>>We're here live in Las Vegas with a cubes coverage of Amazon re Mars. It's a reinvent re Mars reinforced. The big three shows called the res. This is Mars machine learning, automation, robotic and space. It's a program about the future it and the future innovation around industrial cloud scale climate change the moon, a lot of great topics, really connecting all the dots together here in Las Vegas with Amazon re Mars I'm John ER, host of the cube. Our first guest is Howard Hughes program manager, necess Ryan program. Howard is involved with all the action and space and the moon project, which we'll get into Howard. Thanks for coming on the cube. >>Well, Hey, thanks for having me here this morning. Appreciate you guys inviting me here. >>So this show is not obvious to the normal tech observer, the insiders in, in the industry. It's the confluence of a lot of things coming together. It's gonna be obvious very soon because the stuff they're showing here is pretty impressive. It's motivating, it's positive and it's a force for change in good. All of it coming together, space, machine learning, robotics, industrial, you have one of the coolest areas, the space what's going on with your Orion program. You guys got the big moon project statement to >>Explain. Well, let me tell you, I'll start with Orion. Orion is our next human space craft. That's gonna take humans beyond low earth orbit and we're part of the broader Artis campaign. So Artis is our plan, our NASA plan to return the first person of color, first woman, back to the moon. And we're very excited to do that. We have several missions that I could talk to you about starting with in a very few months, Artis one. So Artis one is going to fly on the space launch system, which is gonna be the biggest rocket we call the mega rocket has been built since the Saturn five on top of the SLS is the Ryan spacecraft and that Ryan spacecraft houses four crew members for up to 21 days in deep space. And we'll have an unru test in a few months launch on the S SLS. And Orion's gonna go around the moon for up to 40 days on Aus two, we will have the first test of the humans on board Orion. So four people will fly on Aus two. We will also circle the moon for about 10 to 12 days. And then our third mission will be our landing. >>So the moon is back in play, obviously it's close to the earth. So it's a short flight, relatively speaking the Mars a little bit further out. I'll see everyone as know what's going on in Mars. A lot of people are interested in Mars. Moon's closer. Yes, but there's also new things going on around discovery. Can you share the big story around why the moon what's? Why is the moon so important and why is everyone so excited about it? >>Yeah. You, you know, you know, coming to this conference and talking about sustainability, you know, I mean it is exploration is I think ingrained in our DNA, but it's more than just exploration is about, you know, projecting human presence beyond our earth. And these are the stepping stones. You know, we talk about Amazon talked about day one, and I think about, we are on those very early days where we're building the infrastructure Ryans of transportation infrastructure, and we're gonna build infrastructure on the moon to learn how to live on a surface and how to utilize the assets. And then that's very important because you know, it's very expensive to carry fuel, to carry water and all the necessities that you need to survive as a human being and outer space. If you can generate that on the surface or on the planet you go to, and this is a perfect way to do it because it's very in your backyard, as I told you earlier. So for future mission, when you want to go to Mars, you're nine months out, you really wanna make sure you have the technologies and you're able to utilize those technologies robustly and in a sustainable way. >>Yeah, we were talking before you came on, came camera camping in your backyard is a good practice round. Before you go out into the, to the wilderness, this is kind of what's going on here, but there's also the discovery angle. I mean, I just see so much science going on there. So if you can get to the moon, get a base camp there, get set up, then things could come out of that. What are some of the things that you guys are talking about that you see as possible exploration upside? >>Yeah. Well, several things. One is power generation recently. We just released some contracts that from vision power, so long, sustainable power capability is very, very important. You know, the other technologies that you need utilize is regenerative, you know, air, water, things that are, you need for that, but then there's a science aspect of it, which is, you know, we're going to the south pole where we think there's a lot of water potentially, or, or available water that we can extract and utilize that to generate fuel. So liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen is one of the areas that are very interesting. And of course, lunar minerals are very exciting, very interesting to bring and, and, and be able to mine potentially in the future, depending on what is there. >>Well, a lot of cool stuff happening. What's your take on this show