>> From Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 Brought to you by NetApp. >> Welcome to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend and we are in Orlando at SAP SAPPHIRE 2018. This is an enormous event, 16 football fields. American football fields is the size of this space. Incredible, we're welcoming back to theCUBE, one of our distinguished alumni. >> Thank you. >> Uddhav Gupta you are the global vice-president and GM of the SAP App Center, welcome back to theCUBE. >> Yes, thank you so much, thank you for having me. And isn't this a lovely event? >> It's amazing. >> It is. >> So much energy and excitement yesterday during Bill McDermott's keynote. He talked about SAP, 46 years old now, has 398,000 customers and is responsible for 77% you said of the world's transactions. >> Yes, yes. >> Unreal. >> And you know the best part about this is we got 77% of the transactions, and if you walk around and ask people about SAP, they don't even know SAP, right? It's funny, I'm from the Bay Area and the first time people started taking SAP and acknowledging the brand of SAP was when they start to see SAP Center. Because that's home. >> The shark tank. >> To the Sharks. >> Yup. >> And they're like, oh, that was the first time. And then the second time we put a building out. We bought SuccessFactors and we got a SuccessFactors building by the airport and then, "Oh yeah we know SAP from the building next to the airport." But now people are starting to becoming really serious of associating themselves with the brand because now they started understanding what a crucial role SAP plays in their lives, right? If SAP doesn't do what it does, the entire supply chain for many large enterprises stops, right? Which means, your beverages don't come, and your food doesn't come in, nothing, right? Your lines are stopped. >> Yeah, we're with you. Your medicine doesn't come. >> Right. >> It is just. >> Yes. >> Well you guys have had Bill McDermott has talked about for a while about, we wanna become one of the world's top 10 most valuable brands but for invisible software you know you talk about, you want to be up there with the Apples and we can engage and touch with so many of these brands, and people probably don't know, a lot of people. >> Yes. >> That they are using SAP that's driving so many businesses, industries, and you guys have done a very good job of articulating your brand value through the voices of your customers who are transforming industries, they're saving lives, and also your partner ecosystem. So talk to us about the partner ecosystem and how they're really enabling partners like NetApp. What you're doing with the App Center to really enable SAP's growth and transformation through your partner ecosystem. >> Absolutely, so one of the good things is, if you look at the different transformations that the software industry has gone and cloud is one big one, right? And right now, with the cloud that one day we've regarded is the Cloud is a completely different dynamics of software. It's a very closed environment, the software itself so not everybody can actually basically just go ahead and deploy anything within the software itself, right? So that's created a huge economy of ecosystem for us where we've got partners that are building Sas Solutions, that extend our core business products. We got partners that are building content services that can actually be consumed within our business products. Similarly, SAP has made this transition from being more of a software applications company to actually being a platform company and now taking it into the cloud. So we've got a whole new generation of partners that we kind of started working with that provide technology services into the platform, right? And that's why we work with partners like NetApp. We work with partners like (mumbles). We works with partners, even SIs. They're starting to build a whole bunch of repeatable solutions, right? So in order to bring all these innovations that are happening around the SAP ecosystem, in the hands of our customers, like NetApp is a customer of SAP, too. How do we bring that easily into their hands so they can discover these products? They can try the products, they can buy these products. And then they can manage these products. And that's the whole idea of the App Center. >> And this has only been around for a year. In fact, you just celebrated your first birthday. >> Exactly. >> But a tremendous volume of apps that are already available. >> Yes, it's amazing. >> For try and buy. >> The ecosystem has really embraced us, they put their hands open, right? So within a year we've got 1100 partners that are on the App Center. We've got 1500 solutions that are on the App Center. And we are growing like crazy, right? We've got amazing endorsements from partners and donor. We've got amazing endorsement from customers. Some customers have come and done repeated purchases on the App Center within a month, right? The number of trials we're executing for partners is huge. On the whole, it's doing really well. >> So let's talk about the range of applications. I know when I think of App Center I think of App Center on my phone. >> Yes. >> And I can go and get something as silly as a flashlight or, in my case, as life-changing as my running app that keeps track of my fitness over the course of several years and I have great data to mine from that. What types of applications and industries, what industries do they serve in the App Center? >> So the App Center is really made for businesses. >> Right. >> So definitely we don't have Candy Crush there, right? (everyone laughs) >> Don't ask them. >> I don't know if that's a good thing. >> Oh, that's good, right, but you have a bunch of fun application for enterprises, right? Which allow them to get a better insight in how the company is operating. And then we have, to give you analogy to your fitness application that gives you a better idea of how your body works. We've got application that basically do the same thing for enterprises, right? So let me give you an example. We've got a major SI that actually has built an audit and compliance application for HR, right? So I can actually tell you, within your organizations what's your diversity ratio, what's your compliance ratio, how are people being paid, gender equality and gender pay, equal pay is a big topic that many CIOs are looking at. It kind of helps on those kinds of areas, right? Then we've got apps or solutions in there that basically deal with helping customers do better sales, right? We have apps in there that basically help provide you tools that can better monitor your platforms, right? Tools that help you migrate. All these things are available on the App Center. >> I'm curious from a differentiation standpoint, SAP has been very vocal about wanting, challenging the old legacy CRM. >> Yes. >> And wanting to be number one. Against their, you know, the (mumbles) competitors. How does the App Center and how you've enabled it so quickly and with such diversity of apps, how does this differentiate SAP? >> Absolutely, so we've owned the back office for a very long time now, right? So now it's time for us to basically get in front of the end users and get into the daily work that they do. It's very important for us to also own different offers. That's a whole big initiative, you heard with C4, right? To enable that, we've got cloud platform, right? And that's the other biggest piece of the puzzle, right? Now when you add these two things up, you don't basically, when you look at customers, the biggest thing for them is time to value, right? The whole concept of the bill versus buy is kind of starting to fade and the customer like, "Here's my problem, is there a solution out of the box "that can actually solve my problem?" If he gets a 100%, great, if he gets 90%, okay. If he gets 80%, I'll take it and then I'll improvise on it. And that's exactly what the App Center does. It gives you an out of the box solution from our ecosystem. So you can get started with it, and then you can collaborate with the ecosystem, to either improvise on it or take a step back and say, "Okay, now we've plugged the hole, now let's find "a more detailed solution to actually build "a more scalable outcome out of it." >> So let's talk about licensing flexibility from apps and App Center. One how do customers pay for. >> Yes. >> Their apps in the App Center? And then two, what are the licensing options for both partners and customers, for those individual apps? >> So the beauty of the apps and then the way we started up is the transaction is directly happening between the partners and the customers. So the partners can actually price their applications the way they wanted, right? So some partners that are basically doing content services are doing it by based on utilization, right? So you actually use this many number of API calls, that's how it's priced. Some of the others are doing SAS applications and they are pricing it by users. So the partners have complete flexibility of pricing and packaging the way they want. Also because we're actually using the App Center to sell to enterprises, it's very unlikely that somebody's gonna go ahead and say, "Oh, he has a gold, bronze, and silver package, "I'm just gonna pick one of them." On the App Center you can actually go ahead and custom package or create custom packages with tailored customs and conditions that are specific to that customer. And the customer can then buy it, right? So we've kind of thought of this from an enterprise standpoint. And that's the beauty, right? When you work with partners like NetApp, that is important for them, right? NetApp is a partner that basically goes ahead and works with some of the largest businesses, right? It's important for them to have the flexibility to go ahead and do the business with them digitally. >> So I'm curious. At every event we talk about digital transformation, right? It's table stakes these days. But at SAPPHIRE 2018 there's been a lot of discussion around the intelligent enterprise. >> Yes. >> I'm curious how this one year old App Center that SAP has built and that you're managing, how are you using the data that you're getting about the types of apps that are being developed and consumed, how are you utilizing that data to transform