering certain jurisdictions. Our potential exposure includes fines and civil or criminal sanctions, third-party property damage, personal injury claims and clean-up costs. Further, liability under some environmental laws relating to contaminated sites can be imposed retroactively, on a joint and several basis, and without any finding of noncompliance or fault. The amount and timing of costs to comply with environmental laws are difficult to predict.

In addition, our business is subject to an ever growing number of laws addressing privacy and information security. In particular, we face an increasingly complex regulatory environment as we adjust to new and future requirements relating to the

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security of our offerings. If we were to violate or become liable under laws or regulations associated with privacy or security, we could incur substantial costs or face other sanctions. Our potential exposure includes regulatory fines and civil or criminal sanctions third-party claims and reputational damage.

Our stock price has fluctuated and may continue to fluctuate, which may make future prices of our stock difficult to predict.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise's stock price, like that of other technology companies, can be volatile. Some of the factors that could affect our stock price are:

• speculation, coverage or sentiment in the media or the investment community about, or actual changes in, our business, strategic position, market share, organizational structure, operations, financial condition, financial reporting and results, effectiveness of cost-cutting efforts, value or liquidity of our investments, exposure to market volatility, prospects, business combination or investment transactions, future stock price performance, board of directors, executive team, our competitors or our industry in general;

• the announcement of new, planned or contemplated products, services, technological innovations, acquisitions, divestitures or other significant transactions by Hewlett Packard Enterprise or its competitors;

• quarterly increases or decreases in revenue, gross margin, earnings or cash flows, changes in estimates by the investment community or financial outlook provided by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and variations between actual and estimated financial results;

• announcements of actual and anticipated financial results by Hewlett Packard Enterprise's competitors and other companies in the IT industry;

• developments relating to pending investigations, claims and disputes; and

• the timing and amount of share repurchases by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

General or industry specific market conditions or stock market performance or domestic or international macroeconomic and geopolitical factors unrelated to Hewlett Packard Enterprise's performance also may affect the price of Hewlett Packard Enterprise's stock. For these reasons, investors should not rely on recent or historical trends to predict future stock prices, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. Volatility in the price of our securities could result in the filing of securities class action litigation matters, which could result in substantial costs and the diversion of management time and resources.

Failure to maintain a satisfactory credit rating could adversely affect our liquidity, capital position, borrowing costs and access to capital markets.

We currently maintain investment grade credit ratings with Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Fitch Ratings Services. Despite these investment grade credit ratings, any future downgrades could increase the cost of borrowing under any indebtedness we may incur, reduce market capacity for our commercial paper or require the posting of additional collateral under our derivative contracts. Additionally, increased borrowing costs, including those arising from a credit rating downgrade, can potentially reduce the competitiveness of our financing business. There can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain our credit ratings, and any additional actual or anticipated changes or downgrades in our credit ratings, including any announcement that our ratings are under review for a downgrade, may have a negative impact on our liquidity, capital position and access to capital markets.

Our debt obligations may adversely affect our business and our ability to meet our obligations and pay dividends.

In addition to our current total carrying debt, we may also incur additional indebtedness in the future. This collective amount of debt could have important adverse consequences to us and our investors, including:

• requiring a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to make principal and interest payments;

• making it more difficult to satisfy other obligations;

• increasing the risk of a future credit ratings downgrade of our debt, which could increase future debt costs and limit the future availability of debt financing;

• increasing our vulnerability to general adverse economic and industry conditions;

• reducing the cash flows available to fund capital expenditures and other corporate purposes and to grow our business;

• limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and industry; and

• limiting our ability to borrow additional funds as needed or take advantage of business opportunities as they arise, pay cash dividends or repurchase our common stock.

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To the extent that we incur additional indebtedness, the risks described above could increase. In addition, our actual cash requirements in the future may be greater than expected. Our cash flow from operations may not be sufficient to service our outstanding debt or to repay our outstanding debt as it becomes due, and we may not be able to borrow money, sell assets or otherwise raise funds on acceptable terms, or at all, to service or refinance our debt.