here, obviously NASA's reputation as innovators and deep technologists, you know, big moonshot missions, pun intended here. You got a lot of other explorations. What's this show bring together, share your perspective because I think the story here to me is you got walkout retail, like the Amazon technology, you got Watson dynamics, the dog, everyone loves that's walking on. Then you got supply chain, robotics, machine learning, and space. It all points to one thing, innovation around industrial. I think what, what, what's your, what's your, what's your take? >>You know, I think one of the things is, is, you know, normally we are innovating in a, in our aerospace industry. You know, I think there's so much to learn from innovation across all these areas you described and trying to pull some of that into the spacecraft. You know, when, when you're a human being sitting in spacecraft is more than just flying the spacecraft. You know, you have interaction with displays, you have a lot of technologies that you normally would want to interact with on the ground that you could apply in space to help you and make your tasks easier. And I think those are things that are really important as we look across, you know, the whole entire innovative infrastructure that I see here in this show, how can we extract some that and apply it in the space program? I think there is a very significant leveraging that you could do off of that. >>What are some of the look at what's going on in donors? What are some of the cool people who aren't following the day to day? Anything? >>Well, well, certainly, you know, the Artman's mission Artis campaign is one of the, the, the coolest things I could think of. That's why I came into, you know, I think wrapping around that where we are not only just going to a destination, but we're exploring, and we're trying to establish a very clear, long term presence that will allow us to engage. What I think is the next step, which is science, you know, and science and the, and the things that can, can come out of that in terms of scientific discoveries. And I think the cool, coolest thing would be, Hey, could we take the things that we are in the labs and the innovation relative to power generation, relative to energy development of energy technologies, robotics, to utilize, to help explore the surface. And of course the science that comes out of just naturally, when you go somewhere, you don't know what to expect. And I think that's what the exciting thing. And for NASA, we're putting a program, an infrastructure around that. I think that's really exciting. Of course, the other parts of NASA is science. Yeah. And so the partnering those two pieces together to accomplish a very important mission for everybody on planet earth is, is really important. >>And also it's a curiosity. People are being curious about what's going on now in space, cuz the costs are down and you got universities here and you got the, of robotics and industrial. This is gonna provide a, a new ground for education, younger, younger generation coming up. What would you share to teachers and potential students, people who wanna learn what's different about now than the old generation and what's the same, what what's the same and what's new. What's how does someone get their arms around this, their mind around it? Where can they jump in? This is gonna open up the aperture for, for, for talent. I mean with all the technology, it's not one dimensional. >>Yeah. I think what is still true is core sciences, math, you know, engineering, the hard science, chemistry, biology. I mean, I think those are really also very important, but what we're we're getting today is the amount of collaboration we're able to do against organically. And I think the innovation that's driven by a lot of this collaboration where you have these tools and your ability to engage and then you're able to, to get, I would say the best out of people in lots of different areas. And that's what I think one of the things we're learning at NASA is, you know, we have a broad spectrum of people that come to work for us and we're pulling that. And now we're coming to these kinds of things where we're kind getting even more innovation ideas and partnerships so that we are not just off on our own thinking about the problem we're branching out and allowing a lot of other people to help us solve the problems that >>We need. You know, I've noticed with space force too. I had the same kind of conversations around those with those guys as well. Collaboration and public private partnerships are huge. You've seen a lot more kind of cross pollination of funding, col technology software. I mean, how do you do break, fix and space at software, right? So you gotta have, I mean, it's gotta work. So you got security challenges. Yeah. This is a new frontier. It is the cybersecurity, the usability, the operationalizing for humans, not just, you know, put atypical, you know, scientists and, and, and astronauts who are, you know, in peak shape, we're talking about humans. Yeah. What's the big problem to solve? Is it security? Is it, what, what would you say the big challenges >>Are? Yeah. You know, I think information and access to information