SAP? >> Absolutely, if you think of the intelligent enterprise, we're doing everything that we can from the platform side. But what's the point of being intelligent if you don't apply your intelligence somewhere, right? And that's exactly. >> You're like my mother. >> (laughs) And that's what we're trying to do with their apps, right? So while the platform is intelligent. It can do a lot of stuff. The apps are the one that will help you derive the value from the platform. And that's where the App Center is super important and the apps that are on the App Center support the product. That's the role within the apps in the place for the intelligent enterprise. >> So Bill McDermott also talked about trust and the trust is the new currency. When you put forth something like the SAP App Center, you're kind of co-signing that, you know what, these apps, these are partners, and this is a partner exchange. Can you talk to the value to the enterprise of wanting to something like a App Center to purchase applications? >> Oh, trust is a big thing, right? These days, I mean, you. Enterprises come to SAP because they know SAP is such a trusted brand. So when we did the App Center we also made sure that every app that goes on the App Center is actually totally validated by an integration and certification center team, right? So you don't find anything on the App Center that has not gone through a vetting process. The second thing you don't know show that on the app center you find apps that are relevant to your SAP landscape and that's not a Shopify, right? You're not going and selling something that has no relevance to the enterprise. The third thing that we've done, and very important for customers is we've actually built workflows that allows them to still have the same comfort of procuring a software but only doing it digitally. So, for example, a customer may say, "Look, not every user "in my company is allowed to buy apps." But if a user is interested in buying an app, he should be able to request purchase, and then somebody who's entitled in the company to go through contracts and negotiate on behalf of the company can actually negotiate it, and then the purchase happens. So we will employ trust at every level of the App Center. >> Security is such a hot topic these days, right? I mean, there's been so many public breaches of corporate data, there's just one again the other day with, I think it was MyDNA or MyHeritage. >> Yes. >> And that kind of opportunity for people to submit a cheek sample and get their DNA is so popular. That's a lot of personal information. So the security woven into the fabric of that is all key. >> Absolutely. >> So you mentioned the number of partners and the number of apps. I think you said thousand partners. >> A thousand partners and 1500 apps. >> 1500 apps in the first year. >> In the first year. >> What are you excited about for the next year? What do you think we're gonna be talking about next SAPPHIRE? >> I think the growth in the number of apps and partners that are gonna come over, it's gonna be a hockey stick event we're completely looking forward to that. But what's gonna be interesting is, as these apps come by, and you've pointed it out, security is one topic, but GDPR compliance is another big one. So one of the things that we've been working with a lot of these partners is to basically become more and more GDPR compliant. Because some of these apps are dealing with HR data. Some of these apps are gonna start dealing with customer data and they have to be GDPR compliant. So that's what we're working on with them and we'll see more and more of those kind of things happen. But the second big thing that we're looking forward is going beyond the apps, right? We call it the App Center, we could call it Solution Center, we could call it anything. But the idea is you gonna have apps, but you're also gonna have vendors like NetApp being able to digitally sell the products to our end customers, right? Somebody bought HANA, they need a HANA appliance, with an adapt storage, that's possible on the App Center. Or some other tools, somebody's existing NetApp customer managing really large SAP landscapes. And they can buy tools that will basically help them manage the NetApp landscape, right? Or SAP landscape running a NetApp gear. So those are kinds of things that I'm looking forward to actually coming into the App Center. The third thing is sensors. People are building IoT Scenarios and we are having tons of partners basically certify sensors against our IoT technology. How about we bring those into the App Center, right? So it's gonna be a huge and beautiful portfolio of solutions. >> Practical question before we let you go is. Simple concept 'cause my mind is working and I come from a traditional SAP shop. So I'm thinking, what interesting things have you seen customers do with SRM and the App Center. I mean, it seems like, App Center, another supplier for SRM should be some integrations? Am I making an assumption? What are some of, as we look at, or even App Center and someone that has SAP core products, what are some of the integration for them? >> Oh, you hit the nail, right? What some of the customers are coming back to us and asking is, can you actually do an App Center specifically for my enterprise, right? Where I as a user can basically go, curate a whole bunch of apps that I've kind of looked at the terms and conditions or have met certain standards, etcetera. And accept the terms of conditions for those products right? Accept those products, negotiate the price, or whatever they do. And then make that open to all of my users of their ecosystem, right? So that way, anybody in that scenario can actually go purchase an app and start using it in production. >> And then I have all of my work full from SRM to approve the purchase of the app. >> Exactly, so it kind of ties in very neatly into that. >> So your 18th SAPPHIRE. >> Yes. >> What are some of the key takeaways that you're gonna go back to the Bay Area with? >> You know, the beauty is every SAPPHIRE keeps growing bigger and bigger and the questions every three, four year we've done a new transformation, right? Last year when I come to this conference, people were still kind of unaware and not really ready to embrace the cloud in an enterprise base. This year, I didn't hear one customer say, "Should we go to the cloud?" Everybody like, "We are on the cloud, how can you help us?" How can SAP and customers and partners like NetApp actually help us get there? And that's a refreshing feel, right? Because now we can talk to them about all the grand plans that we have for them. Prior we were basically still selling them on the concept. Now we're actually walking them and talking to them about how they embrace the cool stuff that we're doing. >> Awesome. >> So it's refreshing. >> It is cool stuff. >> It is. >> Uddhav, thanks so much for stopping by theCUBE. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Talking with Keith and me about what you guys are doing with the App Center and happy first birthday again. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Thank you for watching theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend at SAP SAPPHIRE 2018. Thanks for watching.

>> Hello and welcome to a special CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, the co-founder of SiliconANGLE on theCUBE. We're here in Sundance 2018 at the Intel Tech Lounge for a panel discussion with experts on the topic of The New Creative. We believe a new creative renaissance is coming in application development and also artistry. The role of craft and the role of technology and software coming together at the intersection. You're seeing results in the gaming industry. Virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality. A new wave is coming and it's really inspiring, but also there's a few thought leaders at the front end of this big wave setting the trends and they're here with us in this special panel for The New Creative. Here with us is Brooks Browne, Global Director of VR at Starbreeze Studios, a lot to share there, welcome to the panel. Lisa Watt, VR Marketing Strategist at Intel, Intel powering a lot of these VR games here. And Winslow Porter, co-founder and director of The New Reality Company. Many submissions at Sundance. Not this year, but a ton of experience talk about the role of Sundance and artistry. And then we have Gary Radburn who's a director of commercial VR and AR from media within Dell, Dell Technologies. Guys, welcome to this panel. Lisa, I want to start off with you at Intel. Obviously the Tech Lounge here, phenomenal location on Main Street in Sundance. Really drawing a massive crowd. Yesterday it was packed. This is a new generation here and you're seeing a younger demographic. You're seeing savvier consumers. They love tech, but interesting Sundance is turning into kind of an artistry tech show and the game is changing, your thoughts on this new creative. >> Yeah, it's been amazing to watch. I've been here for, this is my third year coming back with VR experiences. And it's really just been incredible to see. Sundance has been on the leading edge of exploring new technologies for a long time and I think this is, I feel like you know this feels like the break out year really. I mean, it's been successful the last few years, but something about this year feels a little bit different. And I think maybe it's the people are getting more familiar with the technology. I think the artists are getting more comfortable with how to push the boundaries. And then we certainly are getting a lot out of seeing what they're doing and how we can improve our products in the future. >> We were talking yesterday, Lisa, about the dynamic at Sundance. And you were mentioning that you see a few trends popping out. What is the most important story this year for the folks who couldn't make it, who might be watching this video that you see at Sundance? Obviously it's a great day today, it's snowing, it's a white day, it's beautiful powder, greatest snow on Earth. But there's some trends that are emerging. We had a march this morning, the Women's March. You're seeing interesting signals. What's your view? >> I think there's a lot less desire to put up with subpar experiences. I mean I think everyone is really starting to push the