>>Live from Orlando, Florida. It's the cube covering Microsoft ignite brought to you by Cohesity. >>Welcome back everyone to the cubes live coverage of Microsoft ignite here in Orlando. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, alongside of my co host Stu Miniman. We are joined by Lonnie Phillips. She is the vice president us channel sales at Microsoft. Thank you so much for coming on the cube. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to have this conversation. You are a cube newbie, so this is going to be great. It's going to be great. So why don't you start by telling our viewers a little bit about what you do at Microsoft. You're, you've been there for 23 years, which is not, we can hardly believe it, but tell us about your, your job. I know I have been with Microsoft for a very long time, but currently I am responsible for driving our digital transformation in partnership with all of our partners. For example, Cohesity is one of those partners where we actually take that to the customer and makes sure that we ensure their success. >>We also have the co-selling partnership with all of our partners. We make sure that we can work on joint pursuits together to ensure that we ultimately meet our customer's goals together. So you are in charge of Microsoft's own digital transformation as it is helping other customers with their digital transformation where we're doing all of it. So how are you taking what you're learning, the, the, the successes and the mistakes along the way to make sure that you're putting together the best practices? I think the biggest thing that we were trying to do is just make sure that we create forums to make sure we bring our partners together and bring our people together and make sure that we have those sessions where we can talk about what we're learning along the way. And it's not just us as a leadership team, but it says collectively, uh, one of the things that I, I enjoy hosting is I actually bring together a group of our partners and we talk about what's actually happening in the marketplace and they kind of share the best practices that we're learning as we go out. And we talked to different customers. So it's really nice. >>Alright. I love that. And when you talk to customers, they're going through that transformation. It's really about getting the data inside that environment. That's what differentiates between before you've been transforming after is you can drive that environment. Um, you know, how does data and being customer obsessed, uh, play into your role? >>Oh my gosh. So talking about customer obsession, 22 years I've been with the company. I want you to know of all those 22 years I've always been customer facing or I led the teams that were customer facing. So I have a tremendous amount of passion for it. You know, the thing I tell most people is there's actually a Forester research study that says, when you have so much digital disruption, the one competitive advantage you can have as a company is to really deeply understand your customers, what's important to them, build those connections with them, understand what problems they're, and be a part of that solution. I actually wrote on this recently and I talked about four key areas. One. As you think about customer obsession is really about engaging with your customers to understand their industry and their business deeply and what problems they're trying to solve and then it's really about advocating for those customers and making sure that whatever problems they're trying to solve, that you bring together the right solutions to solve that problem. >>Sometimes that's going to be part, partly Microsoft. Other times it's going to be partly our partners coming together to solve their problems from end to end zone. I think it is so important once you bring the solution to them, you're really empowering them. You're empowering your customer to really be able to meet the needs of their customers. Right and then last but not least, you have to listen. We have to listen to our customers to make sure we're learning from them and I think that is going to be a competitive advantage for anyone that really focuses on what does it really mean to be customer obsessed. >> One of the things that we heard on the main stage this morning was trust and trust. How important trust is, and this is at a time where there is a lot of mistrust of big technology companies, a lot of uh, some bad actors, some in real and perceived, uh, problems in the industry at large. >>What, how do you make sure that you are transparent and that you are perceived to be this trustworthy partner with four customers as they embark on this digital transformation? Thank you for that question. And I agree with you. I think it's one of those things where as you start to practice the four things that I talked about, you do find yourself being seen as a trusted advisor at that point, right? So they invite you to the table. But I think part of what you have to do to build that trust with your customers is you have to have a level of integrity and you've got to be able to be forthright with being able to say what you can do and what you can do right? Or if you see them making a mistake in a respectful way, offer them that feedback. I have found time and time again. Our customers really appreciate that transparency and that clarity around what we can do and what we can't do. And when you practice, that I think is so important because what happens is the customer becomes, they find themselves valuing that. And then what it allows you to do is to be a part of conversations where they share their articulated needs. But then it also allows you, I love when Satya says the unarticulated need to really understand what problems they're solving and how we might come together to solve it. >>Well, one of the real interesting things to watch in this transformation journey has been the channel. And you know, in the past it was I'm selling you licenses. I have a certain infrastructure piece that I'm going to help you with. But you know, today, uh, you know, I, I need a Microsoft practice. I need to help you understand, uh, you know, how to take, enable, uh, the, the, the cloud phrase inside a little bit of what's been changing in your organization, how you're helping your partners move along this journey. >>I think the biggest thing that in the coast selling part of things is we're trying to do a better job of making sure that we include partners from, as we identify opportunities within our customers, bringing them in earlier in the sales cycle so they can participate on the entire journey with us. I think it is so important for them to be able to really understand what the customer's trying to solve for and be at the table with Microsoft earlier. I think it's also important to make sure that we are listening to our partners as well. They're spending a lot of time with our customers that we don't actually have time with the, we don't actually sit at the table with them and it's important that we create an environment where we're both sitting at the table and we're sharing with one another how things are going and when we start running into issues, let's see what we can do to start removing those blockers to ensure our customer's success. >>So we're just trying to include them into the fabric of everything we do internally. We refer to it as hard wiring partners and say every aspect of everything we do because we can't be successful without them. >> Another hot button, hot button issue in the technology industry is diversity or the lack of it. We know that there is a dearth of women leaders, a dearth of people of color, a dearth of people of