and how we interact with information is probably our biggest challenge because we have very limited space in terms of not only mass, but just volume. Yeah. You know, you want to reserve the space for the people and they, they need to, you know, you want maximize your space that you're having in spacecraft. And so I think having access to information, being able to, to utilize information and quickly access systems so you can solve problems cuz you don't know when you're in deep space, you're several months out to Mars, what problems you might encounter and what kind of systems and access to information you need to help you solve the problems. You know, both, both, both from a just unplanned kind of contingencies or even planned contingencies where you wanna make sure you have that information to do it. So information is gonna be very vital as we go out into deep >>Space and the infrastructure's changed. How has the infrastructure changed in terms of support services? I mean see, in the United States, just the growth of a aerospace you mentioned earlier is, is just phenomenal. You've got smaller, faster, cheaper equipment density, it solved the technology. Where's there gonna be the, the big game changing move movement. Where do you see it go? Is it AIST three? It kind of kicks in AIST ones, obviously the first one unmanned one. But where do in your mind, do you see key milestones that are gonna be super important to >>Watch? I think, I think, I think, you know, we've already, you know, pushed the boundaries of what we, we are, you know, in terms of applying our aerospace technologies for AIST one and certainly two, we've got those in, in work already. And so we've got that those vehicles already in work and built yeah. One already at the, at the Kennedy space center ready for launch, but starting with three because you have a lot more interaction, you gotta take the crew down with a Lander, a human landing system. You gotta build rovers. You've gotta build a, a capability which they could explore. So starting with three and then four we're building the gateway gateways orbiting platform around the moon. So for all future missions after Rist three, we're gonna take Aion to the gateway. The crew gets into the orbiting platform. They get on a human landing system and they go down. >>So all that interaction, all that infrastructure and all the support equipment you need, not only in the orbit of the moon, but also down the ground is gonna drive a lot of innovation. You're gonna have to realize, oh, Hey, I needed this. Now I need to figure out how to get something there. You know? And, and how much of the robotics and how much AI you need will be very interesting because you'll need these assistance to help you do your daily routine or lessen your daily routine. So you can focus on the science and you can focus on doing the advancing those technologies that you're gonna >>Need. And you gotta have the infrastructure. It's like a road. Yeah. You know, you wanna go pop down to the moon, you just pop down, it's already built. It's ready for you. Yep. Come back up. So just ease of use from a deployment standpoint is, >>And, and the infrastructure, the things that you're gonna need, you know, what is a have gonna look like? What are you gonna need in a habitat? You know, are, are you gonna be able to have the power that you're gonna have? How many station power stations are you gonna need? Right. So all these things are gonna be really, things are gonna be driven by what you need to do the mission. And that drives, I think a lot of innovation, you know, it's very much like the end goal. What are you trying to solve? And then you go, okay, here's what I need to solve to build things, to solve that >>Problem. There's so many things involved in the mission. I can imagine. Safety's huge. Number one, gotta be up safe. Yep. Space is dangerous game. Yes. Yeah. It's not pleasant there. Not for the faint of heart. As you say, >>It's not for the faint >>Heart. That's correct. What's the big safety concerns obviously besides blowing up and oxygen and water and the basic needs. >>I think, I think, you know, I think you, you said it very well, you know, it is not for the faint of heart. We try to minimize risk. You know, asset is one of the big, you're sitting under 8.8 million pounds of thrust on the launch vehicle. So it is going very fast and you're flying and you, and, and it's it's light cuz we got solid rocket motors too as well. Once they're lit. They're lit. Yeah. So we have a escape system on Orion that allows a crew to be safe. And of course we build in redundancy. That's the other thing I think that will drive innovation. You know, you build redundancy in the system, but you also think about the kind of issues that you would run into potentially from a safety perspective, you know, how you gonna get outta situation if you get hit by a meteor, right? Right. You, you, you are going through the band, Ellen belt, you have radiation. So you know, some of these things that are harsh on your vehicle and on, on the human side of this shop too. And so when you have to do these things, you have to think about what are you gonna protect for and how do you go protect for