>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's the Cube. Covering Dell EMC World 2017. Brought to you by Dell EMC. >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. We are here live at Dell EMC World 2017, our eighth year coverage with the Cube. Formerly EMC World, now Dell EMC World. This is the Cube's coverage. I'm John Furrier, my cohost, Paul Gillin. Our next two guests are Craig Bernero, who is the senior vice president general manager of the midrange and entry storage solutions at Dell EMC. And Pierluca Chiodelli, VP appliance management at Dell. Guys, welcome to the Cube. Great to see you guys. >> Likewise. >> Thank you. >> Give us the update. We're hearing a ton of stories, 'cause the top stories, obviously the combination, merger, acquisition, whatever side you want to call acquired who. But all good, good stories. I mean, some speed bumps, little bumps along the way, but nothing horrific. Great stories. Synergies was the word we've been hearing. So you got to have some great growth with the Dell scale. Entry-level touchpoint growth, high end, get more entry level, give us the update. >> Yeah, absolutely. So again, first and foremost, I wanted to call out to all our customers and partners that are critical for the success that we've seen. No doubt, and actually, we've committed better together one fourth, which is why you saw two of our launches, both on the Unilining and the Assine line, which historically were part of EMC and Dell respectively prior. And main point is, a lot of the feedback we got from customers was they really respected and appreciate our customer choice first philosophy. But also understanding that there's clear demarkation where each of those technologies play in their sweet spot-- >> Well, how are you demarcating them right now? >> Absolutely, so traditionally, pre the EMC acquisition, what we actually ended up determining is, when you define the midrange market segment we were looking at, it was more in the upper range, upper level of it, where they're driving value from a technology aspect and with their Unity product set. We are focusing heavily into the all-Flash market segment, too, which is one of the major refreshes we did here. And then in the Dell storage, which is very server affinity, a direct attached construct at the entry through the lower end of the midrange band, it was actually some very clear swim lanes of where each of the respective products played to their strengths as well. And so as a result of that, we've really taken that to heart with our hybrid offering on the C side to get your economics. Again, effectively, our 10 cents per gig as they've rolled it outlined on Monday as far as the most affordable hybrid solution there on the market. And then you go to the upper, premium level of value capability, with all Flash to deal with your performance workloads and other characteristics, too. >> Here Luca, talk about the overlap, because we address that, we hit him head on with that. Turns out, not a lot of overlap. But as you guys come together with, we just had Toshiba on earlier. Flash is obviously big part of the success. Getting those price points down to the entry, midrange, enabling that kind of performance and cost is key, but as you look at the product portfolio, where are the areas you guys are doubling down on, and where is kind of some of the overlapping taking care of, if any? >> Yeah, so let me tell you, the first thing that is very important and we have in the show is the reaffirmation of the investment in the two product. So we have a panel entry yesterday also a panel with 120 customer. Divide 50% between the legacy, the heritage Dell and the EMC customer, and the amazing things there was the Flash adoption is very strong, but also they want to have it economical, so Four I is very strong. So this is really feet to our two product. Because if you remember, Compellan has been created as the best storage for data progression. And we double down on Unity now that we are now that we are now so completely full line of Unity product today. So in the other face, on the FC line, we reaffirmed the completion of the family with the new 5020. That provide more performance, more capacity, much more lenience. And we'll drive our 4020 customer to a very new product. So yes, some people before they think, "Oh these guys, they have a lot of overlap." But actually, we have two amazing product that they play together in this market. >> And talk about the customer dynamic, 'cause that's interesting about that. Almost the 50/50 split as you mentioned. They got to be, I mean, not, their indifference is probably, they're probably like, "Bring on the better product." I'm not hearing any revolts. Right, that no one's really revolting. Can you just share the perspective of some of the insight that they're telling you about, what they're expecting from you guys? >> So I think it's very fun to be in this position where we are right now, where we have such a good portfolio of product where a customer, company, people inside of our company start to learn how this product works. Because you sell what you know, right? Or you use what you know. People, right, try to do the same things every day. So we are forced now to look outside of our part and say, "You know, we have two product. "What is the benefit?" And now, we sparkle this discussion with the customer. And in any customer, we have before tremendous amount of common customer, right? The customer, they have a preference, but now they say, "Oh let me," an EMC customer say, "Maybe I have a huge case for "an all-Flash upgrade with Unity." And the SC customer say, "Oh, maybe now I can run "this application on Unity or SC "or Open App to a different things." What we say is, this is the line I use. We are the top one now because we can solve any use case. Right, if you look at our competitors, they try to cover everything with one product, right? >> John: You can mix and match. >> Yes, you can