I really don't think it's about the "old people" who haven't caught up with the latest technology still working in a technology company. That's a rather broad brush to paint. They may not have good excel, texting, IM skills, but they might be able to design some high-tech memory technology or write some awesome firmware many excel users can't.
I think what's really happening is the morale and brain drain going on at HPE as well as bad execution from our executives and board. I mean, who feels empowered to work at their best when you're always worried about whether you have a job tomorrow? HPE may have made lots of cool acquisitions, but what happened to them afterwards? We either bought a company and made some layoffs, or made some layoffs before we had spinoffs, or layoffs after we spunoff as well as wasting billions on things that became worthless (3Com, Palm, Autonomy...) due to executive short-term thinking.
Many really good people were either let go because of the bean-counting from management or left on their own volition, tired of the molasses that slowed them down at HPE. The true visionaries with strong skills and direction leave HPE because there's too much penny pinching, too much politics, and not enough inventing new stuff or getting things done. What's left when all the skilled and experienced people leave HPE on their own? People with weaker skills who might have a harder time finding a job are left behind to run things. What does HPE do to fill that void? Inexperienced cheap straight-out-of-college hires from the lowest-cost geographies. Are you going to attract top talent that way? How do employees feel when they know this? And the death spiral continues.
This is HPE.