that? And we have to find innovations for >>That. Yeah. And it's also gonna be a really exciting air for engineering work. And you mentioned the data, data's huge simulations, running scenarios. This is where the AI comes in. And that seems to me where the dots connect from me when you start thinking about how to have, how to run those simulations, to identify what's possible. >>I think that's a great point, you know, because we have all this computing capability and because we can run simulations and because we can collect data, we have terabytes of data, but it's very challenging for humans to analyze at that level. So AI is one of the things we're looking at, which is trying to systematically have a process by which data is called through so that the engineering mind is only looking at the things and focus on things that are problematic. So we repeat tests, every flight, you don't have to look at all the terabytes of data of each test. You have a computer AI do that. And you allow yourself to look at just the pieces that don't look right, have anomalies in the data. Then you're going to do that digging, right. That's where the power of those kinds of technologies can really help us because we have that capability to do a lot of computing. >>And I think that's why this show to me is important because it, it, it shows for the first time, at least from my coverage of the industry where technology's not the bottleneck anymore, it's human mind. And we wanna live in a peaceful world with climate. We wanna have the earth around for a while. So climate change was a huge topic yesterday and how the force for good, what could come outta the moon shots is to, is to help for earth. >>Yeah. >>Yeah. Better understanding there all good. What's your take on the show. If you had to summarize this show, re Mars from the NASA perspective. So you, the essence space, what's the what's going on here? What's the big, big story. >>Yeah. For, for me, I think it's eyeopening in terms of how much innovation is happening across a spectrum of areas. And I look at various things like bossy, scientific robots that the dog that's walking around. I mean to think, you know, people are applying it in different ways and then those applications in a lot of ways are very similar to what we need for exploration going forward. And how do you apply some of these technologies to the space program and how do we leverage that? How do we leverage that innovation and how we take the innovations already happening organically for other reasons and how would those help us solve those problems that we're gonna encounter going forward as we try to live on another planet? >>Well, congratulations on a great assignment. You got a great job. I do super fun. I love being an observer and I love space. Love how at the innovations there. And plus space space is cool. I mean, how many millions of live views do you see? Everyone's stopping work to watch SpaceX land and NASA do their work. It's just, it's bringing back the tech vibe. You know what I'm saying? It's just, it's just, things are going you a good tailwind. Yeah. >>Congratulations. Thank you very much. >>Appreciate it on the, okay. This cube coverage. I'm John fur. You're here for the cube here. Live in Las Vegas back at reinvent reinforce re Mars, the reser coverage here at re Mars. We'll be back with more coverage after this short break.

>>mhm >>mm >>Hello and welcome back to HPD discovered 2021. My name is Dave Volonte and we're going to dig into H P E. Green Lake, we've heard a lot about this, we want to find out how real it is and test a little bit of how how can help solve your business problems. We also want to understand Green Lake relative to the competition. HPV was the first, as you probably know to declare it all in with an as a service model and virtually every major infrastructure player has now followed suit. So we want to hear from HP directly how it's different from the competition, where it's innovating and that means we're gonna poke a little bit of customer examples and how the partner ecosystem is adopting and responding to Green Lake and with me is the right person to do this is keith White, who is the senior Vice President General Manager of the Green Lake cloud services business unit at HP, keith, great to see you, thanks for coming back to the cube. >>Okay, fantastic to see you as always. So thanks so much for having me. >>Yeah, it's our pleasure. So look, we're hearing a lot leading up to discover and at this event about Green Lake you got momentum now, everybody's excited about it. What's driving demand? Where's the excitement coming from? >>No, it's a great question. And you know, the reality is customers are expecting this cloud experience, right? So they they've been using the public cloud, they've been engaging on that front and this cloud experience is really driven, a pretty high amount of customer expectations, make itself served, make it automated, make it easy to consume, only want to pay for what I'm using and then manage it all for me on the back end. But 60 to 70% of apps and data will stay on prem per Gardner and I D. C. And so give me that experience on prem. And so that's why I think Green Lake has gotten so