Dive Brief:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise is weighing the potential sale of a portfolio of software assets, Bloomberg sources reported last week. 
• The assets include several companies HP acquired over the last decade, including Autonomy, Mercury Interactive and Vertica Systems, according to the report. 
• But the potential sale is in early stages and could possibly not result in a deal, the sources said. 

Dive Insight:

The reports of another potential enterprise slim down comes just after the May announcement that HPE will spin off and merge its IT services division with Computer Sciences Corp. That deal is poised to save the company $1 billion in its first year.  

HPE has struggled to rein in expenses and reinvent itself amid the shifting technology landscape, and shedding underachievers has been part of the plan. Autonomy, Mercury and Vertica were all large-dollar purchases that have thus far failed to produce much ROI for HPE. 

CEO Meg Whitman has been working to better focus HPE on enterprise sales and to get out of slow growth areas since HP filed to split into two companies last July.

"Over time, we continue to ensure that we’ve got the right set of assets," said Whitman during a May conference call, according to Bloomberg. "We’re going to continue to optimize the set of assets that we have, but we’re really happy with the current portfolio."

Given the recent changes at HPE—including several leadership changes—it’s unclear what exactly will be left at HPE, and where the company will choose to focus next. But the move could help further streamline the company to focus more on its servers, storage and network business.