So good results. But, exiting Q2 HPE showed $1.5B in backlog, half of which they attributed to SC issues related to COVID. In their Q3 results they say revenue is down 6% YoY and that $500M of the $6.8B of revenue was backlog they cleared. If you want a clear picture of whether HPE's revenue is growing or shrinking YoY you could subtract that $500M and get an actual revenue for Q3 of $6.3B, which is a $12.5% decline in revenue over last year's Q3 results of $7.2B.
Also, what happened to the other $1B in Q2 backlog?! Are those orders still on the books or did the customers get impatient and shift those orders to another vendor?
SO, good results but looks to me like the company's revenues continue to decline and they're posting profits by cutting heads. Not necessarily a bad thing as they try to pivot to as-a-service, but not exactly the narrative they posted.
As a side note, HPC is their worst performing product segment. HPE couldn't develop their own successful HPC systems so they bought SGI, s—ed their pipeline dry, then did the same with Cray. Once the Cray backlog is flushed out with the 2022 DOE Exascale deliveries (assuming they can get their fabric working) I'm wondering what they do with that product segment, doesn't exactly align well with their goal of everything-as-a-service. It's not a stretch to see them bundling up the legacy SGI and Cray products and folks and selling that off.
With a nod to Dennis Miller, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.