much interest, so much positive growth and momentum is because we're bringing that cloud experience to our customers in their data center, in their Coehlo or at the edge and that's where they want to see it just as much. And so since the world is now hybrid, we have a fantastic solution for folks. >>So you, you were first in this game and so you took some arrows and I'm interested in how Green Lake has evolved, Take us through the journey maybe what were some of the bumps in the road that you had to overcome? Maybe how it compares with the competition. Maybe some of the things that they're going to have to go through as well to get to the point where you are. >>No, it's true. And you know, the great thing is HP as a company is really moving to be much more of a cloud services and software company. And you know, we're seeing this from our competition, as you mentioned, have followed suit. But in essence, you know, you have to move from just sort of providing lease type financing type scenarios for our customers into truly delivering that cloud experience. And that's what's been so exciting over this last year is we've gone from just the basic cloud services, compute storage, networking and VMS to really providing containers as a service, bare metal as a service. Uh, machine learning ops, S. A P V. D I. You know, we've now created a set of workloads and as you heard it discover we're now delivering industry solutions, so electronic medical records for hospitals or high delivery payment transaction processing for, for financial, so that the challenge of moving from just sort of leasing basic capabilities to a true cloud experience that again pay as I go, fully automated self serve, all managed for me has really been a challenge and it's exciting, it's exciting to see customers jump on and really sort of lean in and see the business value that comes from having that level of solution >>keith, am I correct in that pretty much every large tech company has a services arm and they could, they could sort of brute force, some kind of cloud like experience and that's kind of what people have done historically the layer in a financial like leasing financial as you said and and but every situation was unique, it was kind of a snowflake if you will and you guys are probably there a few years ago as well and so I'm interested in sort of how you evolved beyond that. Was it a mindset was a technology, was it sort of cultural? You know, it came from the top as well, but maybe you could describe that a little bit. >>Yeah, the ship comes from our customers because what's happening is customers no longer trying to buy component parts. They're saying it's really about Tesla's like, hey, I want you to deliver this for me. In essence, we're running the data center for them now. We're running their machine learning operations environment for them. Now, you know, we're migrating their mainframe over now. And so what's happening is these sls are really, what matters to customers like that? It's not so much about, hey, what are the speeds and feeds and this and that? And so yes, you can sort of brute force that piece of it. But what you really are having to do is create this deep partnership and relationship with your customer to truly understand their business challenges and then provide them with that capability. Now I think the things that's exciting is yes, the public cloud gives you some some significant benefits for certain workloads and certain capabilities. But what we're hearing from customers is hey, I want to have much more control over my data center. I want to ensure that it has the security required. I want to make sure that I can make the adjustments necessary and so you're doing all that at a lower cost with open platform that I can use a variety of tools and other applications just makes it that much more powerful. So I think that's what we're seeing is we're getting into what our customers really requiring and then you know the most interesting thing is how do you make it work with my entire environment because I am running Azure and I am running A W. S. And I am running google and I'm running some other things. And so how does this cloud really helped me bring all those together to really govern that hybrid estate? And that's where I think Green Lake has really shine. >>So it kind of part of the secret sauce is automation because you've got to be, you still have, you have to be competitive, you know, at least within reason to cloud cost, sometimes it's going to be less expensive, maybe sometimes it can be more expensive. You've got some advantages in certain cases where, you know, there's government governance things and and you know, we don't have to go through all that, but there's the automation but you've got to be profitable at this too. So there's the automation, there's the tooling, there's the openness. So, so that was really a key part of it. Is it not that sort of automating? >>That's right. Automation is key as is really understanding what that customer environment is and optimizing for that piece of it. And so as you heard, we're really excited to announce our Green Lake Lighthouse, which is really providing workload optimized systems that are fully