A Hewlett Packard Enterprise spokesperson told CRN "there are no discussions with Nutanix" in reponse to a Dealreporter story that HPE is no longer in talks to buy Nutanix.
Nutanix could not be reached for comment.
The Dealreporter report comes three weeks after a Bloomberg story that HPE had "expressed takeover interest" and "held talks with Nutanix in recent months."
The Bloomberg story said that the "talks between the companies have been on and off and it's unclear whether they will be able to reach an agreement over price."
Nutanix CEO Rajiv Ramaswami told CRN in early December that Nutanix was "flattered" by market's rumors of a potential takover, but said he would not comment on speculation.
"Now, in terms of the rumors and speculation, look, it's not appropriate for me to comment, but we are flattered by all the attention we're getting. And in some ways, you know, it's a testament to the fact that we're doing something good in the marketplace.
"And we're doing something that our customers like,' he told CRN.
"We're trying to help them continue to simplify their infrastructure. Help them walk in the cloud, with a cloud platform. We're going to provide them freedom and flexibility of choice and delight."
Nutanix channel partners have told CRN that they believe the HCI pioneer will be sold this year.
Nutanix and HPE have had a long-standing business partnership that began three years ago with a global strategy that integrated Nutanix software on HPE servers. That deal resulted in Nutanix's Enterprise Cloud OS software being made available through the HPE GreenLake cloud's pay per use service.
A top executive for an HPE partner, who did not want to be identified, said that such a deal would have been a "big gamble" for HPE because of the challenges in integrating the two companies.
"Nutanix could have accelerated HPE's move into multi-cloud, it makes sense from a technology perspective," he said. "We sell a ton of Nutanix with the HPE flavor.
"We know the integration works. But it's a big gamble and would have been very expensive at the current Nutanix valuation."