Certain provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, and of Delaware law, may prevent or delay an acquisition of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which could decrease the trading price of our common stock.

We have provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, each of which could have the effect of rendering more difficult or discouraging an acquisition of Hewlett Packard Enterprise deemed undesirable by our Board of Directors. These include provisions:

• authorizing blank check preferred stock, which we could issue with voting, liquidation, dividend and other rights superior to our common stock;

• limiting the liability of, and providing indemnification to, our directors and officers;

• specifying that our stockholders may take action only at a duly called annual or special meeting of stockholders and otherwise in accordance with our bylaws and limiting the ability of our stockholders to call special meetings;

• requiring advance notice of proposals by our stockholders for business to be conducted at stockholder meetings and for nominations of candidates for election to our Board of Directors; and

• controlling the procedures for conduct of our Board of Directors and stockholder meetings and election, appointment and removal of our directors.

These provisions, alone or together, could deter or delay hostile takeovers, proxy contests and changes in control or management of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. As a Delaware corporation, we are also subject to provisions of Delaware law, including Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which prevents some stockholders from engaging in certain business combinations without approval of the holders of substantially all of our outstanding common stock.

Any provision of our certificate of incorporation or bylaws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control of Hewlett Packard Enterprise could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock and also could affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock.

Risks Related to the Separations of our Former Enterprise Services Business and our Former Software Segment

The stock distribution in either or both of the completed separations of our former Enterprise Services business and our former Software segment could result in significant tax liability, and DXC or Micro Focus (as applicable) may in certain cases be obligated to indemnify us for any such tax liability imposed on us.

The completed separations of our former Enterprise Services business and our Software Segment were conditioned upon the receipt of an opinion from outside counsel regarding the qualification of (i) the relevant distribution and related transactions as a “reorganization” within the meaning of Sections 368(a), 361 and 355 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”); and (ii) the relevant merger as a “reorganization” within the meaning of Section 368(a) of the Code. While the Software Separation generally qualified for tax-free treatment for us, Seattle SpinCo and Micro Focus, the acquisition of Seattle SpinCo by Micro Focus resulted in the recognition of gain (but not loss) for U.S. persons who received Micro Focus American Depositary Shares in the Software Separation.

Each opinion of outside counsel was based upon and relied on, among other things, certain facts and assumptions, as well as certain representations, statements and undertakings of us, Everett SpinCo and CSC, or us, Seattle SpinCo and Micro Focus, as applicable. If any of these representations, statements or undertakings are, or become, inaccurate or incomplete, or if any party breaches any of its covenants in the relevant separation documents, the relevant opinion of counsel may be invalid and the conclusions reached therein could be jeopardized. Notwithstanding the opinions of counsel, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) could determine that either or both of the distributions should be treated as a taxable transaction if it determines that any of the facts, assumptions, representations, statements or undertakings upon which the relevant opinion of counsel was based are false or have been violated, or if it disagrees with the conclusions in the opinion of counsel. An opinion of counsel is not binding on the IRS and there can be no assurance that the IRS will not assert a contrary position.

If the distribution of Everett SpinCo or Seattle SpinCo, as applicable, together with certain related transactions, failed to qualify as a transaction that is generally tax-free, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, under Sections 355 and 368(a)(1)(D) of the Code, in general, we would recognize taxable gain as if we had sold the stock of Everett SpinCo or Seattle SpinCo, as applicable, in a taxable sale for its fair market value, and our stockholders who receive Everett SpinCo shares or Seattle SpinCo shares in the

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relevant distribution would be subject to tax as if they had received a taxable distribution equal to the fair market value of such shares.