managed for them that provide that capability to run multiple workloads for that customer. But at the same time, to your point, there's a lot of charges that happened on the public cloud side. So, you know, data is the new, you know, gold if you will right, everyone's trying to monetize their data, trying to use it to make decisions and really understand what's happening across their environment and in the cloud. You know, if you put it up in the cloud, you have to pay to get it out. The egress charges can be significant and it's also a bit slower at times because of the latency that happens across that that that connection. And so we are now in a situation where we're seeing a lot of customers that are really trying to analyze their data, leveraging our HPC systems, leveraging our machine learning operation systems in order to really get that data happening, Getting the dancers out much, much faster and a much lower cost than what it would cost them to do that in the cloud. >>So you have some experience at this now. I wonder if we could dig into the customers how customers are using Green Lake. Maybe you can give some examples of success. >>Yeah. Yeah, no. You know it's exciting because you know first off everyone's looking at their digital transformation and that means something different for every single customer, so really understanding what they're trying to do from a transformation standpoint and then saying, okay, well how can we bring a solution to help accelerate that? To help be uh, you know, more connected to your customers to help improve your product delivery. We went to Lyondellbasell for example, one of the largest manufacturers in the world. And you know, they said, hey look, we don't want to run our data center anymore. Most most customers are trying to get out of the data center management business and they're saying, hey, run this for me, uh let me free up resources to go focus on things that really can drive additional value for our customers instead of keeping the lights on patching, blah blah blah. So we have taken their entire environment and moved it to a Coehlo and we're managing it now for them. And so in essence we freed up not just a ton of resources, but they have also been able to drop their carbon footprint, which is also this whole sustainability push is significant as well. And then you look at a customer like care stream, one of the largest medical diagnostic companies in the world, saying hey we gotta be able to allow our doctors to be able to um analyze and diagnose things much much faster through our X ray systems and through our diagnostic machines. And so they have implemented our machine learning operations scenario to dramatically speed up those types of capabilities. So as you go down the list and you start to see these customers really um leveraging technology to meet that digital transformation, saving costs, moving their business forward, creating new business models. It's just, it's really exciting. >>What about partners keith? How how have they responded? I mean, on the one hand, you know, that's great opportunities for them, you know, they're they're transforming their own business model. On the other hand, you know, maybe they were comfortable with the old model, they got a big house, nice, nice boat, you >>know? >>But how are they changing their their their business and how are they leaning in >>similar to what we're seeing? The opportunity for partners is dramatic, right? Because what happens is you have to have a very different relationship with your customer to truly understand their digital transformation. Their business challenges the problems that they're having to address. And so where we're seeing partners really, really sort of the opportunity is where there's the services and that sort of deeper relationship piece of it. So in essence, it's creating much more opportunity because the white spaces dramatic we're seeing, I want to say it's in the 30 to $40 billion worth of market opportunity as we move into an as a service on prem world. So they're seeing that opportunity. They're seeing the ability to add services on top of that and deepen the relationship with our customers. And you know, it's it's from my SVS. We're working closely with S. A. P. For example, to deliver their new rise private cloud customer edition. We're working closely with loosest, for example, who is doing a lot of payment processing type scenarios Nutanix and their database as a service scenario and Splunk because again, we went back to the data piece and these guys are doing so much big data type implementations for risk analytics and and regulatory type scenarios. It's just significant. And so because there's such a push to keep things on prem to have the security to reduce the latency to get rid of the egress charges and everything else. There's just a significant white space for both our partners and then from our distributors and resellers, they're getting to change their business model again, to get much deeper in that relationship with our customers >>to be Green Lake is, I mean it's H. P. E. As a service, it's your platform. And so I wonder if you can think about how you're thinking about uh, share with us, How you