boundaries, I mean, we saw a lot of 360 video which we love for a linear narrative. But they're really breaking out and really exploring what does it mean to have autonomy especially in the virtual reality experiences, a lot more social is coming to the forefront. And then a lot more exploration of haptics and the new ways of extending into more 4D effects, etc. So I think it's very very exciting. We're really excited to see all the new innovations. >> Winslow, I want to ask you, if you can comment, you've been an active participant in the community with submissions here at Sundance. This year you're kind of chilling out, hanging out. You've been on the front lines, what is your take on the vibe? What's the sentiment out there? Because you're seeing the wave coming, we're feeling it. It feels early. I don't know how early it is, and the impact to people doing great creative work. What's that take? >> Well yeah, it's kind of like VR years are like dog years, you know. Like a lot can happen in a month in the VR space. So I had a piece here in 2014 called Clouds. It was an interactive documentary about Creative Code, but that was back when there was only two other VR pieces. It's interesting to see how the landscape has changed. Because CCP Games had a piece there. An early version of E Valkyrie. And unfortunately in the last three months, they had to close their VR wing. So, and then Chris Milk also had a Lincoln piece with Beck. Which was a multi camera 360, actually it was a flash video that they recorded to the DK1. And so that was, seeing that everyone was, saw the potential. The technology was still pretty rudimentary or crude even, we should say. Before any tracking cameras. But every year people learned from previous Sundances and other festivals. And we're seeing that Sundance kind of raises the bar every year. It's nice that it's in January because then there's all these other festivals that sort of follow through with either similar content, newer versions of content that's here, or people have just sort of learned from what is here. >> So I got to ask you. You know, obviously Sundance is known for pushing the boundaries. You see a lot of creative range. You see a lot of different stuff. And also you mentioned the VR. We've seen some failures, you've seen some successes, but that's growth. This market has to have some failures. Failures create opportunities to folks who are reiterating in that. What are some of the things that you can point to that are a positive? Things that have happened whether they're failures and/or successes, that folks can learn from? >> Well, I think that this year there's a lot more social VR. We're connecting people. Even though they're in the same space, they're able to be in this new virtual world together. There's something amazing about being able to interact with people in real life. But as soon as you have sort of a hyper reality where people are able to be experiencing a Sufi ritual together. Things that you wouldn't normally... That they're not possible in the real world. And also, I think that there's issues with lines too. Obviously every year, but the more that we can have larger experiences with multiple people, the more people we can get through. And then more impact we can make on the audience. It's really... We were in claim jumper last year. And we could only get one person in every 10 minutes. And that makes things pretty tricky. >> And what are you doing at Sundance this year? You've obviously got some stuff going on with some of the work you've done. What's your focus? >> So yeah we have a company called New Reality Company where we produce Giant and Tree. It's part of a trilogy where Breathe is going to be the third part. We're going to be completing that by the end of this year. And right now, I would say the best thing about Sundance is the projects, but also the people. Being able to come here, check in, meet new people, see partners that we've been working with in the past. Also new collaborations, everywhere you turn, there's amazing possibilities abound. >> I want to talk about empathy and social. I mentioned social's interesting in these trends. I want to go to Brooks Brown, who's got some really interesting work with Starbreeze and the Hero project. You know, being a pioneer, you've got to take a few arrows in your back, you've got to blow peoples' minds. You're doing some pretty amazing work. You're in the front lines as well. What's the experience that you're seeing? Talk about your project and its impact. >> Well for us, we set out with our partner's ink stories, Navid Khonsari, a wonderful creative, and his entire team to try to create that intensely personal experience kind of moving the opposite direction of these very much social things. The goal, ultimately being to try to put a person inside of an event rather than a game style situation where you have objective A, B, or C. Or a film that's a very, very hyper linear narrative. What is that sort of middle ground that VR itself has as unique medium? So we built out our entire piece. Deep 4D effects, everything is actually physically built out so you have that tactility as you walk around. Things react to you. We have smell, temperature, air movement, the audio provided by our partners at DTS is exceptional. And the goal is ultimately to see if we put you in a situation... I'm doing my best not to talk about what that situation is. It's pretty important to that. But to watch people react. And the core concept is would you be a hero? All over the world, every day people are going through horrific stuff. We're fortunate because we're the kind of people who, in order to experience, say a tragedy in Syria, we're fortunate that we have to go to Park City, Utah and go in virtual reality to experience something that is tragic, real, and deeply emotional. And so our goal is to put people through that and come out of it changed. Traumatized actually. So that way you have a little bit more empathy into the real world into the actual experiences they went through. >> And what's the goal? This is interesting because most of the some stuff you see, the sizzle out there is look at the beautiful vistas and the beaches and the peaks and you can almost be there. Now you're taking a different approach of putting people in situations that probe some emotional responses. >> Yeah. It's a big deal to us. The way Navid like to put it, and I'm going to steal this from him, is you see a great deal of people prototyping on hardware and all of these things, and it's great cause we need that. We need to be able to stand on the shoulders of those giants to be able to do these things. But you see very few people really prototyping what is the concept of story as per VR? We've been doing, at Starbreeze, we've been doing location based for some time now and I've been getting thousands upon thousands of pitches. And whenever you get a pitch, you can pretty much identify, oh you come from a film background, you come from a games background. There's very few people who come down that middle line and go, well this is what VR is supposed to be. This is that interesting thing that makes it very deeply unique. >> What's the confluence and what's the trend in your mind as this changes? Cause you mentioned that gamers have affinity towards VR. We were talking about that before we came on the panel. You know, pump someone in mainstream USA or around the world who does email, does work, may not be there, you're seeing this confluence. How is that culture shifting? How do you see that? Cause you're bringing a whole nother dimension. >> We're trying to go back to a little bit, something about this Sundance being a little bit different. I think in general in VR, you're seeing this sort of shift from a few years ago it was all potentiality. And I think a lot of us, the projects were great, but a lot of us who work in VR were like oh I see what they're trying to do. And people like my dad would be like I don't. I don't see what they're trying to do. But that is shifting. And you're seeing a larger shift into that actuality where we're not quite there yet where we can talk about the experiences every day Americans are going to have. What is the real ready player one that we're actually going to have existing. We're not there yet, but we're much closer every time. And we're starting to see a lot of these things that are pushing towards that. Final question before I go to some of the speeds and feeds questions I want to get with Intel and Dell on is what is the biggest impact that you're seeing with your project and VR in general that will have the most important consequences for societal impact? >> Well, we were fortunate yesterday we had a number of people come through Hero. And a number of them simply actually couldn't handle it. Had to come out. We had to pull people out. The moment we took the headset off, they were, tears were streaming down their face. There's a level of emotional impact VR is extremely able to cut through. It's not that you're playing a character. It's not that you're in a separate world. You are you inside of that space. And that is a dangerous but very promising ability of VR. >> Winslow, could you take a stab at that, I'd like to get your reaction to that because people are trying to figure out the societal impact in a positive way and potentially negative. >> Yeah I mean, so with that, whenever you traumatize somebody else or have the ability to possibly re-traumatize somebody... In Giant, we made sure that we gave them a trigger warning because yeah these things can be intensely intimate or personal for somebody who already has that sort of baggage with them or could be living in a similar experience. In Giant, we witnessed the last moments of a family. As they're convincing their daughter that the approaching bomb blast is a giant that actually wants to play with her. And so we put haptics in the chair so the audience was also surprised. But we let them know that it was going to be taking place in a conflict zone. So if that was something that they didn't want to participate in, that they could opt out. But again, like we didn't know... We had to go and buy tissues like right off the bat because people were crying in the headset. And that's kind of a... It's an interesting problem to have for the sake of what