Long View’s Dave Frederickson on HPE’s rediscovered mojo, the quote-cycle crisis, and why AI starts with data

ROBERT DUTT: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor at ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. We’re here at HPE Discover in Las Vegas this week, and sometimes the best conversations happen by accident.

Dave Frederickson is executive vice president of Strategic Alliances and Business Development at Long View Systems, one of Canada’s leading IT solution providers. But what makes Dave’s take on this week uniquely worth hearing is what he did before he got to Long View. Many in the channel know Dave for his 24 years at HP. He led the channel for a long time, and he spent some time leading the enterprise server, storage, and networking business for HP Canada right around the time Discover was created as a unified event in 2011. He’s been on the partner side now for 14 years, and that gives him an interesting lens on HPE – where it has been, where it’s struggled, and where it is today – that very few people walking the show floor this week can match.

I happened to catch up with Dave at the airport in Vegas after we both arrived here, and he graciously agreed to sit down and share his thoughts on this week.

Let’s get right into it. My chat with Dave Frederickson.

ROBERT DUTT: Dave, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.

DAVE FREDERICKSON: My pleasure.

ROBERT DUTT: I have to ask you the obvious one first. If I’m thinking back correctly to your time at HP, you were actually leading ESSN around the time that HP Discover became a thing in 2011. And here you are 15 years later at HPE’s major show Discover, representing one of the major Canadian partners. Does it feel a little bit like old home week? And also, what’s it like to make the mental switch – I know it’s been a while now, obviously – to make the mental switch from the vendor side of the table to the partner side?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Well, I have to say, 14 years ago at the end of this month is when I left HP. And I will say that every time I come to Discover, there’s a certain nostalgia. But also, I definitely miss it. There’s certain parts of it. I miss the big show. I miss the IP. I don’t necessarily miss having to go to 8,000 meetings over the course of however many [X] days, although I still do quite a few. But yeah, no, there’s definitely – look, and I’m pretty excited about how things are right now. So yeah, it’s definitely – I miss the show a little bit, even on the partner side.

ROBERT DUTT: As I say, coming up on 14 years, how is your understanding of what HP is and what the relationship between HP and partners looks like evolved from what you knew when you were on the other side of the house? What did you not really fully appreciate about the HPE relationship until you were on the side of the table you’re on now?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Yeah, I think there’s a few things that kind of unpack that. One was just the ability on the partner side and the necessity for you to represent the client in a way that isn’t necessarily tied to a particular brand. And also the trust that, once earned, a client will put in you once you kind of make that shift over. And so I remember having a senior executive at one of the banks kind of say to me that, you know, “I never knew, you only had one flavor of Kool-Aid that you were drinking, so I know you were serving up to me every time.” Now, I appreciated the fact that I was coming in with maybe an unbiased, more of an unbiased view. So that’s probably the biggest one.

The other one would be profitability and understanding the impact and the requirements. I mean, it was always there, right? I always said if you wanted loyalty from a channel partner, buy a dog. But really, profitability is the key to be able to continue sustainable relationships and partnerships.

ROBERT DUTT: The Juniper acquisition closed less than a year ago. Clearly, it’s the structural story underneath everything we’re talking about here. The network is the foundation of AI, the Power of One, the unification of Aruba, Juniper, and the HPE compute and storage side of things. From Long View’s perspective, what has the acquisition changed in the conversation that you’re having with customers and the conversation that you’re having internally about the HPE relationship with Long View?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Yeah. So I mean, first off, it’s an interesting challenge it poses because we also have to have a very big, strong relationship with another strong networking organization. And I think that this has really opened, at least my eyes, and I get a whole new sense of kind of energy that’s also coming forward with it. And I think that HPE and Antonio has put together a set of pieces in this puzzle, if you want to call it, that he’s executing on. And with Juniper now, it’s a pretty powerful message. So I think there’s still a lot that we need to unpack and to understand a little bit more, but it’s an exciting time. And I think this positions them in a way that they couldn’t do it before. So yeah, it’s really, really interesting to see how the next number of months pan out.

ROBERT DUTT: You were at the Partner Growth Summit yesterday. Real package of operational changes. That keynote, between 30-day quote validity finally, expanded credit lines, different financing options, new channel-only products in Private Cloud and Zerto. Is there anything in what was announced at Growth Summit that kind of really hit hard or made you say, finally, or this changes something for us specifically? What, among what was announced at Growth Summit, kind of hit most meaningful from where you are at Long View?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Yeah. So first off, I think the quote cycle that happened in January-ish timeframe, I’ve never seen anything like it in our industry. And I’ve told many clients this, like going to 7 or 14 days quote cycle, I mean, it’s unheard of. So to get back to a 30-day is pretty substantial. And by the way, the amount of rework that is required internally on us – so to me, that was probably a pain point to our operations teams because the amount of extra work that was required, the amount of times they had to do multiple quotes for the same piece of business or the same request for a client. I mean, it adds an astronomical amount of overhead. So to me, that was the one that said, OK, good.