We obtained private letter rulings from the IRS regarding certain U.S. federal income tax matters relating to the separation of our Enterprise Services business and Software Segment. Those rulings concluded that certain transactions in those separations are generally tax-free for U.S. federal income tax purposes. The conclusions of the IRS private letter rulings were based, among other things, on various factual assumptions we have authorized and representations we have made to the IRS. If any of these assumptions or representations are, or become, inaccurate or incomplete, the validity of the IRS private letter rulings may be affected. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we incurred certain tax costs in connection with the completed separation of our former Enterprise Services business and Software Segment, including non-U.S. tax expenses resulting from the completed separation of our former Enterprise Services business and Software Segment in multiple non-U.S. jurisdictions that do not legally provide for tax-free separations, which may be material. If the completed separation of our former Enterprise Services business or Software Segment (including certain internal transactions undertaken in anticipation of those separations) are determined to be taxable for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we, our stockholders that are subject to U.S. federal income tax and/or DXC and/or Micro Focus could incur significant U.S. federal income tax liabilities.

Under the tax matters agreements entered into by us with Everett SpinCo and CSC, and with Seattle SpinCo and Micro Focus, Everett SpinCo and Seattle SpinCo generally would be required to indemnify us for any taxes resulting from the relevant separation (and any related costs and other damages) to the extent such amounts resulted from (i) certain actions taken by, or acquisitions of capital stock of, Everett SpinCo or Seattle SpinCo, as applicable (excluding actions required by the documents governing the relevant separation), or (ii) any breach of certain representations and covenants made by Everett SpinCo or Seattle SpinCo, as applicable. Any such indemnity obligations could be material.

Risks Related to the Prior Separation from Former Parent

We continue to face a number of risks related to the Separation from our former Parent, including those associated with ongoing indemnification obligations, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

In connection with the Separation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. entered into several agreements, including, among others, the Separation and Distribution Agreement, an employee matters agreement (the "Employee Matters Agreement") and a real estate matters agreement (the "Real Estate Matters Agreement"). These agreements determine the allocation of assets and liabilities between the companies following the Separation for their respective areas and include any necessary indemnifications related to liabilities and obligations. In these agreements, HP Inc. agreed to indemnify us for certain liabilities, and we agreed to indemnify HP Inc. for certain liabilities, including cross-indemnities that are designed and intended to place financial responsibility for the obligations and liabilities of our business with us, and financial responsibility for the obligations and liabilities of HP Inc.’s business with HP Inc. We are obligated to indemnify HP Inc. against certain liabilities, including those primarily associated with our business activities and for any breaches of the Separation and Distribution Agreement or any of the ancillary agreements. Although HP Inc. has agreed to indemnify us for certain liabilities, third parties could seek to hold us responsible for such liabilities, HP Inc.'s insurers may attempt to deny us coverage for such liabilities and there can be no assurance that any such indemnity by HP Inc. or its insurers will be sufficient to protect us from the full amount of liabilities incurred, and, even if sufficient, it is possible that we will need to temporarily bear the cost of such liability while pursuing judgment. Each of these risks could negatively affect our business, financial position, results of operations and cash flows.

Potential liabilities may arise due to fraudulent transfer considerations, which would adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

In connection with the Separation and distribution, our former Parent undertook several corporate reorganization transactions involving its subsidiaries which, along with the Separation and distribution, may be subject to federal and state fraudulent conveyance and transfer laws. If, under these laws, a court were to determine that, at the time of the Separation and distribution, any entity involved in these reorganization transactions or the Separation and distribution:

• was insolvent;

• was rendered insolvent by reason of the Separation and distribution;

• had remaining assets constituting unreasonably small capital; or

• intended to incur, or believed it would incur, debts beyond its ability to pay these debts as they matured, then the court could void the Separation and distribution, in whole or in part, as a fraudulent conveyance or transfer. The court could then require our stockholders to return to HP Inc. some or all of the shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise common stock issued in the distribution, or require HP Inc. or Hewlett Packard Enterprise, as the case may be, to fund liabilities of the other company for the benefit of creditors. The measure of insolvency will vary depending upon the jurisdiction whose law is being applied. Generally, however, an entity would be considered insolvent if the fair value of its assets was less than the amount of its liabilities, or if it incurred debt beyond its ability to repay the debt as it matures.

