(electronic music) >> Narrator: Live from Washington D.C., it's theCUBE covering .NEXT Conference. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back to .NEXT, everybody, Nutanix' big customer event. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm here with my co-host, Stu Miniman. Virginia Gambale is here. She's the managing partner at Azimuth Partners, LLC. Virginia, thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Oh, my pleasure. >> So tell us about Azimuth. What do you guys do? >> Well, we focus on helping companies grow, transform, and remain or become relevant. We work at both ends of the spectrum, so we work with early stage private companies that are either trying to raise capital, prepare to go public, or just get to that next level of growth. And then on the large public side, we work with companies who are more legacy-oriented in their traditional products and services, and really help them jumpstart a transformation process. Whether it be through setting up an investment venture arm, or through creating a transformative independent business that begins to create a different model, but at a distance from the original organization. >> You're a former CIO, you're an investor, you're a board member; a board member of our favorite airline, Jet Blue, and a strategic advisor. >> The best. (laughs) >> You're the best. >> Boston Base. >> We love Jet Blue. >> So, you know, a good hub, (mumbles). >> Best app. You know. >> That's right. >> Love you guys. So kind of an interesting and varied background. How did you get to this spot? >> I'm always focused, from the time I was a CIO, on looking at the companies that are going to change the game, and they could be the smallest companies that really have something that will allow us to leapfrog. I really believe in the concept of leapfrogging next chapter, and you want to be there first if you can. So, that's been the thread in my life, whether it be in a financial services business or an airline. It's always trying to double, triple, and multiply the value of the company, and also its relevance with its customers. >> So you believe technology is a sustainable differentiator, presumably, and despite what Nick Carr wrote way back when. >> I was one of those CIOs where the consultants would say, "Don't say what you're saying, because you're saying that technology is the driver for the business model, and we're saying it's an enabler," and I'd say, "No, it's really a driver." So I'm really happy that we've come into that, where it's not only acceptable, but it's the right thing to think about when you're sitting at a board. "How is technology going to drive my business?" And its relevance with my customers. >> Well, there certainly was a period of time where CEOs could call that into question because, as a CIO, you were spending a lot of money on heavy lifting that maybe wasn't adding value to the business, but now every company is a technology company. >> It is. >> There's far more SAS companies outside of tech than there are inside of tech. Everybody talks about the buzz word of digital disruption, but it feels like that's actually happening. Brings us to Nutanix. I mean, that's kind of my view anyway, what they're doing is to try to help us cut out that IT labor cost and shift the resource elsewhere. What's your take? >> Well, many times I talk about capital allocation. When you're sitting at a board level, you really want to be allocating your capital efficiently, and on the right aspects of your business going forward. And Nutanix, I think, offers incredible value proposition. If I can literally take my infrastructure costs down by 60 or more percent, and actually redeploy that capital into game-changing technology, then, to me, it's a no-brainer. >> Yeah. Virginia, I love that. When we came to the first Nutanix conference in Miami two years ago, it was great to hear IT people say, "I got my weekends back," but what's exciting is when we had PXP Solutions on, who's in the financial tech industry today, and he said, "What Nutanix allows me to do is allow my team to work on the fun stuff," which means they're off coding, or they're creating a new app, or, you know, creating more value for the business rather than just, you know, running around keeping the lights on. >> And I see the early adopters of Nutanix actually are the more vision-oriented CIOs who get that. It doesn't mean that we are going to not be able to use the talent that we have on board, but again, we have to use it more efficiently and to the best yield that we possibly can. And so I think the companies that are a little afraid, or they actually delegate that to a group who is concerned that that may mean they will no longer exist, we have to really break down that misconception. >> And Virginia, it often requires either some retraining, or, you know, there might be changes in kind of the makeup of your environment. What are you seeing out there? What are you advising companies as to how they manage their IT staff? >> Well, what's really interesting more and more now is Nutanix is now public and it's continuing on with its future strategy. I really believe they are completely redefining the concept of Cloud in context of the new world, and so the possibilities of starting businesses, transforming businesses in a very quick-start manner, but also deploying fundamentals of other industries where some industries thought they never could, so speed of execution and processing of enormous amounts of data, again, are made possible with a Nutanix type infrastructure. >> So, you're giving a keynote later on. Today, or is it tomorrow? >> Today. Yes. >> Okay. What are you talking about? Can you just set that up for us? >> Well, today I'm on a panel with a few other constituents who represent different aspects of the world today. And tomorrow, I'm going to be focused on a topic that's near and dear to my heart, which is in the executive session, and that is where we're going to talk about the market today as established in Wall Street is really focused on any number that is already public and how they can analyze that to the nth degree. But the question they really should be asking is, "How much are you spending on technology? How are you using your technology dollars? What are you doing with them?" And instead, if you think about the Amazon moment, which I call the "a-ha!" moment. I loved listening to Bloomberg Radio the day that AWS really became known as a business entity within Amazon, which was in the fall a couple of years ago. And the analysts on that call were actually saying, "I'm going to have to rewrite my model," because for so long we were saying Amazon was not profitable, and we would sort of discount that stock because of that. But meanwhile, they were siphoning off, you know, billions of dollars to create a business that is actually going to continue to support the technology revolution that's happening today. >> Well, so, let's unpack that a little bit. So investors today, they clearly want growth. You look at a company like Nutanix, Pure, you know, decent valuations, whereas companies like IBM struggle. You know, whatever, 12 straight quarters or 26 straight quarters of declining revenue. Amazon growing nicely. Throwing off a ton of cash. Not necessarily profitable. Do investors have that wrong in your mind? >> I really do. You know, I think that all the long-term businesses that have existed are standing at the edge of a cliff today, looking down at the abyss. And that is the reality. And so, if they listen to Wall Street, they're just going to perpetuate that getting closer and closer to the end of the cliff before they're going to fall off. Wall Street should actually be facilitating a conversation which allows them some time to actually speak about a transformative process. I would put my money into a company who talks about transforming their business or investing in new technologies as opposed to someone who's standing up there as The Emperor Has No Clothes and saying, "Oh, no, business as usual. In fact, we're cranking out