are sort of the rules around that? But also it makes it more difficult to get people through the experience in a timely fashion as well. But yeah, but we're seeing that as things become more real then there's also a chance to possibly impact people. It's the... >> So it's social for you? You see it as a social impact? >> Well, I mean if everyone's experiencing the same thing that can be social, but again if it's a one on one experience, it's sort of like up to the filmmaker to make sure that they have the scruples that they are playing by the rules. Cause there's right now most every piece of content is being released through Oculus, Steam, or Viveport. But there will be... It's heavily regulated right now, but as soon as there's other means of distributing the content, it could take a different sort of face. >> Certainly some exciting things to grab on, great stuff. I want to get to the commercial angle. Then we're going to talk more about the craft and the role of artistry in the creating side of it. Gary, you're the commercial VR expert at Dell. You're commercializing this. You're making the faster machines. We want faster everything. I mean everyone... Anyone who's in VR knows that all the graphics cards. They know the speeds and feeds. They're totally hardware nerds. What's going on? Where's the action? >> Okay, that's such a large question. I mean we've had some great stuff here that I also want to comment on as well. But inside the commercial side, then yeah everybody wants bigger, stronger, better, faster. And to Winslow's comment about the dog years, that really puts the pressure on us to continue that innovation and working with partners like Intel to get those faster processors in there. Get faster graphics cards in there so that we can get people more emotionally bought in. We can do better textures, we can get more immersion inside the content itself. We're working a lot around VR in terms of opening peoples' eyes for societal impact. So VR for good for instance. Where we're taking people to far flung corners of the Earth. We work with Nat Geo explorer Mike Libecki to show the plight of polar bears in Greenland and how they're gradually becoming extinct for an edutainment and a learning tool. The boundaries are really being pushed in entertainment and film. That's always been the case. Consumer has always really pushed that technology. Commercial's always been a bit of a lagger. They want stability in what's going on. But the creation that's going on here is absolutely fantastic. It's taken what is essentially a prosumer headset and then taking it into that commercial world and lit it up. 360 video, its very inception, people are using it for training inside of their businesses and so that's now going out into businesses now. We're starting to see advances in 360 video with more compute power needed. Where, to the point about immersion and getting people emotionally bought in. Then you can start doing volumetric, getting them in there. And then we're also working with people like Dr. Skip Rizzo who was on our panel yesterday where we're starting to go into, okay, we can treat PTSD. Help people with autism, through the medium of VR. So again, that buys into... >> These are disruptive use cases that are legit? >> Yeah. >> These are big time, market moving, helping people... >> Absolutely. And that where it becomes really, really powerful. Yes, we want our companies to embrace it. Companies are embracing it for training. But when you start seeing the healthcare implications and people crying inside of headsets. That's effecting you deeply, emotionally. If you can make that for good, and change somebody's trigger points inside of PTSD, and the autism side of helping somebody in interview techniques to be able to be more self sufficient, it's absolutely awesome. >> This is the new creative. So what's your take on the new creative? What's your definition? Cause you're talking about a big range of use cases beyond just film making and digital artistry. >> Yeah, absolutely so the new creative is like with all the great work that's here, people are looking at film and entertainment. Now the world really is the oyster for all the creatives out there. People are clamoring out for modelers, artists, story tellers, story experiencers to be able to use that inside their commercial environments to make their businesses more effective. But they're not going to have a 360 video production company inside of their commercial organization. And it's then leveraging all of the creative here and all of the great stuff here. Which is really going to help the whole world a lot. >> Lisa, I want to get your thoughts on this cause you guys at Intel here at the Tech Lounge have a variety of demos, but there's a range of pro and entry level tools that can get someone up and running quickly to pro. And so there's a creative range not only just for digital artistry, but also business we're hearing. So what's the... Cause AI's involved in a lot of this too though. It's not just AI, it's a lot of these things. What's the Intel take on this. >> Well I think it's really an interesting time for us at Intel because one of the things that we have that I think probably nobody else has. We have this amazing slate of products that really cover the end to end process. Both from the creation side of the house all the way to the consumption side. And we talk a lot about our processors. We worked on an amazing project, a couple of huge scenes inside of the Sansar environment. Which is a great tool for really democratizing the creation of spaces. It's a cloud hosted service but it utilizes this amazing client-server architecture. We created four huge spaces in a matter of eight weeks to launch at CES. And some of the technologies that Gary was referring to just in pure processing power like two generations old processors were taking three hours to render just a small portion of a model where our newest generation Core i9s with our opting technology took that time to 15 minutes. So when we think about what we can do now, and those technologies are going to be available in even portable laptop form factors. We've got the piece where we were working here SPHERES. They were able to actually make some corrections and some tweaks basically immediately without having to send them off to some render farm. They were able to do those things. And I know Winslow has talked about that as well. What does it mean to you to be able to react real time. And be able to do your creative craft where you are and then be able to share that so readily. And then you know... I just think that's kind of an amazing equalizer. It's really democratizing the creation process. >> Okay the next question that begs for everyone to address is where are we in this progression? Early? What work needs to get done? Where are we holding back? Is it speeds and feeds? Is it the software? Is it the routines, libraries, art? Where's the bottleneck? Why isn't it going faster? Or is it going faster? >> I would, and I'm sure the team would agree here, I would say that one of the key things is the creator tools themselves, right. They are still somewhat cumbersome. We were talking to another filmmaker. He was like I can't even, I have to play the whole piece from the beginning, I can't just go in and edit, you know change control, being able to collaborate on these pieces with other people. I mean, if you can collaborate in a real world space, you should be able to also collaborate in VR and have change control and all those sorts of things that are necessary to the iteration of a project. So we're trying to work with our software partners. They're all doing a really great job of trying to iterate that, but it's going to take some time. I mean I think that's probably the bigger thing that's holding everything back. We're going to be right there with the processing power and the other technologies that we bring to the table. OEM partners are going to be right there with the best devices. I really think it's something we've all got to push for as far as those tools getting better. >> Brooks, comment on anything? You're in the... >> So for me, the thing that's holding back VR in general is actually the art form itself. One of the great challenges, if you look back, at say the history of film... We're at Sundance, so it's probably fairly apropo. Very early on in the early movies, aside from penny arcade machines that you'd actually stare at, they were 10 minute almost like plays that people would go to almost a playhouse and they'd watch this thing. There were not cuts, there were no angles. It was a single wide shot. Great Train Robbery came around and there was this crazy thing they did called an edit. Where they spliced film together. And if you go back and you read, and they did these dolly shots. People will have no idea what they're watching. There's no way people will be able to follow that. Like people were not happy with it at the time. Now it's stuff that children do on their iMacs at home. They do iMacs all the time, they do it on their iPhones, on their Android devices. These are normal languages of film that we have. VR doesn't have that yet. And there's not a great deal of effort being made in that direction. There's people here doing that. So I'm kind of speaking in the middle of the group, but outside of these people, there's only a handful who are really doing that and it's a significant challenge. When people who are the mainstream consumer put on a VR headset, it needs to be more than just a magic trick where they go oh that's cool. And that tends to be the vast majority of experiences. So what is the thing that is going to make someone go oh I get why we have VR as a medium. And we're not there yet. We're in the direction, but that's >> So you mentioned earlier the point where you can tell if someone's from film or gaming or whatever when you talk to them about VR. Who is the future VR developer? Is it a filmmaker? Is it a gamer? Is it a digital artist? What is this evolving? >> It's a kid in his basement who no one knows and is screwing around with it and is going to do something that everyone thinks is stupid. Like, it's going to be that. Basically every major leap in gaming is kind of the same thing. It's when we understand how ludonarrative dissonance works inside of telling how people move around a space. It's about how we do Dutch angle suddenly in film. And these things get invented. It's going to be some kid who's just screwing around who doesn't have the baggage of the language of film. A lot of the people I know in VR have been fortunate to work in film, in games and interactive or web dev. So you come from a lot of places but someone's going to come along who has none of that baggage. And they're going to be... >> Well you guys are pioneers and you're doing it. So for the first person out there that's in their basement, that inspirational soundbite or comment. How can you guys talk to that person or that group? Because this is the democratization, this is what's happening. It's not the gatekeepers. It's real creatives out there that could come from anywhere. YouTube generation, Twitch generation, gaming. What would you say to that person to motivate them and to give them that passion? >> Well it's only going to get easier, faster, cheaper, all these things are happening. But again, yeah I totally agree with what Brooks said. It's really about the culture and about educating the audience and getting them up to speed. There are some VR experiences that as soon as they put on the headset, like somebody who's never done it before, immediately will take it off cause they'll get nauseated. And then there's people, like kids who are like jet fighters. They've seen everything. You could throw like a 30 frames per second experience at them and that doesn't even phase them. They can be, all of a sudden their worlds are changing and they're like bring it because they're ready for that. So I think it's sort of about raising the bar for what the audience is comfortable with, familiar with, educating the community. There's a lot of tools right now, you know with Unreal and Unity that allow people who have very little... They don't need to know C# or C++, they can get started in a lot of like visual. What you see is what you get. Being able to drag things into a virtual room. And the windows headsets that are out. They refer to them as mixed reality, but just even having the ability to flip up the screen and transition from the virtual world to the real world in milliseconds, it allows you to be able to create things more at the speed of thought instead of coming up with an idea, coding it, and making sure it works, and then eventually putting on the headset. The sooner that we can actually be ideating inside this virtual environment is when things will get really interesting. >> So the next question is to take to the next level is what's the playbook? How does someone get involved? How does someone ingratiate into a community? If I'm an artist, I want to get, and I'm proficient with technology, or maybe not, how do they get involved? Is it community driven? Is it social? You guys mentioned seeing social's a big trend here. How do people get involved? What's the track? >> Well yeah you don't just need to go to a grad school or... There's a lot of programs out there that are popping up. Almost every single major state school has like an interactive art program now. And that wasn't the case like two or three years ago. So we're seeing that that's a big shift in the culture. But again, VR is still... It's expensive and it's you know, like VR, I refer to it's in the stage of it's almost like in the neo geo phase, maybe a little before that. But it's the really expensive thing that your friend's neighbor has. Or his older brother or something. You get to play it a little bit, you're like that's great but there's no way in hell I'm going to... You know, I can't afford that or like that just doesn't really work with my lifestyle right now so it needs to incorporate itself into our everyday, our habits. And it needs to be something that... If we're all doing it then it makes sense for us to do it together not just somebody in their basement doing it by themselves. >> Yeah feel free to comment, this is a good topic. >> Oh yeah, absolutely. So what we're doing is sort of about democratization and accessibility. So for people to get into the then they're going to need a rig, they're going to need a headset and previously it's actually been quite expensive to actually take that first plunge into it. So now by democratizing and bringing price points down, it makes it more accessible. That helps content creators because there's now more of an audience that can now consume that content. And the people that can then play with the medium and consume it now have a better reason to do it. So we're working on that. We're also working on the education pieces like Key. It's actually going out there to schools and actually letting them experience VR and play with VR. Because it is a whole new different medium. We've seen film directors and filmmakers go into the VR space and things that worked in 2D film like fast pans and whatever else so the points have already been made don't really translate into VR without somebody losing their lunch. So it is going to be somebody who's coming up who hasn't got the baggage of previous skill sets inside of 2D doing it inside of VR. So we're going to see that. And in terms of the technology, everybody's wanting things to progress. That shows the level of excitement out there. And everybody wants to get into it. Everybody wants to see it go further. And I'm reminded of the mobile phone. Mobile phone, 30 years ago? Two suitcases for batteries, a large brick on the ear and a car antennae. Okay, so where we are now, if you had a time machine and you went back in time to talk to the inventor of the mobile phone, well, I'd be a lot richer because I know sports results and all, but that aside, but you go back and talk to them and you said do you know in 30 years time, everybody is going to be carrying that device? Everybody's going to be dependent on that device? They're going to get social anxiety and separation anxiety if they lose it. And they will probably laugh in your face. >> Alright so since you brought up the phone analogy, since I love that example, are we in the Blackberry moment of VR and no one yet has built the iPhone? Because the iPhone was the seminal moment for smartphones. And you see what happened there. Is VR needing that kind of break? Or is it there? >> I think we're on the cusp. Where we are at the moment with technology, we've had the headsets, which I say have been more in the consumer space, they've been designed to hit a certain price point. We had CES the other week where we've had advancements now in the resolutions of headset that are now coming out. One of the issues was well I can't see texts, I can't read texts. So from a working environment, if you're actually using tools that you would normally use on a 2D screen, you can now translate that and read that text. However, in terms of the tools that people use, why are we trying to put 2D screens into a VR headset? We've got a whole new way of interacting with data. We've got a whole new way of doing things that are going to be more intuitive than the mouse and keyboard interaction that we're used to. Why just translate that. Let's push that envelope and those are the developments that we're pushing our partners and our ISVs to really embrace. >> So it's an evoution. >> It's absolutely an evolution. >> You guys have any thoughts on that comment. That we have that inflection point, are we hitting that, will we see it soon, is it here? >> Well I think it's a very interesting symbiotic relationship between multiple factors. So you know, we hear the cost factor, we hear the technology factor, then we have the content factor. You know I saw an interesting evolution at CES we had created this virtual booth experience so that you could still come to the CES Intel booth without actually having to be there. And I met a guy in there and I was like hey where are you? He goes I've been in here like all week. (laughter) And I was like oh yeah, where do you live? He goes oh I'm in my basement in Nebraska. But he had just, this was Friday when I met him. He'd been in there all week, but in 2D mode. And he had gone out the night before and bought a headset just so he could come back and go in VR mode. And I think, yes, all these factors have to kind of line up, but I do think that content, those experiences that are going to keep people coming back for more. Like these guys literally kept coming back to our booth. Right, to see... >> Content gain. >> To see who was there. And to them at that point, it wasn't really a barrier of cost. It was like there is something that I want to consume therefore I am going to go get what I need to consume it. And I use the analogy of HDTV, right. When we kind of moved over that hump where there was enough content people didn't really care how much that television cost. >> Sports was great. Sports really highlighted HD. >> Yeah. >> But this is a good point. This is a good question to ask. Brooks, I'd love to get your thoughts. Content drives experiences, amazing experiences, but we're building the scaffolding of everything at the same time. So where are we, what's your opinion? >> So here on the Starbreeze side, we're fortunate because we have our own headset. We have the StarVR headset we've been building with Acer. 5K all of that stuff and we're upgrading it over the next year. Our focus has been, we skipped the consumer market very much. We went straight to location based and enterprise. And the reason we did that is because there's a promise of VR at a basic, I don't want to say technology stand point, but from an experience perspective, when it comes to that resolution, when it comes to that field of view, when it comes to these things people expect. Average consumers who go to a movie and they see these giant screens. They want that translated. They don't have the understanding like we do of well, LED panels are actually a pain in the ass to build and it takes a little bit and they flip at their own speeds. Time to photon is not a thing my dad will ever see in his life. But there's a reality that people have a need for that. And it is extremely expensive. It's again the reason we went straight to LBE. But for us it's about marrying the two and consistently trying to match what's happening. So when we're talking about, as I mentioned earlier the technology and how