mix and match and we have a very differential part between the two. And we said, "SC economy, drive economy with the fact "that we can have a de-looped compression on speedy media." Unity optimized for Flash. >> Is there any incompatibility between the two? Do the two platforms work pretty seamlessly together? >> Pierluca: Yes. >> Yeah, so I'm going to expand a little further on that. So one of the things we did highlight as part of the all-Flash offering for Unity, 350 through the 650, the four new entry models, customers were surprised, you know. And there were some questions on the level of innovation we're driving. A year later, getting a full platform refresh was a very big surprise for customers. I typically, two years, 18 months of other vendors in the field, and they're like, "You just launched "the product last year, and you already have a refresh." And we did that 'cause we listened to customer requirements and the all-Flash, the performances as absolutely critical, so the controller upgrade. We went from a Haswell to Broadwell design. We actually added additional core capabilities in memory, and all with the architecture built to do an online date and place upgrade that will be driving later in the year, too. So, and the SC 5020 that we announced too as a separate product line to complementing, as Pierluca stated, but the third area that hasn't been necessarily amplified but customers have raved about seeing in the showroom area is our Cloud IQ technology, which is actually built off of Cloud Foundry. That's a value, the portfolio of the company and a strategic aligned business. And actually, it does preemptive and proactive not only monitoring, but we're taking that from Jeff Boudreau's keynote today. That whole definition of autonomous and self-aware storage well, in midrange 'cause of all the use cases and requirements, we're driving that into it. And there's actually, we have compatibility between Unity and SC in Cloud IQ. As that one pane of glass, it's not helmet manager, but more to take that value to a whole new level. And we're going to continue to drive that level innovation beyond, not just through software, but clearly leveraging better together talent to really solve some key business needs for customers. >> As David Guilden always says in the Cube, it's better to have overlap than holes in a product line. So that's cool that you guys got that addressed, and certainly mixing and match, that's the standard operating procedure these days in a lot of guys in IT. They know how to do that. The key is, does it thread together? So, congratulations. The hard question that I want to ask you guys and what everyone wants to know about, where the customer wins? Okay, because at the end of the day, you'd be number one at whatever old category scoreboard. >> Craig: Sure. >> Scoreboard of customers is what we're looking at. Are you getting more customers? Are they adopting, are they implementing a variety of versions? Give us the updates on the wins and what the combination is of Dell EMC coming together. What has that done for sales and wins? >> Yeah, so there's a public blog I posted for Dell EMC World, and it's about the one two punch with midrange storage. >> John: What was the title of that blog post? >> It was basically a one two punch, our midrange storage. And I'll provide you the link in followup. >> John: I'll look at it later. >> The reason we preemptively provided that was the biggest question I would get from customers was, which product are you going to choose? And our point was, both, right? Both products, the power of the portfolio. We don't need to choose one. Our install base on both those technologies is significant. But in that post, I also did quote some of the publicly available IEDC data, which showed us in our last quarter, in Q4, where you compare Q3 to Q4, we actually had double digit quarter growth for both Uni and SC, our primary leading lines in both the portfolio, which actually allowed us to get effectively back into a midrange market share segment. Now that's for purpose build. >> That reflects a very positive trend for Dell EMC midrange storage portfolio. I'm quoting directly from your blog post. One two punch drives midrange storage momentum. >> Craig: Correct. >> And it's not only the storage, right? I've been with a very big customer of ours. I was telling to an analyst this morning it's amazing to see the motion of the business that we can do now that we are Dell EMC. So being a private company in one sense allows us to do creative things that we didn't do before. So we can actually position not only one product or two product, but the entire portfolio. And as you see, with the server business, the affinity that some of the storage they have with the server, we can drive more and more adoptions for our work class. >> Just quickly, how is your channel reacting to all this? Are they fully on board, do they understand? Are they out there selling both solutions? >> 100%, we put a lot of investment into our channel enablements across the midrange storage products in portfolio as well, 'cause that's the primary motion that we drive as well. And that it allowed us to actually enable them for success, both in education enablement, and clearly, proper incentives in play. They're very well received. The feedback we've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. And we've been complementing that more and more with constant refresher of not only our technology and sharing roadmap delivery so that it can plan ahead as that storage is used. >> I asked Mike Amerius Hoss and David Guilden the question, they both had the same answers. It's good to see them on the same page. But I said, you know, what's, where are the wins? And they both commented that where there's EMC Storage, they bring more Dell in. Where there's Dell, they bring more EMC Storage in. >> Yes, that's why they judged this with this customer. The new business motion that we can now propose