Jack Margossian, president of Comport Healthcare Solutions, of Ramsey, N.J., a CRN Triple Crown award winner and No. 381 on the CRN 2016 SP500, applauded HPE's no-holds-barred channel commitment. "They are behind the partners 100 percent," he said, noting his company's HPE sales have grown double digits for the last four consecutive years. "They are working with us to grow the business. They are being real partners."

Kelly Ireland, founder and CEO of Orange, Calif.-based CB Technologies, an HPE enterprise software partner, said he sees Dunsire's leadership as critical to driving partner success with HPE. "He does everything in his power to help partners," he said. "He is truly there to assist the channel through any issues that come up. That is extremely important especially right now with the channel changing so drastically."

Zarek, for his part, said HPE's small business push represents a major opportunity for channel partners to increase sales in a segment of the business with shorter sales cycles. "That means the velocity of the business we can transact increases dramatically," he said. "We all know enterprise accounts can slow you down. If you can focus on that sweet midmarket account and strategically position HPE as part of that solution, you can get to closure in one to three months."

Dunsire said his call to action to partners as the company steps up its channel commitment is to sell across the full HPE product portfolio, including Aruba networking and the Synergy composable infrastructure, which is being embraced as a hybrid IT platform. "We are investing heavily in hybrid IT," he said. "There is a lot of opportunity there."

The HPE split, which is coming up on its one-year anniversary, has created a far more agile company in a market moving at blinding speed, said Dunsire. Furthermore, he added, it has created a culture of greater accountability. "Complacency is not tolerated," he said.

The HPE strategy to slim down and focus on next-generation hybrid infrastructure lies in sharp contrast to Dell's $58 billion acquisition of EMC, which closed last month, creating a $70 billion, privately held global IT behemoth.

"We believe being nimble and more focused is going to drive better business results for shareholders, employees and your partners," said Dunsire. "I think we picked the right strategy. When you look at a big company versus a small company there is really no comparison. We are held more accountable. In big companies people can hide. In smaller companies there is no hiding, which is good. I like the accountability."