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The allocation of intellectual property rights that was made between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. as part of the Separation, and the shared use of certain intellectual property rights following the Separation, could in the future adversely impact our reputation, our ability to enforce certain intellectual property rights that are important to us and our competitive position.

In connection with the Separation, HP Co. allocated to each of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. the intellectual property assets relevant to their respective businesses. The terms of the Separation include cross-licenses and other arrangements to provide for certain ongoing use of intellectual property in the existing operations of both businesses. For example, through a joint brand holding structure, both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. retain the ability to make ongoing use of certain variations of the legacy Hewlett-Packard and HP branding, respectively. As a result of this continuing shared use of the legacy branding there is a risk that conduct or events adversely affecting the reputation of HP Inc. could also adversely affect the reputation of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In addition, as a result of the allocation of intellectual property as part of the Separation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise no longer has ownership of intellectual property allocated to HP Inc. and our resulting intellectual property ownership position could adversely affect our position and options relating to patent enforcement and patent licensing, our ability to sell our products or services and our competitive position in the industry.

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ITEM 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.

None.

ITEM 2. Properties.

As of October 31, 2019, we owned or leased approximately 17 million square feet of space worldwide. A summary of the Company's operationally utilized space is provided below.

	As of October 31, 2019
	Owned		Leased		Total
	(Square feet in millions)
Administration and support	4		7		11
(Percentage)	38	%	62	%	100	%
Core data centers, manufacturing plants, research and development facilities, and warehouse operations	1		1		2
(Percentage)	48	%	52	%	100	%
Total	5		8		13
(Percentage)	40	%	60	%	100	%

We believe that our existing properties are in good condition and are suitable for the conduct of our business. Substantially all of our properties are utilized in whole or in part by our Hybrid IT and Intelligent Edge segments.

In connection with the HPE Next initiative, we continue to anticipate changes in our real estate portfolio over the next year. These changes may include reductions in overall space, and an increase in leased space as a percentage of total space.

Principal Executive Offices

Our principal executive offices, including our global headquarters, are located at 6280 America Center Drive, San Jose, California, 95002, United States of America ("U.S.").

Product Development, Services and Manufacturing

The locations of our major product development, services, manufacturing, and Hewlett Packard Labs facilities are as follows:

Americas  Puerto Rico—Aguadilla  United States—Alpharetta, Andover, Austin, Carrollton, Chippewa Falls, Colorado Springs, Fremont, Fort Collins, Houston, Milpitas, Palo Alto, Roseville, San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale	Europe, Middle East, Africa United Kingdom—Bristol, Erskine
Asia Pacific  China—Beijing, Shanghai    India—Bangalore  Japan—Tokyo Singapore—Singapore Taiwan—Taipei

ITEM 3. Legal Proceedings.

Information with respect to this item may be found in Note 18, "Litigation and Contingencies", to the Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of Part II, which is incorporated herein by reference.

ITEM 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

Not applicable.

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PART II

ITEM 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

The common stock of Hewlett Packard Enterprise is listed on the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") with the ticker symbol "HPE". There were 56,291 stockholders of record of Hewlett Packard Enterprise common stock as of November 29, 2019. The high and low common stock sales prices per share for fiscal 2019 and 2018 were as follows:

	Market Price Per Share
	2019				2018
Fiscal Quarter	High		Low		High		Low
First quarter	$	16.52	$	12.09	$	17.07	$	12.82
Second quarter	$	16.97	$	15.05	$	19.48	$	14.66
Third quarter	$	16.07	$	13.55	$	17.82	$	14.46
Fourth quarter	$	16.55	$	12.52	$	17.59	$	14.36

Dividends declared and paid per share by fiscal quarter in 2019 were as follows: