What did Cisco acquire Splunk for and what are the strategic synergies?

Splunk overview: Splunk is the market-leading enterprise platform for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data — log files, events, security alerts, application performance metrics, and IT infrastructure telemetry. Splunk's two primary use cases: Security (SIEM — Security Information and Event Management): security teams use Splunk to ingest all security logs (firewall logs, endpoint detection logs, cloud audit logs), correlate events across data sources, detect threats (SIEM), investigate incidents, and respond to breaches; Splunk Enterprise Security is the market-leading SIEM platform. IT Operations and Observability: IT operations teams use Splunk to monitor application performance (is the web application responding fast?), infrastructure health (is the server CPU overloaded?), and business service availability; Splunk Observability Cloud competes with Datadog and Dynatrace. Cisco's rationale for the $28B acquisition: security data platform — combining Splunk's SIEM data platform with Cisco's network security products (Firepower firewalls, Secure Endpoint) creates end-to-end security visibility from network (Cisco) through data analysis and correlation (Splunk); observability — Splunk's IT observability adds to Cisco's ThousandEyes and AppDynamics observability products; cross-sell into installed base — Cisco's 100,000+ enterprise networking customers are natural Splunk prospects; Cisco's account teams can cross-sell Splunk to existing networking relationships. Integration challenges: Splunk and Cisco have different go-to-market cultures (Splunk grew as a developer-beloved platform; Cisco is an enterprise hardware company); aligning sales motions, product roadmaps, and pricing is complex.

What is HPE GreenLake and how does it compare to public cloud?

HPE GreenLake is HPE's 'cloud everywhere' platform that provides cloud-like consumption services for on-premises or co-location environments. How it works: HPE installs and owns the hardware (servers, storage, networking) in the customer's data center or co-location facility; HPE provides ongoing management (monitoring, firmware updates, capacity management, hardware replacement); the customer pays a monthly consumption-based fee for the compute, storage, or networking resources they actually use (similar to paying for AWS EC2 instances, but running in their own facility). GreenLake vs. public cloud: similarity — consumption pricing (pay for what you use), no capital expenditure for hardware, managed service with HPE responsible for hardware lifecycle; difference — the infrastructure runs in the customer's facility (on-premises or co-location) rather than in AWS/Azure/GCP data centers; the customer's data and workloads don't leave their control; the customer is not dependent on internet connectivity to their cloud provider. Why enterprises use GreenLake instead of public cloud: data sovereignty — regulated industries (banking, healthcare, defense) may be legally required to keep data in specific locations; latency — some workloads require millisecond latency to on-premises databases or industrial equipment; cost predictability — for large, stable workloads (not variable like cloud-native apps), on-premises consumption pricing can be cheaper than public cloud; compliance — some regulatory regimes (GDPR, HIPAA, FedRAMP) are easier to demonstrate in on-premises environments with full data control.

What is the Cisco Webex vs Zoom vs Microsoft Teams competitive dynamic?

Enterprise video conferencing market: the pandemic (2020) massively accelerated video conferencing adoption; Zoom became the defining video platform during COVID but Microsoft Teams has become the dominant enterprise platform post-COVID. Zoom (ZM): started as the most user-friendly consumer-simple video platform; grew from 10M daily meeting participants (December 2019) to 300M+ (April 2020); enterprise focus has expanded but Zoom is primarily a best-of-breed video conferencing tool (Zoom Phone for telephony, Zoom Contact Center, Zoom AI Companion — but narrower than Microsoft Teams' integration with Office 365). Microsoft Teams: fully integrated with Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Outlook); Teams has 300M+ monthly active users and is the default enterprise collaboration platform for most Microsoft 365 customers; Teams now handles video, chat, file sharing, calling (Teams Phone), and has AI Copilot integration. Cisco Webex: historically strong enterprise video conferencing (Cisco WebEx was the original enterprise video conferencing before Zoom); Cisco has integrated Webex with its collaboration hardware (Cisco Room devices, Cisco IP phones) used in conference rooms globally; Webex's competitive position has weakened post-Zoom and Teams expansion; Cisco repositioned Webex as a security-differentiated platform (end-to-end encryption, compliance features for regulated industries). Cisco's strategy: Cisco is not conceding the collaboration market but is not leading it; Webex continues as part of Cisco's enterprise collaboration portfolio (supporting enterprises that are fully Cisco ecosystems); Cisco's future growth is more focused on networking infrastructure and the Splunk-enabled security and observability platform.

Data as of: September 20, 2026

brimindinvest.com / compare / hpe-vs-cisco-infraLIVE

HPE

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company · Technology - Enterprise Server, Storage & Cloud Infrastructure

$60.76

+14.36% this month

VERSUS

COMPARE

CSCO

Cisco Systems, Inc. · Technology - Enterprise Networking, Security & Software

$109.51

-0.94% this month

Comparison scoreboard

HPE LEADS 3/5

AI Scorei

HPE ✓70.8

CSCO 56.6

1Y Returni

HPE ✓+140.73%

CSCO +59.45%

Fwd P/Ei

HPE ✓12.81

CSCO 19.64

Target Up.i

HPE +24.92%

CSCO ✓+25.30%

Op. Margini

HPE 8.70%

CSCO ✓27.70%

Metrics last refreshed: 9/20/2026

Quick take

HPE vs CSCO Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside

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HPE and Cisco are both major enterprise IT infrastructure companies with some competitive overlap (networking, enterprise IT infrastructure) but different core businesses — HPE is centered on servers, storage, and GreenLake cloud-as-a-service (with Aruba networking and HPC), while Cisco is the world's dominant enterprise networking company increasingly pivoting to software, security, and observability through the Splunk acquisition. Both face the challenge of hardware-to-software business model transitions in an enterprise IT landscape shifting to public cloud.

HPE vs CSCO is server, storage, and cloud infrastructure with AI server growth catalyst (HPE's GreenLake cloud services, Aruba networking, and Cray/Apollo AI server business benefiting from AI infrastructure demand — with Juniper acquisition pending to strengthen networking) versus dominant enterprise networking with software transition and security expansion (Cisco's entrenched networking market leadership pivoting to software subscriptions, unified with Splunk's SIEM and observability platform) — infrastructure cloud services versus networking-anchored security software consolidation.

Live analysis · updated 9/20/2026

HPE holds the edge across 3 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. HPE leads on both 1-year return (+140.73%) and forward P/E quality (12.81x vs 19.64x for CSCO), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. On fundamentals, HPE is growing revenue faster (40.00%), while CSCO maintains the higher operating margin (27.70%) — a classic growth-versus-profitability split. Analyst consensus implies similar upside for both: +24.92% for HPE and +25.30% for CSCO.

Want a full valuation workup? 46-section report — AI Score, Monte Carlo forecast, bull/bear case, DCF, and more.

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Normalized 1Y performance

HPE

CSCO

Recent returns

HPE

CSCO

Analyst price targets & sentiment

Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.

HPE

Price target range

analyst mean$65.35
current price$60.76

+24.9% upside to analyst mean

CSCO · 22 analysts

STRONG BUYHOLDSTRONG SELL

Buy (2.0/5.0)

19 Buy / 9 Hold / 0 Sell

Price target range

analyst low$56.00
analyst mean$137.74
current price$109.51

+25.3% upside to analyst mean

Who should consider this stock?

HPE may suit investors who:

See HPE's AI server business (Cray supercomputers, Apollo GPU servers) as a meaningful beneficiary of AI training infrastructure spending by national labs and large enterprises building private AI clusters
Value HPE GreenLake's as-a-service model as providing cloud economics for on-premises workloads that regulated industries cannot migrate to public cloud
Find HPE's lower valuation relative to Cisco appealing given the Juniper acquisition's potential to make HPE a stronger networking competitor, at the cost of short-term balance sheet pressure

CSCO may suit investors who:

Value Cisco's entrenched networking market leadership as a genuinely durable competitive moat — global networks built on Cisco hardware create switching costs that protect revenue for decades
See the Splunk acquisition as creating a powerful security and observability platform that cross-sells into Cisco's massive installed base of enterprise networking customers
Prefer Cisco's improving software revenue mix (approaching 55-60% software/services) as evidence of successful business model transition that should improve earnings quality and revenue visibility over time

Performance & AI score

Performance & AI score
Metric	HPE	CSCO
AI scorei	70.8	56.6
AI ranki	#38	#245
Latest closei	$60.76	$109.51
1M returni	+14.36%	-0.94%
6M returni	+174.68%	+39.49%
1Y returni	+140.73%	+59.45%

$10,000 invested — hypothetical growth (dividends reinvested)

How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?

$10,000 invested — hypothetical growth (dividends reinvested)
Period	HPE	CSCO
1Y ago	$24.07K (+140.7%) started 2025-09-18	$15.94K (+59.4%) started 2025-09-18
5Y ago	$56.73K (+467.3%) started 2021-09-20	$24.75K (+147.5%) started 2021-09-20
10Y ago	$78.62K (+686.2%) started 2016-09-19	$63.02K (+530.2%) started 2016-09-19

Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.

Valuation & upside potential

Valuation & upside potential
Metric	HPE	CSCO
Market capi	$69.27B	$433.28B
Trailing P/Ei	48.89	33.01
Forward P/Ei	12.81	19.64
Price/Salesi	N/A	4.70
EV/Revenuei	2.20	7.07
Analyst targeti	$65.35	$137.74
Target upsidei	+24.92%	+25.30%

Full DCF model for HPE Full DCF model for CSCO

Growth, profitability & risk

Growth, profitability & risk
Metric	HPE	CSCO
Revenue growthi	40.00%	17.60%
Earnings growthi	-30.30%	52.00%
EPS growthi	-30.30%	+52.00%
FCF margini	+9.89%	+18.27%
Operating margini	8.70%	27.70%
Profit margini	4.01%	20.95%
ROIC proxyi	6.31%	27.32%
Return on equityi	6.31%	27.32%
Dividend yieldi	1.09%	1.50%
Payout ratioi	28.74%	49.85%
Dividend growth streaki	No increase yet	No increase yet
Betai	1.44	1.00
Debt/equityi	84.03	58.73
Current ratioi	1.09	0.93
Quick ratioi	0.57	0.65

Correlation

Over the past year, HPE and CSCO have moved moderately in the same direction (correlation of 0.51), based on daily returns.

1Y

0.51

-1.0+1.0

5Y

0.50

-1.0+1.0

10Y

0.55

-1.0+1.0

Drawdown & downside risk

Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.

1Y risk snapshot

HPE max drawdowni26.57%

CSCO max drawdowni17.35%

HPE max wkly dropi17.52%

CSCO max wkly dropi11.44%

5Y risk snapshot

HPE max drawdowni48.36%

CSCO max drawdowni36.68%

HPE max wkly dropi20.76%

CSCO max wkly dropi13.61%

10Y risk snapshot

HPE max drawdowni56.87%

CSCO max drawdowni41.95%

HPE max wkly dropi28.21%

CSCO max wkly dropi16.10%

Performance metrics by period

Performance metrics by period
Period	Metric	HPE	CSCO
1Y	Growthi	+140.73%	+59.45%
	CAGRi	+140.87%	+59.50%
	Volatilityi	57.06%	34.13%
	Sharpe ratioi	1.75	1.41
	Sortino ratioi	2.91	2.08
	Max drawdowni	26.57%	17.35%
	Current drawdowni	2.14%	15.76%
	Avg drawdowni	10.37%	5.92%
	Ulcer Indexi	12.40%	7.84%
	Max daily dropi	10.76%	12.32%
	Max wkly dropi	17.52%	11.44%
5Y	Growthi	+408.28%	+119.45%
	CAGRi	+38.47%	+17.04%
	Volatilityi	41.53%	25.84%
	Sharpe ratioi	0.88	0.57
	Sortino ratioi	1.36	0.80
	Max drawdowni	48.36%	36.68%
	Current drawdowni	2.14%	15.76%
	Avg drawdowni	11.03%	12.60%
	Ulcer Indexi	14.06%	15.65%
	Max daily dropi	15.14%	13.73%
	Max wkly dropi	20.76%	13.61%
10Y	Growthi	+492.37%	+362.65%
	CAGRi	+19.48%	+16.56%
	Volatilityi	38.35%	26.32%
	Sharpe ratioi	0.54	0.55
	Sortino ratioi	0.79	0.76
	Max drawdowni	56.87%	41.95%
	Current drawdowni	2.14%	15.76%
	Avg drawdowni	14.87%	11.02%
	Ulcer Indexi	19.19%	14.50%
	Max daily dropi	15.31%	13.73%
	Max wkly dropi	28.21%	16.10%

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HPE

+2.8%BUY

CSCO

+1.1%HOLD

Next 30 trading days

HPE

+6.4%BUY

CSCO

+3.2%HOLD

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Business comparison

Business comparison
Category	HPE	CSCO
Company	Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company	Cisco Systems, Inc.
Sector	Technology	Technology
Industry	Communication Equipment	Communication Equipment
Core business	Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides enterprise IT infrastructure including servers (ProLiant and Apollo/Cray high-performance computing servers), storage (Alletra — all-flash and hybrid storage), networking (Aruba campus and data center networking), and GreenLake (HPE's cloud-as-a-service platform providing on-premises infrastructure with cloud consumption pricing). HPE also provides high-performance computing (HPC) and AI systems through its Cray supercomputer division (acquired 2019), serving national laboratories, research universities, and defense agencies. HPE's GreenLake platform is central to HPE's strategy of providing cloud economics for on-premises workloads.	Cisco Systems is the world's largest enterprise networking company providing routers, switches, wireless networking (Catalyst), data center networking (Nexus), network security (Firepower), collaboration (Webex), and observability (AppDynamics, ThousandEyes). Cisco acquired Splunk in 2024 for $28B, adding security information and event management (SIEM) and observability to its portfolio. Cisco is transitioning from hardware-dominant revenue to more software and subscription-based revenue (Cisco's software and services revenue is now approximately 55-60% of total revenue). Cisco's networking equipment is installed in most of the world's enterprises, government agencies, and service providers.
Investor focus	Investors track HPE's GreenLake ARR growth (the cloud-as-a-service business), AI systems orders (Cray and Apollo AI servers for LLM training and inference), Aruba networking revenue and profitability, overall revenue growth and gross margin, and the strategic merits of HPE's planned acquisition of Juniper Networks.	Investors track Cisco's software and subscription revenue growth (the transition from hardware to recurring revenue), Splunk integration and cross-sell synergies (security and observability), overall revenue growth and operating margin, and Webex (enterprise video conferencing competing with Zoom and Microsoft Teams).

HPE strengths

AI server demand is a near-term growth tailwind for HPE's high-performance computing business — HPE's Cray EX supercomputer and Apollo GPU server lines are used for AI model training; major national labs (Argonne, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore) use HPE Cray systems; commercial AI companies ordering GPU clusters are also an HPE customer base
GreenLake provides cloud economics for enterprises that must keep workloads on-premises — regulated industries (healthcare, banking, government) cannot always migrate workloads to public cloud; GreenLake offers cloud-like consumption pricing with HPE managing the hardware lifecycle; ARR from GreenLake provides more predictable revenue than hardware sales
Juniper Networks acquisition (pending) would make HPE the #2 enterprise networking company — the planned acquisition of Juniper Networks (JNI) for $14B would give HPE AI-native networking capabilities (Juniper's Mist AI network management) and campus/branch networking scale to complement Aruba's WiFi strengths

CSCO strengths

Cisco's market leadership in enterprise networking is entrenched — Cisco has approximately 50%+ market share in enterprise routing and switching; the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) and CCNP professional certifications create a global workforce standardized on Cisco equipment; switching costs are extremely high (replacing installed networking is expensive, disruptive, and risky)
Splunk acquisition adds leading SIEM/observability to Cisco's security portfolio — Splunk is the market-leading security information and event management (SIEM) platform and IT observability platform; combining Splunk's security data platform with Cisco's network visibility provides comprehensive enterprise security analytics
Software and subscription transition improves revenue quality — Cisco's shift from hardware to software subscriptions and services creates more predictable annual recurring revenue; gross margins on software are 80-85% versus 60-65% on networking hardware

Risks to watch — HPE

HPE's revenue growth has been modest relative to software and cloud peers — hardware-centric businesses grow more slowly; HPE's revenue growth is typically low single digits to mid single digits, far below software competitors
Juniper acquisition debt load will constrain HPE's financial flexibility — $14B acquisition at an already-leveraged company creates near-term balance sheet pressure; integration execution risk is significant
Aruba networking competes with Cisco's dominant enterprise networking franchise — Cisco maintains approximately 50%+ market share in enterprise routing, switching, and wireless; Aruba has gained share but competing against Cisco in enterprise networking is a persistent challenge

Risks to watch — CSCO

Revenue growth has been disappointing — Cisco's revenue declined in FY2024 due to networking equipment inventory normalization after supply chain-driven overbooking in 2021-2022; revenue growth recovery has been gradual
Splunk integration is complex — $28B is Cisco's largest acquisition; integrating Splunk's sales force, products, and go-to-market with Cisco's existing security and networking business is a multi-year execution challenge
Competition from cloud networking (AWS Transit Gateway, Azure Virtual WAN) and software-defined networking (SD-WAN vendors like VMware VeloCloud, now Broadcom) challenges traditional Cisco hardware revenue — enterprises moving workloads to cloud reduce the need for on-premises Cisco routers and switches

Frequently asked questions

Cisco's market position: Cisco has approximately 50-55% market share in enterprise routing (connecting networks together) and switching (connecting devices within a network), making it the dominant enterprise networking vendor globally. Switching cost analysis: enterprise networks are built over years; the entire enterprise might have 500 Cisco switches and 100 Cisco routers deployed across offices, data centers, and branches; these devices are tightly configured with company-specific network policies, security rules, VLANs, and routing protocols; replacing the entire network would require: new hardware from an alternative vendor (Juniper, Aruba, Extreme Networks), weeks or months of planning and testing, temporary service disruptions during cutover, retraining of network engineering staff on new systems, potential compatibility issues with other systems. Why companies don't switch: even if an alternative vendor's equipment is cheaper, the total cost of switching (labor, downtime risk, learning curve) typically far exceeds the hardware savings; enterprises only switch networking vendors during major infrastructure refresh cycles (every 7-10 years) or when Cisco's pricing becomes extreme. The CCIE/CCNA certification ecosystem: Cisco's professional certification program (CCNA, CCNP, CCIE) has certified millions of network engineers worldwide; these engineers are trained on Cisco's CLI and configuration philosophy; enterprises hiring network engineers can more easily find Cisco-trained talent than talent for alternative vendors; this creates a workforce ecosystem that reinforces Cisco's dominance.

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