I don’t know if that’s signaling that there’s a correction that’s coming relative to the problems that we had. I suspect they’re still going to see escalating costs because I don’t think the work for data centres anywhere is anywhere near finished, by any stretch of the imagination. But yeah, I’d say that that was the big one.

And look, the other financing options, we were exploring and educating customers because it did actually provide an ease, at least for those that could take advantage of it. Those that could do that. There was another angle – if they didn’t have the budget, they got a different shock all of a sudden, something escalated. Because it was an unheard of increase in prices. And it was across the industry. Hopefully, as you say, we don’t know for sure. But it seems like with HPE being willing to make that move, there’s at least some sense that, yes, things are probably going to rise, but in a more manageable, more predictable kind of fashion, so at least they can stand behind their pricing for a month.

ROBERT DUTT: Yeah, I mean, annual budget cycles is really the reality of almost every IT organization.

DAVE FREDERICKSON: So how do you deal with that? I hope so.

ROBERT DUTT: On the partner branded services, it sounds like it’s basically HPE infrastructure support that you can deliver under your own brand. Seems like a big one for partners moving towards a services-led model. Something that you guys are thinking about. Is it something that you’re already planning? Is it something that meshes with how you look at services?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Yeah. So look, we’ve got a huge services business, right? Services make up pretty much half of our overall business. And managed services, professional services. So we will use and leverage the manufacturer branded where and when it makes sense. And there’s some cases where there’s clients that actually want that for whatever comfort level. But yeah, and being able to actually have us execute our own – I mean, our whole thing is about creating healthy lives and prosperous careers for our employees. That means we want to grow our employee base. So that means we want more services people, right? And we want more services to deliver. So anything that can help us by increasing and improving our utilization of our own people and the things we do, that’s good news.

ROBERT DUTT: Antonio’s keynote theme was “architecting AI starts with your network.” Pretty deliberate position – not just “AI is everywhere,” but it’s a viewpoint specifically saying that the network is the thing that determines whether AI works or stays proof of concept. Does that match with what you’re seeing with customers right now? Where are you finding your customers are at in that journey, both in terms of the network as AI element and AI at large?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: So I think that was – my guess would be that that was intentional to really emphasize the strategic importance of the Juniper and the integration of that into the overall strategy for HPE. I actually see it a little differently from a client perspective. It starts with data, right? So for us, our whole approach has been to focus around what’s that data state look like? What’s the maturation? And then from there, you start talking about governance, start talking about security. And so the elements of the network, at least that hasn’t been our core approach or play. As we learn more about HPE and the abilities now that they’re going to have, that will be interesting to see how that might shift. But I don’t think fundamentally it will, because I think it will still connect the dots down to security especially and then governance. But at the end of the day, you can only do great things with AI if you have a really good handle on your overall data state.

ROBERT DUTT: I had a chance to chat with Jeremiah Jenson, lead of North America channel, the other day. And we were talking about Canadian partners and the Canadian market. And I used the term “conservative” to describe how Canadian businesses tend to approach technology. He used “intentional,” particularly around partners. You guys have always served enterprise mid-market customers who tend to want proven, production-ready solutions. How are you thinking about AI infrastructure conversations? Are you leaning into the HPE stack specifically as a foundation, or what’s the lead there?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: So the AI conversation initially started around cloud with us, 100 percent. And again, I go back to because that also was the data story. And whether that be – for us, it’s primarily Azure. But then it’s also things like Databricks and that data architecture, and being able to kind of get that established first. So yeah, I think that from that perspective, it’s really more coming back on the data side.

ROBERT DUTT: When you’re talking to customers, is the concept of tokenomics hitting?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Yeah, so right now, this is huge. We’re actually – and [Sarah Amalco – transcription likely garbled], who works for me as SVP here, and the team are putting together a whole education series and approach and an offering capability around FinOps and tokenization. This is actually going to be a potential slowdown or stall for many organizations, because all of a sudden, if there were other reasons why organizations were concerned about AI, i.e. governance and so forth, however escalating costs have always been – that’s something that comes up time and time again. And now the tokenization of that, and it’s all about predictability. And so it’s this cross between being able to measure ROI and getting the right level of ROI out for that, and then now can I predictably determine what the costs are going to be so I can determine whether or not that ROI matches, right? So I think that that’s going to – look, our first step will be building out and making sure that clients understand and are educated about it.