higher margins." To me, that's a warning signal. >> What do you think of the private equity model these days? We've talked on theCUBE a lot about how it's changed quite a bit. You know, it used to be just suck as much cash out of the business as you can and leave the carcass for somebody else, but you're seeing some strategic investors... You see companies like certainly Riverbed, BMC's gone private, Dell obviously appears to be doing quite well. They're not on the 90-day shot clock. IN4's another one that we track. There are many, many more. I'm sorry I'm leaving some out. But is there a new private equity model in your mind where they're trying to invest more, get the valuations up, and maybe go back to the public markets? What are your thoughts on that? >> Certainly I see there are two models that are taking place. There's the private equity model where people are saying, "I need air cover," so I have to take my company private in order to reinvent it. But only still a small percentage of those private equity investors are really investing in the fundamental transformative aspects of those businesses There are still a lot of them who still see the opportunity to really manage the balance sheet, and the pure financials in order to make it look good and put it back out in the market. And there's several examples of that, I think. The other is the activist investor who is standing by, listening to the analyst conversation as I am, and saying, "Well, this is not going to bode well for this stock or for this company, and we want to proactively now start to influence how capital is allocated and how the company starts to make those transformative decisions." >> Well, and oftentimes, they're pushing for for a buyback or a dividend. I mean, that's kind of what happened to EMC. They couldn't weather the storm. Again, is that a good thing or a bad thing? >> Well, some of them, again, are in for the short-term gain, right? But there are increasing numbers of firms that actually believe that that is the way to transform an industry, whether it be media or the airline industry, or consumer goods is by beginning to get in and take seats on the board. Because at the end of the day, the buck starts and stops at the board level no matter what. >> Yeah. Virginia, wondering... You've been a CIO. What's your opinion on the role of the CIO going forward when we have things like the public Cloud, we're making infrastructure invisible, you know, great shift into kind of the roles and responsibility. What's the CIO of the future look like? >> I think this is a pivot point for a CIO. And whereas before the real enablement of the Cloud, CIOs had really A They were either going to become a chief digital officer, or they were going to stay sort of running the day-to-day shop. Because they didn't have the tools to be able to transform their existing day of operations. Today I think actually the CIO has the opportunity to make the choice, "Do I want to be driving the digital business in terms of product and service and move into that area, or do I actually want to begin to drive a transformation of my original cost structure and then begin to have the dialogue where the two are meeting now?" So the chief digital officer and the work the chief digital officer is doing is becoming day-to-day of operations, and the CIO is handling day of operations. So they actually have the ability to meet and transform the company. So I think that is a really important question that CIOs need to be asking themselves today. "Which of these roles do I see myself in?" >> We only got a couple of minutes. I got so many questions for you. So what's rhe I'm going to totally pivot here. The security discussion at the board level. What is that like now? How has it changed? And how should the CIO be communicating to the boards about security? >> Well, I fall in the camp, and I think I was one of the early drivers of making sure that the chief information security officer does not report to the CIO. It's a conflict of interest to me, plain and simple, like any audit principles one would have. But, and I think that will change over time in terms of the security that we are so hypervigilant about will become threads within the fabric of our infrastructure, and it will become day-to-day needs that will be put in by the CIO. Today they have to work very complimentary and very cooperatively, and so one should not feel that a CIO is failing in their job because the CISO is on top of them. Their job as the CISO is to be out in the market, and be understanding what is happening in the world today, and to the degree they can anticipate what will happen. They also need to be talking to the boards and educating the boards. Boards today have become... I would say cyber security is one of the main top three topics on conversation with every board. It should be talked about at every board meeting, at least a readout as to where we are, and what's happening and what are we doing? So it's a very important role. >> Before we go, I just want ask you about women in tech. About, we know, 50% of the population roughly are women. Only 17% of the tech industry comprises women. Thoughts on that? Do you feel like this industry is making progress, is going in any movement, wrong direction, right direction? What can be done? >> I think there are a lot of different philosophies in the world today about helping drive more women into tech. Certainly I've been in this business for, I hate to say, but it's multiple decades, and I was the only woman CIO at the time I was the CIO, or one of the first women board members sitting at a board table of all men. And some of the arguments say that women should be coding from very early ages, and that we have to get women coding. You know, I think women, just like men, fall into the category of broad spectrum talents. Not every woman is suited for a code job, but today, the great thing about technology is, we have visualization components, we have design components, we have strategy components more than ever, and I think when we educate our young girls, and I have one myself, we should understand where their best talents are, where their interests are, and help shape them in the areas that are tech-related, but not hardcore coding at all. There's a lot of organizations about women who code, and I think that's great, but that's not all that women need to do to be in the tech world and be successful in the tech world. >> Love it. Alright, we're out of time. My last question is sort of advice for Nutanix. What do you think Nutanix should be doing? What can you share with us? >> I'm very impressed by the CEO, because I think the first and foremost role of a CEO is to have vision, and I really believe that this CEO has vision. The difficulty now, once you're in the public markets, and you're under the scrutiny of a public market, and yet you as a company are in your infancy in how you grow, they have to walk that line between, "Yes, I hear you, Wall Street, but these are the things that I need to do to be the best, the biggest, and the most enabling company to my customers that I can possibly be." And that is a fundamental that they can never lose sight of. Don't listen to the street too much, and don't err on the side of only one way. >> Great. Virginia, really a pleasure having you on. I hope you come back to theCUBE. >> Yes, thank you, thank you. >> Appreciate it. Alright, keep it right there, everybody. Stu and I will be back in D.C. at the .NEXT Conference right after this short break. (electronic music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, with coverage of the Global .NEXT digital experience. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman. And welcome to theCUBE's coverage of the Nutanix .NEXT global digital experience. We've been at the Nutanix shows since the first time they ever happened, way back at the Fontainebleau, in Miami, of course. Nutanix is now a public company. A lot of news, a lot going on, and the first time they've done, first, a global event and digital event because this was the convergence of the events that they were originally going to have both in North America as well as Europe. So happy to welcome back to the program. To help kick it off, first of all, we have Monica Kumar, she's the Senior Vice President of Marketing with Nutanix. And also joining us is Virginia Gambale, she is a Managing Partner at Azimuth Partners LLC and also a board member of Nutanix. Virginia, Monica, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you so much for having us. >> Thank you, Stu. >> So the event here, of course, the line we've used at many of those shows is, how do we bring people together even while we're apart? Good energy, great speakers, everything from Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Simon Sinek, in the opening, in Trevor Noah for some entertainment in day two, and lots of announcements with partners, customers, of course, speaking, and lots of the Nutants. So, Monica, maybe I start with you. You've had a very a close role in helping to shape a lot of what's going on here. I kind of teed up. Give us, from your standpoint, really, kind of the goals, give us a little bit of insight into putting this together for an online audience versus the kind of party that we have for the users when they come together in-person. >> Yeah, thank you so much, Stu. And I'm so excited to have Virginia here with us as well. You know, obviously, the world is so different now. And one of the biggest things that we've been doing for the last six, seven months is figuring out how do we stay connected with our customers, with our partners, with our own employees, and society at large? So, along the same lines, .NEXT has evolved to, of course, also being a virtual event, but at the same time, the biggest design factor for .NEXT is really the connection with customers, partners, our own employees, and influencers, and society at large. So you'll see a lot of our agenda is designed around future of work and what does it mean to be a leader and a technology leader, a technology provider in this world while we are living through the pandemic. We're also talking about future of education, future of healthcare, future financial services, all the things that matter to us as human beings, and then what's the role that technology is going to play in that, and, of course, how can Nutanix as a technology vendor help our customers navigate these uncertain times. So that's how most of our content is on day-one. And then day-two is really all about the latest and greatest cool tech. And you're going to hear a lot about and you've heard a lot about cloud technology and cloud being that constant enabler of innovation for businesses and for IT. So all of our hybrid cloud, multicloud, our core hyperconverged infrastructure, and how that's evolving to hybrid cloud infrastructure, it's about platform as a service, DevOps, I mean, database solutions, and these are competing solutions, you name it. So that's going to be at day-two. And then day-three is a partner exchange. So, obviously, partners are really important to us. That's the village, the ecosystem. And we have a whole day dedicated to our partners in helping understand how can we together bring the best solutions to market. >> Virginia, I'd love to get your experience so far with the event that you've attended. >> Well, I always find that .NEXT experiences a very broadening, enriching experience. I tell people who have never heard of cloud, who are well in the cloud, who are wanting to just learn about it, just sort of standing at the precipice of embarking on this journey, to watch or participate or go to the .NEXT for Nutanix, because it is so rich with content and speakers that are so intelligent about an experience about what they are doing and embarking on. And then in addition to that, there's always a hint and a lookout at the future and where we are going and where we need to think about where we are going. So I am very excited. The first part of this virtual .NEXT, I didn't know what to expect, but I am extremely pleased. >> Well, yeah, Virginia, you bring up a really good point. It's not just the cool technology, and there's lots of that, but what, personally, how do I enrich myself, how do I reach my career, how do enrich my community, that heart that Nutanix talks a lot about. Monica, obviously cloud has been a very important piece of the discussion. I noticed a little bit of shift in marketing. For a couple of years, the enterprise cloud was the discussion. Dheeraj's teams is out, he said, "Okay, we're going to change HCI from hyperconverged infrastructure to hybrid cloud infrastructure." You and I had had a conversation when the announcement of Nutanix Clusters with AWS, and at the show, Scott Guthrie, of course, wearing the signature red polo, and deeper partnership with Microsoft for Azure. Definitely, lots of excitement around that because Microsoft is a company that most people partner with and work with and use their technologies. And things like Azure Arc have the real promise to help us live in this hybrid and multicloud world. So we'd love to just briefly touch on the cloud pieces, what you're seeing in the news from Nutanix's standpoint? >> Absolutely. So one of the big pieces of news that's come out of .NEXT is a partnership with Azure, and we are super-excited for that partnership. Not only is Nutanix Clusters going to be available on Azure and we are jointly developing that solution to bring hybrid cloud solution to customers, you rightfully mentioned Azure Arc, we are also working to integrate Azure Arc across on-premises and Azure cloud. So, ultimately, for us, it's really about technology being a means to an end. The end is business outcomes for our customers, the end is a better customer experience, better employee experience, growth for the company in terms of revenue and profitability. And ultimately, that's what technology is doing, is really simplifying the use of cloud technology and build that hybrid cloud fabric that customers can deploy very quickly, very easily, seamlessly, and then manage it very easily, oh, and by the way, also be able to move their apps and data and license across the on-premises and, in this case, Azure environment. So very excited. By the way, we don't just stop there. When you say cloud, and when we say hybrid cloud and multicloud, it's, of course, on-premises, it's, of course, the hyperscaler clouds, but then there are service provider clouds. Because in region, and then, by the way, I don't know if you heard Khaled Soudani, he's the CTO at SocGen, he joined us as well in one of the keynotes, and obviously, they are building hybrid clouds. And when we talk about hybrid cloud to customers, it's also service provider cloud, which could be for data locality, data residency regions. It's also Nutanix's own cloud, the Nutanix cloud. So that's definitely one of the big pieces of news coming out of .NEXT, is this morphing or I would say evolution of hyperconverged infrastructure to becoming the hybrid cloud infrastructure. >> Virginia, of course, the big discussion this year has been the impact of COVID and what that's meant to IT priorities, CIO priorities. In a lot of the conversations we've been having on theCUBE this year, there's been a real acceleration on a lot of those cloud initiatives that Monica was talking about. So what are you hearing? What are you seeing? What are some of those imperatives that are either accelerating or, and are there some things that people are saying, "Hey, we might want to put this on ice for a few months?" >> Well, I can tell you, from my work with clients, the many public boards that I sit on, which span from financial services, to pure tech, all the way through to consumer-facing businesses, I really see the spectrum. And three years ago, when I was on theCUBE, we were talking about standing at the precipice and jumping in. Now, we are full on, we are in it. And Monica talked about all these different public clouds and the various providers who are leading their own way. But what I love and I think it's really