like we have a very loyal customer from Arita GMC for example, but now we can offer also server, a software define on top of all that and the storage, right? And you can enter from the other one, from the server and position now a full portfolio of storage. >> Alright, I'm going to ask you a personal question. I'd like to get your reactions. Take your EMC hat off for a second. Put your industry participant, individual hat on. What's the biggest surprise from the combination, from your area of expertise and your jobs that you've personally observed with the combination? Customer adoption, technology that wasn't there, chaos, mayhem, what? >> Yeah, so I'll comment first. I think the, I mean, recognizing the real power of global scale, and what I mean by that is the combined set. So from an organization and R and D investment, being able to have global scale, where you have engineering working literally 24 by five, right, based on effectively, a follow the sun model, that's how you're seeing that innovation engine just cranking into high gear. And that was further extended with the power of the supply chain and innovation bringing together has been in my opinion, super powerful, right? 'Cause couple customers had shared with me, it's like, my concern if I go with a startup that may not be in business and relative to the supply chain leverage and the level of innovation, breadth, and depth of products that we have. >> Craig, that's a great point. Before we go to Pierluca, I just want to comment on that. We're seeing the same thing in the marketplace. A lot of the startups can't get into the pure storage play because scale requirements is now the new barrier entry, not necessarily the technology. >> Exactly. >> Not necessarily the technology, so that kind of reaffirms, that's why the startups kind of are doing that a lot of data protection, white space stuff. And their valuations, by the way, are skyrocketing. Go ahead, your comment, observation that surprised you or didn't surprise you, took you by storm, what? >> I need to say that I'm living a dream in this moment because I think it's a few times in life that you can experience a trust formation. And you can have the ability, actually, in my role that I have right now to accelerate this trust formation. And that it's not the common things to do in the company that is already established. So this shape, this come together give you more and more opportunity. So I'm so very exciting to do what I'm doing, and I love it. >> Injection of the scale, and more capabilities, it's like, go to the gym and you're like pumped up, you're in shape. >> Actually, I started to go to the gym after 20 years. (laughing) >> It's like getting a good meal. You're Italian, you appreciate a good buffet of resource, right? >> That's right. >> Dell's got the gourmet-- >> You know, every day, I find something new, some product that I didn't know, something that we did, innovation that we have in the company that we can actually use together. It's very very exciting. >> And the management teams are pretty solid. They didn't really just come in and decimate EMC. They essentially, it was truly a combination. Some say that EMC acquired Dell, some say Dell acquired EMC. But the fact that is even discussed shows a nice balance in terms of a lot of EMC at the helm. Its great sales force, great commercial business with Dell, very well play, I think. You guys feel the same way? >> I appreciate that, and couldn't agree more. And I think it shows as you look at business results and even from an employee satisfaction level. We continue to see that being record high, 'cause there's always that uncertainty, but the interesting piece is people have really been jazzed based on opportunity ahead. >> Alright, we're done complimenting. Let's get to the critical analysis. What's on the roadmap? >> Craig: A lot. >> Tell us what's coming down the pike. I know you privately do your earnings call, but you guys have been transparent, some of the things. What can you say about what's coming out for customers? What can they expect from you guys in the storage? >> I'll let Pierluca run the product management team. He drives that every day. >> So I do not say much, things that I'm getting. >> Share all, come on. You're telling, just spill it out. Come on. You and your dream, come on, sell it. >> We have only 20 minutes, so, really, as I said, we announced the 5020, right, we add the 7020 in August. We are planning to finish the lineup of the new family of SC for sure. We announced the ability to tiering to the Cloud, we're going to expand that. Also, we announced a full new set a family of Flash Unity. So we're going down that trajectory to offer more and more. And we are going to be very bold to offer also upgrades from old jan to the new jan and non-destructive upgrade and also a line upgrade. So it's a very very beefy roadmap that we show with our customer in the A and DH section. I need to say the feedback is tremendous, and to your point at the beginning, what is the ecosystem? How do you integrate the thing? You're going to see more and more, for example, the UI, the experience for the customer being the same. So the experience from the UI perspective-- >> Paul: Simplicity. >> Yes, simplicity. >> Paul: Simplicity is the new norm. >> Cloud IQ key, but also going between the products who have the same kind of philosophy. >> Hey, I always say, this great business model, make thins super fast, really easy to use, and really intuitive. Can't go wrong with that triple threat right there. So that's like what you guys are doing. >> Yes. >> Absolutely. >> Guys, thanks so much for coming on the Cube and sharing insight and update. Congratulations on the one two punch and the momentum and the success. That's the scoreboard we look at on the Cube. Are customers adopting it? Sharing all the data here inside the Cube live in Las Vegas with Dell EMC World 2017, stay with us for more coverage after this short break.