we're standing on the shoulders of giants very very quickly, someone who's doing technology is going to see what we're doing content wise and go well I can do that better technology wise. And then we're just going to keep leap frogging. And it's very similar to the phone in the same way that we're not at the final stage of the phone. Like we're at our stage of the phone and no doubt in 30 years people will laugh at us for carrying anything. The same way we laugh about the briefcases and the giant batteries in the cars we had to pull with us. So it's one of those things that's continually transitional. And VR's in an odd, amazing place. >> Well you know, it was a lot of waves that we've all seen. You mentioned the mobile phone, that's a good one to point to. It feels like the PC revolution to me because the same culture of entrepreneurs and pioneers come from a bunch of different backgrounds. So I'd like to get Brooks perspective and Winslow's perspective on this because I think there's an entrepreneurial culture out there right now that's just emerging very fast. It's not like your classic entrepreneur software developer. So in this movement, in this wave, the entrepreneur is the filmmaker, it could be the kid in the basement, could be the gamer. Those entrepreneurs are trying to find a path. >> Yeah, it's a weird mix. VR is at this odd point where not only is it the people who are wanting to be cutting edge in terms of content or technology, but also that first mover strategy from the business side of things. And so everyone wants to be those guys who are charging ahead because in reality, if you look at the financials around all of this, VR is one of those things that you don't want to finance. It's not nearly as safe as say Marvel Avengers or the next Call of Duty. >> You've got to be, you've got to hustle. >> Yeah you've got to hustle. You've got to make... >> What's your advice? >> Start doing it. That's really it. It's the same advice I used to give to game makers when people would be like well I want to learn how to make games. It's like go to YouTube, download a thing and go do it. There's literally no reason why you can't. >> Are there meetups or like the Homebrew Computer Club that spawned the Mac. >> There are, there are infinite groups of VR people who are more than happy to give you all the terrible and wonderful opinions that come with that. There's no shortage of people. There's no shortage and it's an amazingly helpful group. Because everyone wants someone else to figure out something so they can steal that and then figure out something else. >> Winslow, your advice to entrepreneurs out there that are young and/or 14 to 50, what should they do? Jump right in obviously is a good one. >> Well yeah, experiment, break things, that's really the only way to learn. I would say watch as much VR as you can because sometimes bad VR is the best VR. Because you can learn don't do that. And if you learn, if you put all that together, you can really... It's like this lexicon that you can really follow. Also, I think we... As people in tech, we kind of get obsessed with things like resolution, frame rate, and these are very important, but it's also good to remember, or at least for me, I watch some of the best experiences from storytelling when I was a kid, eight years old on a 12 inch screen that was 640 by 480. You know, like scan lines on the VHS. But for me the story still resonated and it's important to think of story first, but obviously it's a dance between the story and the technology. They kind of have to both organically work together. And if they don't, one thing in the story that doesn't work because the tech isn't supporting it, can throw you out of the experience. >> Other concern entrepreneurs might have is financing. How do I get someone to help me build it? And then doing relationships. Finding relationships that could... One plus one equals more than two, right. So how do you? >> You have to get really creative when it comes to funding right now. Unless you're doing location based, which also requires a certain amount of investment to get it up to a bar where you want to be showing it to people with all the haptic effects when it's heat, smell, vibration, stuff like that. You know, it's not cheap to develop. But as far as like working with film foundations, we're fortunate enough to be sponsored by Fledgling Fund and Chicken and Egg. But we also were able to get partnerships with people like Intel and NVidia. And also work with people who come from a traditional film background. There's not one way to successfully fund a project. There's a million. And that's why it's interesting that the technology's innovating, but also the market place is as well. >> One of the things I want to ask is as any new industry gets building, is cultures form early. DNA forms in the entrepreneurs, in the pioneers. And one of the big hottest topics in the creative world is inclusion and diversity. So what's the makeup of the culture of this new generation? Because democratization means everyone can participate, everyone's involved. What's the state of the community vis a vis diversity, inclusion, and the role of the actors in the community. >> Well I think it's important to understand that VR has a profound ability to place you in somebody else's shoes. The trick though is to make sure that those feel like they're your shoes. But I think that we're learning a lot more about story telling techniques and we're able to empower people that their voices you know were previously not heard. The tricky thing is being able to yeah, educate all different groups of people how to use the technology, but once they're enabled and empowered to do it, it's amazing what you can experience inside the headset. >> So VR can be an enabler for education, outreach, a variety of things? >> Yes, I mean the term empathy, empathy machine gets thrown around a lot. You could do a drinking game around it. For panels when people are talking about it. But it's important to know there is a truth to that. And it's, yeah the perspective shift from looking at a screen, a 16 by 9 screen where you can look away, then dissolving the screen and becoming that person. Becoming the director, the actor, the camera person, the editor. When you're in the first person perspective, there's so much more... It feels more personal and that's a really interesting angle that we're going to continue to explore. >> So you could walk in someone's shoes, literally? >> Yes, you literally can. You just have to make sure that you got a... The tracking system's proper or else you'll look like there's... It can be come a horror movie pretty quickly if your leg is behind your head. >> Lisa, your thoughts on this, I know it's important to you. >> Yeah, I mean I think it's fascinating because I've been in tech for a really long time. And seen many, many trends. I mean the first job I had at Intel I was a PC tech and as you can imagine as a female, I think there was one other tech female in the department at the time and I would get funny looks when I would show up with my bag. They were like hi can I help you? I'm like I'm not here to deliver coffee, I'm here to fix your computer, you know. So I've seen a lot of trends and it's super exciting to me to see so much diversity cross culture, cross country, I mean we're having... We had guys come in from all over the world. From even war torn, they've escaped their country just several years ago and they're coming and they're bringing all that creativity to the market. We're seeing very, very strong female contingent from the filmmaker perspective so it's this wonderful, wonderful just primordial soup of people that I think are growing their own voice and their own power. They're breaking molds as far as how you actually get content produced. Distribution is kind of crazy right now. I mean, how do you get it distributed? There's like so many different ways. But all of those things are so important to the evolutionary and biological process of this. Yes, we need to let it go and sometimes we're frustrated. We're like where's the standards? Where's the one ring to rule them all? Where there's not going to be one. And it's good for us that there's not right now. It's frustrating from a business perspective sometimes. You're like, I can't peanut butter myself around all of these places, but I think it's just a very unique time where so many people are... The technology is accessible, that means that so many creators can now bring their fresh voice to this space and it's just going to be fascinating to continue to watch. >> That's awesome. Well two more questions and I'll give you some time to think about the last one which is your perspective on Sundance, what's happening this year, your personal view of what you think's happening, what might happen during this year. But the question I have for you now is to go down the line. We'll start with Brooks here, and talk about the coolest thing that you're involved in right now. >> It actually has to be Hero. We're debuting it here at Sundance. We've been working on it and not talking about it for about nine months. And it's been very difficult. Again it's sacrosanct to the experience that you don't know literally what you're getting in to. And the emotional response has been essentially our goal, trying to find out how far can we take that. You actually being in a space, moving around, having that interactivity, doing what you would do. But it being your story and how deeply we can absolutely effect a human being. And again, watching people come out, it's one of those things, I've been doing game development, I've worked on films, I've done all kinds of stuff. And you usually get a chance when someone experiences something you've made, you walk up to them and you go so what'd you think? And that's not at all what we can do with ours. >> How has it impacted you, that reaction? >> Well, I personally suffer significant PTSD and I've had some traumas in my life. And so it's been incredibly powerful to be able to share these things with people. Share this emotion in a deeply profound, yet amazingly personal way. Which I'm amazingly fortunate to be able to be a part of it. >> Alright thanks for sharing. Coolest thing that's going on with you right now here at Sundance. >> Just the fact that I'm