different sexualities, LGBTQ. How are, how are you tackling these issues at Microsoft? And can you talk about, uh, inclusion initiatives within Microsoft and at its, at its partner ecosystem? Absolutely. So another topic near and dear to my high for obvious reasons and haven't been here for a 22 years, I can tell you that it is an area that I can personally say at Microsoft, we've gotten so much better, but we are definitely not at end of job. >>This is just, this is going to be a journey and we still have a lot more to learn. But I would say to you, the biggest thing that I think we've done is we've declared that this is going to be a foundation of everything that we do and we're now holding one another accountable. Some of the initiatives that we're doing. I love the fact that we did training around unconscious and conscious bias that started a conversation that wasn't happening before and it caused us all to kind of pause and assess and all of this is rooted in, you've heard about the growth mindset to make sure we're constantly learning from one another, but the biggest thing that I've really come to appreciate in the famous quote we hear everybody talk about is diversity is being invited to the party, right? Inclusion is being asked to dance and then there's another element of that which is even deeper and it's belonging and belonging is like dancing like nobody's watching. >>And I would tell you that some of the initiatives that we're trying to drive on the inclusion front is to make sure that we create a space as leaders to make sure all voices are heard and to create that forum for that. Also to make sure that we are just being intentional about connecting with people, understanding what their needs are and doing everything we can to incorporate it. Everybody's doing something a little bit different. We have big initiatives, but we're all held accountable. And I equally am just so excited about the changes. And then the belonging aspect, which is so important to me in my organization is making people feel like they're valued for being here. And we have to create opportunities to really allow them to be able to shape our direction and make them feel like they really belong and they're valued. And how is it being built to the employees? >>Is it this is something that will impact the products and services that we as Microsoft deliver to our customers and our customers are diverse or is it something else? I mean, how would you, is it sort of this is the right thing to do? How would you describe how it's talked about? I would tell you that it's talked about in a couple of different ways and it's all of the above. Um, I would tell you that when it comes to, is it the right thing to do for business? Does it drive business outcomes and profitability? Absolutely. I think there's a lot of studies out there that support it. Is it the right thing to do because you have all of these diverse people in the workplace? Absolutely. But we're also saying that as you think about the future of technology, it's going to be so important as you start to think about some of those native behaviors that are going to be built into AI. And we think about the foundation of trust. We got to be very sensitive to those biases that will come out. So we have to make sure that we're always being mindful of diversity and inclusion there. So we talk about all of the above. >>Just curious with your role in the channel, did they look to Microsoft for guidance in this space? Is there education, you talked about some of the bias training, the likes that technology and channel partners can leverage and learn from what Microsoft is doing out there? >>Absolutely, absolutely they can learn from us. So one of the things that we have done is we kind of have like a little bit of a culture committee at the global level where they are actually working with our partners around DNI. And then in the U S I actually signed up to kind of support that initiative here in the U S and we're just getting started. But we are trying to make some of the things we're doing. Um, make sure it's available to the channel so they can leverage it. But you know what I would say we don't have all the answers. So our partners, believe it or not, some of them are extremely progressive in this area as well. And we want to make sure that we're learning from them as well. So we're going to start to do more blogs, we're going to make sure we can do some form of videos and we're going to start sharing two ways. >>We want to make sure we can make with what resources we have available to them, but we also want to learn from them as well. I mean, so much of this interview has focused learning and the collaboration that goes on between Microsoft and its customers and its partners at collaborating. So how when you're here at ignite, yeah. And this is not your first ignite. So wow. What describe the community for us here and what goes on here at this conference for our viewers who don't have the luxury of being here in Orlando. Oh my gosh, there's so much that goes on here. I think one, it allows us to really add ignite to really connect with more of the TDM and the technical audience within our customer base. But it also allows us to connect with our partners and it allows us to really get embedded with our partners around the solutions that they have to offer our customers. >>And we make sure that we create a forum that brings those two together. It's also an opportunity for you to understand where we're trying to go from a technology direction, from a vision, like everyone's talking about the buzz around Saatchi as keynote. I think that's really another reason why you come here. When you think about the amount of money that our customers invest in our solutions, it's important to understand that that's a good investment. And you're not just thinking short term, but you're thinking long term. So it's an opportunity to come here and learn a lot. >>Yeah. So, so Lani, just with your experience out there, I it sometimes people have a hard time understanding that the company that you see today is different than the past, so you know, I, you know, I think back in the early days and you think Microsoft and it was the Microsoft that is, you're going to use my O S and my business apps and and it's all Microsoft. Talk a little bit about, especially as you're going to the channel, how Microsoft its ecosystem and its ISV partners, how those all interplay. >>Oh my gosh, there's so much to tell you about that. I would tell you that when we think about how we're going to be successful today is we're the platform company and we've got all of these technology companies, our partners that sit on top of that. Let me give you an example of that. When I think about Cohesity, right? Cohesity is actually this modern cloud first architecture, right? That has Azure running natively, so our customers have the ability to really be able to run their data. Workloads in Azure is seamlessly with Cohesity. That is what it means when it says customer obsession, customers centric. They keep the customer at the center and make it seamless for them to transition. It's because of those partnerships that Microsoft's going to continue to be successful, and that's where we're going to continue to invest. We want to make sure that we leverage our partner ecosystem to meet our customer's needs from Anta, and so it's limitless the opportunity that's out there for us. Excellent. Lalani, thank you so much for coming on the cube. It was great having you on. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. I'm Rebecca knife for Stu Miniman. Stay tuned for more of the cubes live coverage of Microsoft ignite.