important is that we need an independent company that actually begins to step back and help all the leaders that are running technology and operations and customer-facing functions, to be able to help them do their job. So here we are today, talking to various CEOs and C-suite executives. And the big issues are, "Okay, this stuff isn't so scary, we are in it, we need it for being able to function in the COVID world, and we also need it because our customers need us to need this, to have it." So, when we look at our portfolio of how businesses are investing in technology and other areas going forward, innovation, cost management, and also cyber seemed to be sort of the three very important themes of the day. And I believe that, today, as we sit through the next few days with .NEXT, we are really going to find stories, experiences, and visions about how we can actually address all three of those. >> Yeah, I think the point, Virginia, you're making is so fantastic, that this is the age of innovation while organizations also have to focus on cost intelligence. And that's the number one thing we're hearing from our customers. I mean, like when you were talking, it just reminded me, in the old days and maybe even up to five years ago, and the CIOs were all about knowing technology knowhow and managing costs, and like it was a cost center. But now you look at IT, IT is at the forefront of driving innovation. IT is at the forefront of adopting cloud. But at the same time, IT is also tasked with being smart about cost optimization. So you're right, that's exactly what we're also going to discuss the .NEXT, is how can technology help our customers innovate and, at the same time, be intelligent about cost optimization and which cloud to use for which workloads, for example. >> Yes, and also having the flexibility and the optionality to be able to put these things together. >> Well, yeah, Monica, simplicity was always at the core of what Nutanix did. And talking about the hybrid cloud solutions, it's very important you talk about the fact that it's the same operational model wherever things lived. The one piece that you didn't cover yet, that Virginia teed up, cyber security. So, absolutely, we would need innovation, we need to look at costs, but security is something that went from, it was already at the top of the list, to, oh, my gosh, in 2020, it feels like it's even higher there. So how does Nutanix make sure that, Nutanix along with your partners are making sure that companies, their data, their employees are all secure as possible? >> Absolutely. You mentioned that simplicity is a design principle for Nutanix from day-one, add to that security, security has been a guiding light from day-one, and security is built into our platform. It's not an afterthought, it's something we designed our products to incorporate right from the beginning. And there's a reason for that. The reason is we have over 17,000 customers, and a lot of them are running big, huge enterprise business critical workloads on Nutanix, including public sector, including state and local governments. And we have to ensure that they are able to make the environment secure using Nutanix technology. So whether it's our core technology platform, where we have things built in like data encryption, audit capabilities, or whether it's some of our new portfolio products. Last time, I think, Stu, we talked about how Nutanix offers now this complete cloud platform. 10 years ago, we started with a core foundation, which is hyperconverged infrastructure. But in the last few years, we've added on data center services, like other storage, different types of storage, consolidation, ability for customers, networking options, DR, we've added DevOps and database services, we've added desktop services. If you combine all of those three together with our digital infrastructure services, that's a complete cloud platform that has to be secure for our customers to run enterprise apps on databases, analytics workloads, and also build cloud native applications and run on it, and be able to run the same stack in a public cloud or private on-premises cloud. That has to be secure, so that's the number one design principle for Nutanix. >> Virginia, if Dave Alante was here, he would probably throw out the line that security has really become a board-level discussion. Well, you sit on a few boards, so I'd love to hear a little bit of your insights there as to the security that Monica talked about. Is this something that comes up at every board meeting? What kind of concerns are there out there today? >> Well, Stu, there is no question, it historically has come up at every board meeting. And one of the issues with that has always been the cost growth and escalation that takes place, and can we keep throwing more dollars at securing our environment. Fast-forward, look where we are today. We are highly dispersed workforce. So our attack surface has increased exponentially. And when we think about all the products that we're using, from virtual desktop and functioning from wherever we are in this world, how can that not help, but in the mind of a board director who doesn't know too much about technology, it would frighten them even more. However, the thing that I constantly always underscore is the sooner we move to these more modernized infrastructures, the better our ability will be to secure our environment at a very cost-efficient model. Because these technologies, particularly like Nutanix, have security built into them. And instead of having to add constantly to our cyber workforce, who's going to be looking at and parsing through information, we are able to have these embedded sensors and our ability to have the infrastructure talk to us about where our vulnerabilities are, as opposed to us having to go in and try to figure that out either post event or at some point pre any type of event. So it's very exciting time. I really encourage people to just get off our legacy environments as fast as we can and go to these modernized technology infrastructures and to the vendors who make this invisible to us. And I think the board members start to then say, "Okay, I can begin to understand that." I often give an example of if you're building a smart house versus you buy an old house and you're trying to put cameras on the side and sensors in the windows and in the doors, you can't possibly be as effective in your security as if you built it from the ground up to be secure. >> Yeah, definitely, it is challenging to retrofit that. Modernization is definitely a drum beat we've seen. Monica, a question for you on that theme is, in many ways, the current economic situation is a challenge, but it's also a forcing function. If I can need to keep up, if I need my employees to stay productive, I often need to rapidly adapt some modern solutions like Virginia was saying. Any words on that from what you're hearing from your customers and how Nutanix is helping? >> Absolutely. As I said earlier, I think the more IT leaders we talk to, it's become clear to us that there's three major mandates for IT that they are supporting. It's business growth, it's customer experience, and it's employee experience. So, in terms of modernization, absolutely, we find that IT stakeholders are very keen to go on a journey, which kind of looks like this, and again, it may not be the same for everybody, but starting with data center modernization or what we call infrastructure modernization. So really standardizing and consolidating all the key workloads so they can most efficiently use the data center assets. But then the next step very quickly becomes automation. And I think that's what Virginia was alluding to earlier, is we can no longer throw more and more people at things like security and provisioning and patching and updating and expect us to deliver the service-level agreements we have with business. So automation becomes really key. And, of course, with AI and machine learning, there's a lot of solutions out there around automation, and Nutanix is obviously big in terms