here at all. I mean, it's incredible right? Personally was able to be an advisor on the SPHERES project that is premiering here with Eliza McNitt. She's someone who was an Intel Science Fair winner back in high school and kind of came back to us. So just to see the evolution of an artist really from the beginning to the point where they've been able to come here to Sundance. I'm also very passionate about the work that we're doing with Sansar. I kind of consider myself one of the chief storytellers at Intel around Virtual reality and this new move into social where people are like well what's this game. I'm like, it's not a game. It's you are the game, you are the interactivity. You become the person that makes the space interesting. We're just really setting the scene for you. And there's so many... You know there's a lot of different people kind of chasing this be togetherness. But what we've been able to produce there. And just to be able to explore some of my own personal ideas has just been such a gift. Then to be working with guys like these on the panels and see what they're doing and just be in touch is really just an exciting time. >> John: Awesome. >> Probably what, other than the people on the projects, or the projects that are being shown here, we're working on our new project, which we would have loved to premiere here, but we did... Basically when you get in, you have two months to create a piece, so you have a demo and you have to finish it, so we're taking a little bit more time. This one's going to be about a year development cycle. It's called Breathe where we take you from where Giant left off, where, in Giant, the ceiling collapses on a family. They're in front of you. In this experience, we use a breathing apparatus to basically bring yourself back to life. And then you realize you're trapped under rubble and you remove the... We actually want to have physical objects on top of you that are going to be tracked. So you're moving rubble from you and you realize that you're a six year old girl. You're the survivor from Giant. And you get to witness what it's like to be a future refugee sort of in different key moments of her life that use breath. Whether it's a flirtatious moment, blowing a dandelion, seeing your own breath in snow as a drone shows you a message that your parents pre-recorded on your 18th birthday. This is all in the future, obviously, but every time you walk around an object, you actually grow 10 to 15 years older in the experience. As you get older, the world becomes smaller. And then we witness what's like for her last breath. From being six years old to being 90 years old. But it's a profound personal experience. >> John: That sounds cool, cool. Gary, coolest thing that you're involved in right now at Sundance. >> Wow. I could say it's all cool that would be a bit trite. They say if you enjoy what you do, is it really a job? And I'm lucky enough to be in that position. Because working with all these guys here and like people around the place, they're doing such great things that every day I wake up and I'm astounded of where the industry's going. In terms of what we're doing here at Sundance, then we're really starting to push those envelopes as well. I've been lucky enough to be involved with Dunkirk and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Like last year, so some great pieces there. And moving out into this year, we've got some other developments which I can't mention at this point, but we're showing things like AR and VR mashup. So we haven't talked much about augmented reality here. It's an evolutionary, it's not a replacement. Both can be used and we've started to really start to blend those two technologies now. So you can still see the outside world. Just touching on the commercial side, and health care's very big for me. That's where I think the really cool stuff is happening. Entertainment is great and that's really pushing the envelope and allowing us to then take it for the good of human kind. >> It happens everywhere, it's not just entertainment. >> Yeah absolutely. You start looking at MRI scans inside of VR or AR. Talking a patient through it so they can actually see exactly what you're talking about. You're now no longer pointing at flat things on a screen. You're now actually taking them through it. If you're using AR, you can actually judge the responses of the patient as for how they're reacting to the news. And effectively, inside of the VR, and what's really cool for me is seeing people's reaction to that content and to the entertainment content. >> That's awesome. Okay final question. This is a little bit of self serving because I'd like you to help me do my job at SiliconANGLE. If you were a reporter and you were going to report the most important stories happening this year at Sundance or really kind of what's really happening versus what's kind of being billed to be happening here. What's the story? What is the story this year at Sundance 2018 in your personal perspective? We'll go down the line and share your observations. >> Well, mine here, I'm a Sundance newbie. This is my first year of being here. I'm absolutely astounded by the community spirit that's around. I go to a lot of technical trade shows and technical presentations. People coming here with a willingness to learn. Wanting to learn from other people. It's been touched on already. It's the pool of knowledge that's available inside of Sundance that everybody that comes here can actually tap into to create better content, to learn not what to do as well as learn what to do. And I just think that's brilliant because in that community spirit, that's really going to help enable this industry quickly. >> John: Winslow, you've got some experience, what's your thoughts? >> Obviously, this Intel house, just a little plug for you Lisa. (laughter) Tech Lounge. We got that? Okay good. I mean, yeah, the people that's here. Every year we come here and see where the high water mark is. All these people are... Some of these teams first started with two people and then they grew to six and then by the end of it, there's 100 people working around the clock, pulling all-nighters to be able to give the latest and greatest of what's available with these current tools. So it's amazing because the work itself doesn't really mean anything until people get to experience it. So that's nice that they make a big splash. The people here are very attentive to it. It's a very nice audience and this will continue the momentum for future festivals throughout the year, but also will excite people that have never done VR before. People who have never been to Sundance before. We're seeing that there's a lot of new people. And that will continue to influence many years to come. >> John: So you think VR is the top story here being told? >> As far as like just to generalize, I would say last year kind of the big VR year. This is kind of the big AR year. Next year's going to be the AI year. Then after that we're going to start putting them all together. >> John: Great, great feedback. >> I think it's just exciting for Intel just to be back here. I think Intel hasn't been here in quite some time. Dell coming in here probably one of the breakout years for us to come back and really talk to creators what we're doing from the Intel Studios all the way through to the stuff you can take home and do at home. And I think coming in, we're coming back here with a purpose really, not just to be here to be seen. We're really here with real things and want to have real conversations on how tech can enable what people are doing. Not just from a brand perspective, but from a real hands on point of view. >> John: Yeah, some great demos too, phenomenal tech. >> Really just, yeah everything from the AI stuff we have to the social to the great new pieces that have been submitted here like we mentioned with SPHERES. So I think, yeah, it doesn't feel gratuitous to me you know that Dell or Intel is here this year. We've really come with a purpose. >> You guys are moving the needle, it's really awesome. We need more horsepower. >> Brooks, your thoughts on Sundance this year. Observation, the vibe, what would you tell your friend back home when you get back? >> If, for me, I think it's almost the non-story. It's like the opposite of a story. It's just the deep integration of VR into the normal Sundance flow I think has been interesting. Some people have been here for a few years. And back in the day when it was one or two, it was a lot of oh, you do VR? What's that then? Whereas now, you see a lot more people who are crossing over. Going to see documentaries, then they come to see a VR piece and it's just a part of the normal flow. And the team at New Frontier has done exceptional work to kind of make sure that they have this ridiculous high level of broad content for all kinds of people. All kinds of experiences, all high end things. But it's not that VR's here. Oh good, we have a VR section. It's a lot more of an integrated set up. And it's been really encouraging to see. >> Well you guys have been great. It's been very inspirational. Great information. You guys are reimagining the future and building it at the same time so entrepreneurially and also with content and technology. So thanks so much for sharing on this panel The New Creative. This is SiliconANGLE's coverage of Sundance 2018 here at the Intel Tech Lounge at the Sundance Film Festival. I'm John Furrier thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering NetApp Insight 2017. Brought to you by NetApp. (upbeat techno music) Coming to you live from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, you're watching non-stop coverage of NetApp Insight 2017 on theCUBE. I'm joined this evening, it's almost over, with Brian Stuckey, VP of Infrastructure and Operations with Cerner. Brian welcome to the show. >> Thanks. Thanks for having me, Keith. >> So, you're officially now a CUBE alum. You've not be on theCUBE before, right? >> Brian: No, this is my first time. >> All right, so we'll go easy on you. You are a NetApp customer. I really appreciate you taking the time to come out and talk to us. It's been an interesting show so far. What have been the highlights for you as a NetApp customer? >> You know, just getting exposure to everything that NetApp's doing today, as