>> Narrator: From the Computer Museum in Mountain View, California, it's theCUBE. Covering AGC Silicon Valley GROW! Awards. Brought to you by ACG Silicon Valley. >> Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. The program is just about to begin here at the ACGSV GROW! Awards, 14th Annual. We're excited to be here for our third year. 300 people are going to be giving out some hardware here shortly. But, before we do that we're excited to have Alex Wolf, all the way up from Santa Cruz. He's the dean of the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. Welcome, Alex. >> Thank you very much, it's great to be here. >> Absolutely. So, what do you think of this organization? How did you get involved? >> Well, it's been great for us. We've been drawn in by some great alumni who have been involved with the organization, and they're interested in helping Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz School of Engineering, and partnering with ACG is just a perfect way to do it. >> Excellent. So, I was doing a little homework, obviously, before you came on. I was looking through the curriculum of the school, the engineering school, and you've got CS and E, and all the normal stuff, but two things jumped out to me, biomolecular engineering and computational media. >> That's right. >> What are those disciplines? >> Well, let's start with biomolecular engineering. That's where we are doing a lot of work in health and life. Santa Cruz is famous for one particular thing that happened a number of years ago, which was the sequencing of the human genome. Now, Santa Cruz played a huge role in that. This was the place where we were able to assemble the human genome for the first time, and publish it on the web. >> What year was that? >> That was 2003. >> And back then it took massive amount of computer, massive amount of time. >> Lots of time, millions and millions of dollars. This was a project that was run by the government. Many partners and Santa Cruz researchers in School of Engineering were able to crack that nut and get this genome sequenced. >> And now we can do it-- Now, it's getting cheaper and cheaper, we've got researchers who've been working on that, we've spun out a bunch of companies that have worked on less and less expensive, faster and faster sequencing techniques. >> Really, with the goal to get to individualized medicine, right, to get to individualized treatment. >> That's right, personalized medicine, precision medicine, that's the goal. It's amazing what you can do if you know the genome history, if you can apply that to the drug treatments, it's fantastic. >> I think medical science is so interesting, because from whatever point you are, you look back 10 years and it looks like bloodletting. No matter what we do today, in 10 years from now, we're going to look back >> It's true at cancer treatment, like we give people poison until they almost die, >> That's right. >> that's the way we treat 'em? >> That's right, and the genome will tell you so much about that cancer treatment. We're doing other things too, in stem cell and nanopore technology, so there's just a wonderful set of technologies that people are inventing in the school. >> Great, now what about computational media? >> Computational media is a rather different thing. That is a concept where we're looking at how media can be generated through algorithms, and this has very interesting applications in the game industry, in journalism, in many parts of our interaction with humans. It's great to be able to have a computer that really understands how to generate meaningful, realistic text. >> What is the main benefit in some of the early research that you see, because we've seen some really simple versions of this out there, straight little app that kids play sports, you know, you finish the game, you hit the game over, and it generates a nice little article for you. >> Absolutely. You know, you mentioned personalization before. It's the same thing with computational media. You can get a game to be much more personalized to the player. It can understand that experience, understand the interests of the game player, and then tailor itself to that player. >> So, how much do you work with the psychology department in this world, because it's so much human factors, right? >> Absolutely. We have a great collaboration with psychology. That's really, really important. You know, the computational media department is actually going to be growing into Silicon Valley. You see Santa Cruz has recently opened a campus in Silicon Valley. >> Where? >> It's in Santa Clara, and we're right now hiring faculty into that campus. >> So, is it open then, or when will it be open? >> The facility is open. We held an ACG event there in January. We're going to be holding more of them there. It's a great location. >> Excellent. All right, well, maybe we'll have to come by and do a field trip >> Please do. when you get it all outfitted. >> Absolutely, absolutely. >> All right, well, unfortunately, we have to leave it there. They're going to pull everybody into the keynotes, but thanks taking a few minutes. >> I'm looking forward to it. Thank you very much. >> All right, he's Alex, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE from ACGSV, Mountain View, California. Thanks for watching. (techy music)