of automating. Our one-click upgrades are legendary. That's even before people talked about AI and machine learning, we've been offering them. But then the next step becomes, very quickly, is, okay, great, I've automated everything, IT has become a service, my stakeholders are, I'm able to deliver the service-level agreements, well, what's next? How do I get the flexibility to on-demand spin up environments? And I think that's where the linkage with public cloud comes in, that's where customers are starting to build hybrid cloud. And then the ultimate nirvana that we're hearing from many customers is, they want to be able to use the right cloud for the right workload. A lot of our customers don't want to be stuck, and I'm using the word stuck kind of loosely, but just not with one public cloud. Just like our customers use a lot of different hardware providers in some cases, they also want to have the optionality of using an Azure for one workload, maybe an AWS for something else, maybe it's on-premises for something else, maybe it's a service provider for something else, and that's the ultimate nirvana for IT. So that would be the ultimate modernization, is where you have this kind of like an infinite computing solution, where you can go tap into any resource you need at the point in time that you need it for and be able to pay the right price for that and have a single management across everything. So you don't have to worry about the complexity of managing for environments, it's all done through one single plane, and that's where Nutanix comes in. Really, that's what we are doing, is making it really easy for our customers to reach from this infrastructure modernization, all the way to this hybrid multicloud world, with a single, unified management plan, the ability to move data, applications, and license around as they choose to, and have a cost-optimized solution. >> And let me add to that because I love what Monica is saying. You know, as a corporate fiduciary, I want my partners to do what they do best. So having each cloud provider really continue down the path of the areas that they are best in class in as opposed to wasting their time competing with each other on the same stuff, which doesn't help me evolve as a consumer, and it doesn't help them grow their business. And so, by enabling this kind of hybrid world, we are allowing each of these cloud providers to be able to do what they do best, which helps us invest in our future as consumers. >> All right, so Virginia, talking about fiduciary duties, as a board member, there's a topic that was talked a little bit at the show, but we'd love your feedback. And Monica, I want to hear the company's superior parent. Of course, I'm talking about the founder and CEO, Dheeraj Pandey is, there's a transition, there's a look, looking for the new CEO. If I have the line right, he's he said he will be a Nutant forever even though his role will become a little bit more invisible, of course, what Nutanix has been trying to do with infrastructure and clouds before. So, Virginia, what does this mean for today and for the direction of the company? And then Monica, I would love kind of the internal look from an employee standpoint. >> Well, Stu, thank you for asking the question. I actually did a significant post on LinkedIn a couple of days ago because I really wanted to express to the world how blown away I am by our founder, Dheeraj. I've been working with him now over the last three years. And as I have gotten to know him, and I have worked with a lot of founders in my life, and I've worked with a lot of CEOs who were founders and some that were not founders, they were just CEOs and they came in after the fact, and it is rare that you find an individual that is just so focused on driving the mission forward in a very selfless way. And from the very beginning, people who ended up talking to with our CEO over their life's journey with Nutanix over the last 10, 11 years, will say the same exact same thing, which is, his single focus was about the mission and how Nutanix can support and grow the mission of the organization and what the world needs today. And it is rare that an individual will say, at a certain point in time, "I have taken this thing that I have created to a certain point, and now, it is yet at another inflection point, and it needs to continue on in a significant way. So being concerned about every facet, from do I have the right talent, do I have the right offering, do I have the right capital position, do I have the right board, do I have the right person at the helm? And I have spent a lot of time talking with Dheeraj, which is a gift and a pleasure in life, and to be able to have a candid conversation about where is Nutanix going next and how best to get there. And for a CEO to be able to sit down and talk to their board about that, it is really unique. And to have someone who cares so much about the future of the company, I was really blown away. So I'm very excited about our prospects going forward. Otherwise, I would not have joined this board. We all have, our lives are challenged, and life is short, and we want to spend the time doing the things that we believe in and we love and support. So I am very excited for the next chapter. We have built an incredible base. And now we're poised for very significant growth. And I think to underscore that, you saw the performance of the company was extremely good, the partnerships that are coming out, this is exactly the time when you want to, again, self-effacing, disrupting yourself, looking at where we need to go next. The time to do that is not at the point where you are there and you've arrived at that next step, but just as you're about to take off on a launch. And I think we're here. And I'm very excited. >> Yeah, I'll add to that. So, first of all, Virginia, we are so thrilled that you're on the board. As far as Dheeraj goes, I believe he's a force of nature. I think that's what Virginia said. And look, I'm a parent, and for those of you who are parents out there, this will probably resonate. When a child is born, you nurture your child and you take care of them. At some point, they leave for college. And for me, it was a hard one coming from a different culture, but I almost seem this is akin to that. Dheeraj is the founding father of Nutanix. He has really nurtured the company, he's built it up, he's given us all the right culture principles, and now, he's sending us off to call it saying, "Okay, this is the next phase of your life, go do the best you can and take Nutanix to the next level." And I'm really, really proud to be part of this company, I've been here for a year-and-a-half, we have amazing talent, people are important, we have amazing innovations. And, by the way, this new year, we started a fiscal year in August, it's going to be full of amazing innovations. I mean, this is only the beginning, what you've heard in the last two or three weeks, a lot more is coming down. And then there are some process that we've put in place so people process technology, process to actually scale as a larger company. So I think what Dheeraj has done is really set us up for the next phase of our life, and he's always going to be there for us as an advisor just like a parent is there for the child when they're off to college and off to doing other things in life. That's what I believe. >> Well, Monica and Virginia, thank you so much for sharing the updates. theCUBE really appreciates being able to be part of the Nutanix .NEXT event, and great to catch up with both of you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for continuing to work with us. Thank you. >> All right, stay tuned for more from Nutanix .NEXT digital experience. I'm Stu Miniman. And thank you for watching theCUBE. (gentle music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, with coverage of the Global .NEXT digital experience. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman. And welcome to theCUBE's coverage of the Nutanix .NEXT global digital experience. We've been at the Nutanix shows since the first time they ever happened, way back at the Fontainebleau, in Miami, of course. Nutanix is now a public company. A lot of news, a lot going on, and the first time they've done, first, a global event and digital event because this was the convergence of the events that they were originally going to have both in North America as well as Europe. So happy to welcome back to the program. To help kick it off, first of all, we have Monica Kumar, she's the Senior Vice President of Marketing with Nutanix. And also joining us is Virginia Gambale, she is a Managing Partner at Azimuth Partners LLC and also a board member of Nutanix. Virginia, Monica, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thank you so much for having us. >> Thank you, Stu. >> So the event here, of course, the line we've used at many of those shows is, how do we bring people together even while we're apart? Good energy, great speakers, everything from Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Simon Sinek, in the opening, in Trevor Noah for some entertainment in day two, and lots of announcements with partners, customers, of course, speaking, and lots of the Newtons. So, Monica, maybe I start with you. You've had a very a close role in helping to shape a lot of what's going on here. I kind of teed up. Give us, from your standpoint, really, kind of the goals, give us a little bit of insight into putting this together for an online audience versus the kind of party that we have for the users when they come together in-person. >> Yeah, thank you so much, Stu. And I'm so excited to have Virginia here with us as well. You know, obviously, the world is so different now. And one of the biggest things that we've been doing for the last six, seven months is figuring out how do we stay connected with our customers, with our partners, with our own employees, and society at large? So, along the same lines, .NEXT has evolved to, of course, also being a virtual event, but at the same time, the biggest design factor for .NEXT is really the connection with customers, partners, our own employees, and influencers, and society at large. So you'll see a lot of our agenda is designed around future of work and what does it mean to be a leader and a technology leader, a technology provider in this world while we are living through the pandemic. We're also talking about future of education, future of healthcare, future financial services, all the things that matter to us as human beings, and then what's the role that technology is going to play in that, and, of course, how can Nutanix as a technology vendor help our customers navigate these uncertain times. So that's how most of our content is on day-one. And then day-two is really all about the latest and greatest cool tech. And you're going to hear a lot about and you've heard a lot about cloud technology and cloud being that constant enabler of innovation for businesses and for IT. So all of our hybrid cloud, multicloud, our core hyperconverged infrastructure, and how that's evolving to hybrid cloud infrastructure, it's about platform as a service, DevOps, I mean, database solutions, and these are competing solutions, you name it. So that's going to be at day-two. And then day-three is a partner exchange. So, obviously, partners are really important to us. That's the village, the ecosystem. And we have a whole day dedicated to our partners in helping understand how can we together bring the best solutions to market. >> Virginia, I'd love to get your experience so far with the event that you've attended. >> Well, I always find that .NEXT experiences a very broad and enriching experience. I tell people who have never heard of cloud, who are well in the cloud, who are wanting to just learn about it, just sort of standing at the precipice of embarking on this journey, to watch or participate or go to the .NEXT for Nutanix, because it is so rich with content and speakers that are so intelligent about an experience about what they are doing and embarking on. And then in addition to that, there's always a hint and a lookout at the future and where we are going and where we need to think about where we are going. So I am very excited. The first part of this virtual .NEXT, I didn't know what to expect, but I am extremely pleased. >> Well, yeah, Virginia, you bring up a really good point. It's not just the cool technology, and there's lots of that, but what, personally, how do I enrich myself, how do I reach my career, how do enrich my community, that heart that Nutanix talks a lot about. Monica, obviously cloud has been a very important piece of the discussion. I noticed a little bit of shift in marketing. For a couple of years, the enterprise cloud was the discussion. Dheeraj's teams is out, he said, "Okay, we're going to change HCI from hyperconverged infrastructure to hybrid cloud infrastructure." You and I had had a conversation when the announcement of Nutanix Clusters with AWS, and at the show, Scott Guthrie, of course, wearing the signature red polo, and deeper partnership with Microsoft for Azure. Definitely, lots of excitement around that because Microsoft is a company that most people partner with and work with and use their technologies. And things like Azure Arc have the real promise to help us live in this hybrid and multicloud world. So we'd love to just briefly touch on the cloud pieces, what you're seeing in the news from Nutanix's standpoint? >> Absolutely. So one of the big pieces of news that's come out of .NEXT is a partnership with Azure, and we are super-excited for that partnership. Not only is Nutanix Clusters going to be available on Azure and we are jointly developing that solution to bring hybrid cloud solution to customers, you rightfully mentioned Azure Arc, we are also working to integrate Azure Arc across on-premises and Azure cloud. So, ultimately, for us, it's really about technology being a means to an end. The end is business outcomes for our customers, the end is a better customer experience, better employee experience, growth for the company in terms of revenue and profitability. And ultimately, that's what technology is doing, is really simplifying the use of cloud technology and build that hybrid cloud fabric that customers can deploy very quickly, very easily, seamlessly, and then manage it very easily, oh, and by the way, also be able to move their apps and data and license across the on-premises and, in this case, Azure environment. So very excited. By the way, we don't just stop there. When you say cloud, and when we say hybrid cloud and multicloud, it's, of course, on-premises, it's, of course, the hyperscaler clouds, but then there are service provider clouds. Because in region, and then, by the way, I don't know if you heard Khaled Soudani, he's the CTO at SocGen, he joined us as well in one of the keynotes, and obviously, they are building hybrid clouds. And when we talk about hybrid cloud to customers, it's also service provider cloud, which could be for data locality, data residency regions. It's also Nutanix's own cloud, the Nutanix cloud. So that's definitely one of the big pieces of news coming out of .NEXT, is this morphing or I would say evolution of hyperconverged infrastructure to becoming the hybrid cloud infrastructure. >> Virginia, of course, the big discussion this year has been the impact of COVID and what that's meant to IT priorities, CIO priorities. In a lot of the conversations we've been having on theCUBE this year, there's been a real acceleration on a lot of those cloud initiatives that Monica was talking about. So what are you hearing? What are you seeing? What are some of those imperatives that are either accelerating or, and are there some things that people are saying, "Hey, we might want to put this on ice for a few months?" >> Well, I can tell you, from my work with clients, the many public boards that I sit on, which span from financial services, to pure tech, all the way through to consumer-facing businesses, I really see the spectrum. And three years ago, when I was on theCUBE, we were talking about standing at the precipice and jumping in. Now, we are full on, we are in it. And Monica talked about all these different public clouds and the various providers who are leading their own way. But what I love and I think it's really important is that we need an independent company that actually begins to step back and help all the leaders that are running technology and operations and customer-facing functions, to be able to help them do their job. So here we are today, talking to various CEOs and C-suite executives. And the big issues are, "Okay, this stuff isn't so scary, we are in it, we need it for being able to function in the COVID world, and we also need it because our customers need us to need this, to have it." So, when we look at our portfolio of how businesses are investing in technology and other areas going forward, innovation, cost management, and also cyber seemed to be sort of the three very important themes of the day. And I believe that, today, as we sit through the next few days with .NEXT, we are really going to find stories, experiences, and visions about how we can actually address all three of those. >> Yeah, I think the point, Virginia, you're making is so fantastic, that this is the age of innovation while organizations also have to focus on cost intelligence. And that's the number one thing we're hearing from our customers. I mean, like when you were talking, it just reminded me, in the old days and maybe even up to five years ago, and the CIOs were all about knowing technology knowhow and managing costs, and like it was a cost center. But now you look at IT, IT is at the forefront of driving innovation. IT is at the forefront of adopting cloud. But at the same time, IT is also tasked with being smart about cost optimization. So you're right, that's exactly what we're also going to discuss the .NEXT, is how can technology help our customers innovate and, at the same time, be intelligent about cost optimization and which cloud to use for which workloads, for example. >> Yes, and also having the flexibility and the optionality to be able to put these things together. >> Well, yeah, Monica, simplicity was always at the core of what Nutanix did. And talking about the hybrid cloud solutions, it's very important you talk about the fact that it's the same operational model wherever things lived. The one piece that you didn't cover yet, that Virginia teed up, cyber security. So, absolutely, we would need innovation, we need to look at costs, but security is something that went from, it was already at the top of the list, to, oh, my gosh, in 2020, it feels like it's even higher there. So how does Nutanix make sure that, Nutanix along with your partners are making sure that companies, their data, their employees are all secure as possible? >> Absolutely. You mentioned that simplicity is a design principle for Nutanix from day-one, add to that security, security has been a guiding light from day-one, and security is built into our platform. It's not an afterthought, it's something we designed our products to incorporate right from the beginning. And there's a reason for that. The reason is we have over 17,000 customers, and a lot of them are running big, huge enterprise business critical workloads on Nutanix, including public sector, including state and local governments. And we have to ensure that they are able to make the environment secure using Nutanix technology. So whether it's our core technology platform, where we have things built in like data encryption, audit capabilities, or whether it's some of our new portfolio products. Last time, I think, Stu, we talked about how Nutanix offers now this complete cloud platform. 10 years ago, we started with a core foundation, which is hyperconverged infrastructure. But in the last few years, we've added on data center services, like other storage, different types of storage, consolidation, ability for customers, networking options, DR, we've added DevOps and database services, we've added desktop services. If you combine all of those three together with our digital infrastructure services, that's a complete cloud platform that has to be secure for our customers to run enterprise apps on databases, analytics workloads, and also build cloud native applications and run on it, and be able to run the same stack in a public cloud or private on-premises cloud. That has to be secure, so that's the number one design principle for Nutanix. >> Virginia, if Dave Alante was here, he would probably throw out the line that security has really become a board-level discussion. Well, you sit on a few boards, so I'd love to hear a little bit of your insights there as to the security that Monica talked about. Is this something that comes up at every board meeting? What kind of concerns are there out there today? >> Well, Stu, there is no question, it historically has come up at every board meeting. And one of the issues with that has always been the cost growth and escalation that takes place, and can we keep throwing more dollars at securing our environment. Fast-forward, look where we are today. We are highly dispersed workforce. So our attack surface has increased exponentially. And when we think about all the products that we're using, from virtual desktop and functioning from wherever we are in this world, how can that not help, but in the mind of a board director who doesn't know too much about technology, it would frighten them even more. However, the thing that I constantly always underscore is the sooner we move to these more modernized infrastructures, the better our ability will be to secure our environment at a very cost-efficient model. Because these technologies, particularly like Nutanix, have security built into them. And instead of having to add constantly to our cyber workforce, who's going to be looking at and parsing through information, we are able to have these embedded sensors and our ability to have the infrastructure talk to us about where our vulnerabilities are, as opposed to us having to go in and try to figure that out either post event or at some point pre any type of event. So it's very exciting time. I really encourage people to just get off our legacy environments as fast as we can and go to these modernized technology infrastructures and to the vendors who make this invisible to us. And I think the board members start to then say, "Okay, I can begin to understand that." I often give an example of if you're building a smart house versus you buy an old house and you're trying to put cameras on the side and sensors in the windows and in the doors, you can't possibly be as effective in your security as if you built it from the ground up to be secure. >> Yeah, definitely, it is challenging to retrofit that. Modernization is definitely a drum beat we've seen. Monica, a question for you on that theme is, in many ways, the current economic situation is a challenge, but it's also a forcing function. If I can need to keep up, if I need my employees to stay productive, I often need to rapidly adapt some modern solutions like Virginia was saying. Any words on that from what you're hearing from your customers and how Nutanix is helping? >> Absolutely. As I said earlier, I think the more IT leaders we talk to, it's become clear to us that there's three major mandates for IT that they are supporting. It's business growth, it's customer experience, and it's employee experience. So, in terms of modernization, absolutely, we find that IT stakeholders are very keen to go on a journey, which kind of looks like this, and again, it may not be the same for everybody, but starting with data center modernization or what we call infrastructure modernization. So really standardizing and consolidating all the key workloads so they can most efficiently use the data center assets. But then the next step very quickly becomes automation. And I think that's what Virginia was alluding to earlier, is we can no longer throw more and more people at things like security and provisioning and patching and updating and expect us to deliver the service-level agreements we have with business. So automation becomes really key. And, of course, with AI and machine learning, there's a lot of solutions out there around automation, and Nutanix is obviously big in terms of automating. Our one-click upgrades are legendary. That's even before people talked about AI and machine learning, we've been offering them. But then the next step becomes, very quickly, is, okay, great, I've automated everything, IT has become a service, my stakeholders are, I'm able to deliver the service-level agreements, well, what's next? How do I get the flexibility to on-demand spin up environments? And I think that's where the linkage with public cloud comes in, that's where customers are starting to build hybrid cloud. And then the ultimate nirvana that we're hearing from many customers is, they want to be able to use the right cloud for the right workload. A lot of our customers don't want to be stuck, and I'm using the word stuck kind of loosely, but just not with one public cloud. Just like our customers use a lot of different hardware providers in some cases, they also want to have the optionality of using an Azure for one workload, maybe an AWS for something else, maybe it's on-premises for something else, maybe it's a service provider for something else, and that's the ultimate nirvana for IT. So that would be the ultimate modernization, is where you have this kind of like an infinite computing solution, where you can go tap into any resource you need at the point in time that you need it for and be able to pay the right price for that and have a single management across everything. So you don't have to worry about the complexity of managing for environments, it's all done through one single plane, and that's where Nutanix comes in. Really, that's what we are doing, is making it really easy for our customers to reach from this infrastructure modernization, all the way to this hybrid multicloud world, with a single, unified management plan, the ability to move data, applications, and license around as they choose to, and have a cost-optimized solution. >> And let me add to that because I love what Monica is saying. You know, as a corporate fiduciary, I want my partners to do what they do best. So having each cloud provider really continue down the path of the areas that they are best in class in as opposed to wasting their time competing with each other on the same stuff, which doesn't help me evolve as a consumer, and it doesn't help them grow their business. And so, by enabling this kind of hybrid world, we are allowing each of these cloud providers to be able to do what they do best, which helps us invest in our future as consumers. >> All right, so Virginia, talking about fiduciary duties, as a board member, there's a topic that was talked a little bit at the show, but we'd love your feedback. And Monica, I want to hear the company's superior parent. Of course, I'm talking about the founder and CEO, Dheeraj Pandey is, there's a transition, there's a look, looking for the new CEO. If I have the line right, he's he said he will be a Newton forever even though his role will become a little bit more invisible, of course, what Nutanix has been trying to do with infrastructure and clouds before. So, Virginia, what does this mean for today and for the direction of the company? And then Monica, I would love kind of the internal look from an employee standpoint. >> Well, Stu, thank you for asking the question. I actually did a significant post on LinkedIn a couple of days ago because I really wanted to express to the world how blown away I am by our founder, Dheeraj. I've been working with him now over the last three years. And as I have gotten to know him, and I have worked with a lot of founders in my life, and I've worked with a lot of CEOs who were founders and some that were not founders, they were just CEOs and they came in after the fact, and it is rare that you find an individual that is just so focused on driving the mission forward in a very selfless way. And from the very beginning, people who ended up talking to with our CEO over their life's journey with Nutanix over the last 10, 11 years, will say the same exact same thing, which is, his single focus was about the mission and how Nutanix can support and grow the mission of the organization and what the world needs today. And it is rare that an individual will say, at a certain point in time, "I have taken this thing that I have created to a certain point, and now, it is yet at another inflection point, and it needs to continue on in a significant way. So being concerned about every facet, from do I have the right talent, do I have the right offering, do I have the right capital position, do I have the right board, do I have the right person at the helm? And I have spent a lot of time talking with Dheeraj, which is a gift and a pleasure in life, and to be able to have a candid conversation about where is Nutanix going next and how best to get there. And for a CEO to be able to sit down and talk to their board about that, it is really unique. And to have someone who cares so much about the future of the company, I was really blown away. So I'm very excited about our prospects going forward. Otherwise, I would not have joined this board. We all have, our lives are challenged, and life is short, and we want to spend the time doing the things that we believe in and we love and support. So I am very excited for the next chapter. We have built an incredible base. And now we're poised for very significant growth. And I think to underscore that, you saw the performance of the company was extremely good, the partnerships that are coming out, this is exactly the time when you want to, again, self-effacing, disrupting yourself, looking at where we need to go next. The time to do that is not at the point where you are there and you've arrived at that next step, but just as you're about to take off on a launch. And I think we're here. And I'm very excited. >> Yeah, I'll add to that. So, first of all, Virginia, we are so thrilled that you're on the board. As far as Dheeraj goes, I believe he's a force of nature. I think that's what Virginia said. And look, I'm a parent, and for those of you who are parents out there, this will probably resonate. When a child is born, you nurture your child and you take care of them. At some point, they leave for college. And for me, it was a hard one coming from a different culture, but I almost seem this is akin to that. Dheeraj is the founding father of Nutanix. He has really nurtured the company, he's built it up, he's given us all the right culture principles, and now, he's sending us off to call it saying, "Okay, this is the next phase of your life, go do the best you can and take Nutanix to the next level." And I'm really, really proud to be part of this company, I've been here for a year-and-a-half, we have amazing talent, people are important, we have amazing innovations. And, by the way, this new year, we started a fiscal year in August, it's going to be full of amazing innovations. I mean, this is only the beginning, what you've heard in the last two or three weeks, a lot more is coming down. And then there are some process that we've put in place so people process technology, process to actually scale as a larger company. So I think what Dheeraj has done is really set us up for the next phase of our life, and he's always going to be there for us as an advisor just like a parent is there for the child when they're off to college and off to doing other things in life. That's what I believe. >> Well, Monica and Virginia, thank you so much for sharing the updates. theCUBE really appreciates being able to be part of the Nutanix .NEXT event, and great to catch up with both of you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for continuing to work with us. Thank you. >> All right, stay tuned for more from Nutanix .NEXT digital experience. I'm Stu Miniman. And thank you for watching theCUBE. (gentle music)