well as all the supplier ecosystem that's part of the storage business. Learning the different areas of business that NetApp is wanting to take their core capabilities and expand upon them, and how they can really enable us with what we're doing with data within healthcare and what we're doing, across our solution set. >> So, healthcare has been a particularly interesting set of challenges in storage and data in general, with GDPR, all of the regulatory challenges that you face in health care. What has been one of the things that resonates with you most with the data fabric and data vision that NetApp has laid out? >> The tool set necessary to manage the volume of data is really where we need to be. Because the healthcare data is exploding, contingents explode, there's not real great guidance as to how long from a regulatory perspective ... Our customers and our clients really need to retain data. So, we wind up retaining data forever. Even if it's seven years you can look at seven years of an infant heart rate digital past their 18th birthday. We're sitting on that data for 25 plus years. So, as you can imagine, the amount of data is exploding. We have to be able to store. We have to be able to manage. We have to be able to tier that effectively. And then, have it available to our clients whenever they need it in order for them to run their business. >> So, let's talk a little bit about that tiering of data. What mediums do you guys use, to tier that data. Is it cloud? Is it mainly on-prem private cloud? What's the medium and methodology. >> Primarily, we're using on-prem media, anywhere from flash all the way to spinning. Thankfully, tape in our world for the most part has gone by the wayside. But we are aggressively looking at cloud for a number of use cases. And in looking at some of the promise that we can do with data, long-term, cold-storage, some of the things that were out there available from a public cloud perspective, and really looking at it as an opportunity for data mobility, data archiving, and all sorts of interesting opportunities kind of arise from that. But being in our industry, we have to be very sensitive to the type of data, how we go about that journey, and really recognizing, at least from our perspective, it's necessarily our data, it's our client's data. >> Keith: Right. They have to know where there data is as well as, at the end of the day, it's you and I's data as well, right? We're the folks at the end of those bits on the disk. So, from that perspective there's a lot of opportunities. We are looking at all of them. But we need to be very careful and calculated about how we go about that. >> So, the explosion of data. Can you talk more about the sources of that data? Is it traditional data coming off of imaging devices, medical devices? Is it IOT data? Where are those various sources of data? >> Brian: I think the sort answer to that is, yes. (laughs) It's coming from everywhere. We've got IOT data now that's coming from all the bedside medical devices that exist out there. You know, I mentioned the heart monitors, pumps, you name it. The land of healthcare is the land of IOT when we start to get out into our clients, hospitals, and hospital systems. You know, we look at the core databases that we run our business on. From that perspective, more and more data is being collected about the patients that are in the hospital, the wellness visits, out at the clinics and all of those things. All that data is growing. Imaging data has always been explosive, every time there's a new innovation in the imaging space. You know, you went from a x numbers slice of a CT scan to 120 sliced CT scan. And all of the clinicians are very happy like, "That's wonderful!" >> No one wants less definition. Get more definition. >> It's like the burst button on your iPhone, right? >> Yeah, yeah. >> It's wonderful. You just created thousands of more pictures just like that. So, all that data has to be stored somewhere, and we're the landing spot for that data, and we have to be able to handle it. >> You know, technology shrinks but it doesn't seem to shrink fast enough for storage. So, physical space, how have you guys managed. Like just from an agility perspective, having enough data center space to just accommodate the explosion of data? >> Well, it's an ongoing challenge we have. We're constantly looking at our growth projections, our storage projections. How can we use data services compression, ddoop, all the other capabilities in order to continue to reduce that data footprint? It's an ongoing challenge and battle. And we're really reliant on experts in the storage to kind of help us figure out ways in order to be more efficient with how we store that data. Challenging for us is it's not only that one set of data. Some of that data gets moved into hadoop clusters. Some of that data gets replicated for high availability in DR. So, what was once a single piece of data now is replicated many, many times. So, that explosion of data is also the different ways we have to consume that data. One of the biggest things that we can do or hopefully will achieve over time is how do we reduce that footprint of data? How do we make that data reusable for multiple applications, multiple capabilities without having to do the massive replication of all that data across our footprint? >> So, you've been a NetApp customer for some time, I assume? >> Brian: Yes. >> As they're transforming into this data-driven organization what have been some of the changes that you as a customer have noticed and appreciated the most? Well, I think what we've seen in NetApp tranform from what was traditionally their filer business, ten years ago that's what they're known for, and quite honestly that's how we enter into the NetApp relationship. And they've continued to progress with more interesting solutions that exist out there, not only for storage targets for us but things that they're doing from a cloud perspective. Things that they're doing as it relates to storage infrastructure management and data management in general. Those are all very interesting solutions that we're looking forward to continuing to take advantage of. >> So, hospital tech, usually or at least infrastructure doesn't move too quickly. >> Brian: Yep. >> You know, you kind of make an investment and you leverage that investment for a long time because stability is most critical for you. As you're looking at some of the new announcements either this morning or throughout the week and past couple of weeks, what has been some of the technologies or announcements that have excited you the most, that make you want to kind of push that envelope a little internally and say, "Yeah, you know what, it may be worth the migration or the risk of migration to go to this new platform"? >> Yeah, we're constantly looking at new platforms, and how do we get from where we are today constantly modernizing our infrastructure, making sure that we're providing the highest availability, the most performance solutions for our clients. You know, we're in a competitive space, they want to make sure that their systems are running optimally. And so, as we look at the announcements and things that NetApp's doing, you know, not only is it that actual, those new solutions that come with all the new bells and whistles. But it's the overall, how do we look at the entire storage footprint? So, the concepts around data fabric and NetApp and what they're trying to achieve from a visibility across your entire data footprint. Those are very interesting to us. And to me personally, and we'll continue to look at ways to exploit that. >> So, the data is ... George shared, NetApp's CEO shared a very personal story on stage yesterday of how data helped save his son's life. Being able to have medical professionals have deep data, and the ability to come up with just the right treatments for his unique situation. When you talk about competitive landscapes, what are some of the competitive attributes of healthcare, and IT in general, that are on your list of priorities to make sure that you guys are providing the level of service that your patients deserve while providing the level of efficency that operations requires to be an efficient competitor? >> Yeah, so a few items there. From a competitive landscape, I think it's not good enough anymore to have a digital platform to store and retrieve data. Our clients want to get insights out of that data, whether it be how they're delivering care, whether it be the efficiency of the various care delivery models that they're leveraging. They want to measure the effectiveness of their clinicians. And they also want to make sure that they are as the landscape of healthcare and reimbursement changes, there's going to be a lot more emphasis on making sure that they do not have a patient leave and then within 30 days come back. From a readmissions standpoint there's a lot of pressure in order to make sure that the right things are done for the first time. And leveraging the data that we have stored the analytics that we're able to provide, getting the right data to the clinicians at the right time, is really paramount to what we're trying to achieve. And from a competitive standpoint, unlocking some of those capabilities is really what we see moving and keeping us in front. >> So, what are some of your biggest take aways come from NetApp insight to your staff as you help them meet that mission of better healthcare? >> In my space and the data center operation space predominately, we have to maintain a very high standard of ability and performance. And it's paramount for us to stay on top of where the industry's going. Who are the leaders? What are the options? What are the technologies available to us in order to make sure that we are able to have a very capable platform that all the folks within Cerner then can build really interesting solutions on top of to deliver to our clients. >> Well, Brian Stuckey, VP of Infrastructure and Operations at Cerner. We really appreciate you coming on theCUBE, sharing your story about Cerner and how you guys are helping move forward your mission of providing better healthcare. That's it for this segment of theCUBE, Mandalay Bay, NetApp Insight 2017. Stay tuned for our closing statements and session. Thank you. (upbeat techno music)