It’s coming out fast. In a session with HPE and Microsoft just now, Azure Local, it’s an interesting value proposition around that because the fact is, OK, you’re not going to be tied to a tokenization situation. So that might be an interesting opportunity for organizations to take a look at as an option to be able to have more predictability around that. But yeah, it’s going to be big, especially in the next number of months.

ROBERT DUTT: Stepping back to the bigger picture for a second, you’ve got the unusual vantage point we were talking about at the top of the episode for an event like this. Having been there at HP during the Compaq integration era when Discover was created, you’ve now watched the HP split into HP Inc. and HPE, you’ve seen the Juniper deal, the whole arc. What does the HPE of 2026 look like compared to where things were when you were on the vendor side? I guess I’m just kidding. Do you think that HPE has found its own identity at this point?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Yeah, I do. I think I use the term “mojo.” So pretty pleased. And look, it’s kind of gotten back to its core. When you look at the number of acquisitions that it’s made, even around compute with the Cray, for example, earlier with the Compaq side of it, nonstop – like there’s a deep, deep, deep legacy of compute capabilities and technology and experience that they’ve got. So that’s awesome. I think a lot of energy and effort around the storage side of that. And now with the networking front, it’s pretty powerful. So I would say that if I go back in time, when I was at HPE, it had the enterprise services, which was trying to play in a game that was a major global outsource play, which… and then there’s all kinds of different things that kind of happened. Autonomy – there’s a few beauties that would cause me to pause. But if I take a look at – if I go back in time to HPE, what’s core is, you think about HP Labs, core innovation. And so there were different times when, unfortunately, decisions were made that I think stripped away some of the investment opportunity that HP needed and was really deeply rooted in. And so it’s great to see that kind of come back.

And then I think the acquisitions that it’s also made have now proven themselves out, whether it be with Aruba. Look, that’s been a successful – if you look at the profitability of HPE as an organization, it’s pretty telling, right, in terms of percentage of the profits that roll up from that. So look, Antonio, smart man for sure, 100 percent. I think he’s had the vision. And I think it’s the pieces of the investment so now starting to come together.

ROBERT DUTT: Last one for me. What does Long View want to walk away from a week like this having accomplished? Whether it’s a conversation, a relationship, a strategy session – what does a successful Discover look like to you?

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Well, I don’t hit the table, so I’ll ignore the gambling. But no, I think, look, we’ve reignited. We’ve had a really strong relationship with HPE for a number of years now. But I’d say that I think the better years are ahead of us to come. And so I think just kind of getting reconnected, it’s good to see there’s still a number of people that I know and love very closely in the organization. And so I think if nothing else, it’s one: to take back some of the key things to make sure that our organization understands strategically where they’re going to play and why and how it would fit our next number of years in terms of alignment. So that’s going to be an important one for me to bring back to the rest of the executive team, and then to make sure from my role in alliances, to make sure that we understand how that underpins our strategy and go-to-market with our core offerings.

ROBERT DUTT: That’s it. All right, Dave, I appreciate you taking the time once again. Great catching up.

DAVE FREDERICKSON: Always good, Robert. Thank you.

ROBERT DUTT: There you have it, Dave Frederickson from Long View Systems. I’d like to thank Dave for his time on this one. Running into him at the airport at the start of the week turned out to be a very happy accident. And thanks for listening and following along with our Discover coverage. Full slate at ChannelBuzz.ca. You can find our HPE Discover 2026 news hub right in the top nav bar.

A few things worth taking away from that conversation. The return to 30-day quote validity out of the Partner Growth Summit is a bigger deal than it might look on paper. Dave gave us a real window into what short quote cycles actually cost partner ops teams – the rework, the multiple quotes for the same piece of business, the overhead. Now that HPE is stepping back from that, it signals something.

And keep an eye on tokenomics. Dave flagged it as the friction point that’s coming fast for customers trying to build a real AI business case. The cost predictability problem is real, and Long View is already standing up education programs around it. The Azure Local angle that he flagged at the end around predictability versus consumption-based billing is worth watching as that conversation develops.

And the data-first framing on AI is worth noting. Long View is having those conversations at the data and governance layer first. The network’s part of the picture, but it’s not the starting point from where Dave sits.

If you’re enjoying the show, please do follow us or subscribe in whatever app you use. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, most of the major directories. Ratings and reviews are always appreciated.

Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.