think about platform innovation? Um, you've got the pricing model, you know, flex up, flex down. Is there other technology we should know about and other things that are going to move you forward in this battle for the next great hybrid cloud and edge platform? >>Yeah, it's a great push because if you think about it, we are Green Lake is the edge to cloud platform And in essence because we have such a strong edge capability with the arab acquisition we made a few years back. That's really significant momentum with the Silver Peak acquisition to give us SD when you've got that edge connectivity all the way up to our high performance computing. And so you'll see us deliver high performance computing as a service. We're announcing that here at discover um you'll see us announced, you know, machine learning ops I mentioned ASAP, but also a virtual desktops. I think the pandemic has brought a lot more work from home type scenarios and customers really want to have that secure desktop. And so, working with partners like Citrix and Nutanix and and VM ware and Crew were able to provide that again, unique scenario for our customers. And so, um, yeah, the innovation is going to keep coming. You know, I mentioned bare metal as a service because many people are starting to really leverage the metal that's out there. You're seeing us also engaged with folks like intel on our silicon on demand. So this is a really exciting technology because what it allows us to do is turn on cores when we need them. So hey, I need additional capacity. I need some power. Let's turn on some cores. But then I turn off those cores when I'm not using them. You go to a software core based software pricing model, like an oracle or a sequel server. I'm saving dramatic cost now because I don't have to pay for all the cores that are on the system. I'm only paying the licenses for the ones that I use. And so that should bring dramatic cost savings to our customers as well. So we're looking from the silicon all the way up. Uh you know, you hear us talk about project Aurora, which is our security capability. We're looking at the silicon level, but we're also looking at the the container and bare metal and then obviously the workloads in the industry solution. So we're sprinting forward. We're listening to our customers were taking their feedback. We're seeing what they're prioritizing and because we have that tight relationship with them as we help move them to the direction they want to go, it's giving us a ton of fantastic inside information for what really matters. >>Right, Thank you for that. So, I want to ask you about data. A lot of organizations are kind of rethinking their ideal data architecture, their organization. They're they're they're seeing the amount of data that is potentially going to be created at the edge, thinking about ai inference and influencing at the edge and maybe reimagining their data organization in this age of insight. I wonder how Green Lake fits into that. How are you thinking about the new era of data and specifically Green Lakes role? >>Yeah, you mentioned the age of insights and and it really is right. So we've moved sort of as the next phase of digital transformation is basically saying, hey look, I've got all this data. I've got to first get my arms around my data estate because in essence it's in all these different pockets around. And so Green Lake gives you that ability to really get that data estate established. Then I want to take and get the answers in the analytics out of it. And then I want to monetize that data either out to my customer set or out to my industry or out to other scenarios as well. And so as we start to deliver our develops capability, our ai and analytics capabilities through HPC. And it's an open platform. So it allows data scientists to easy boot up easily boot up a cluster with which to do their models and their training and their algorithms. But we can also then use and Estancia at that into the business decisions that our customers are trying to make again without the significant cost that they're seeing on that on the public cloud side and in a very secure way because they have the data exactly where they need it. You'll see us continue to do sort of disaster recovery and data protection and those types of scenarios both with our partners and from H P E. So it's exciting to just understand that now you're going to have the tools and resources so you can actually focus on those business outcomes versus how do I protect the data? Where do I start, how do I get my model set up, etcetera. All that becomes automated and self service. You mentioned earlier >>When you talk to customers Keith one of the big sort of challenges that you're addressing. What's the typical, there was no typical but the but the real nuts that they're trying to crack is it financial? We want to move from Capex to opec's is that hey we want this cloud model but we can't do it in the public cloud for a variety of reasons, edicts, organization leaders or we want to modernize our our state. What are the real sort of sticking points that you're addressing with Green Lake? >>Yeah, I think it's threefold and you sort of touched on those. So one is, it really does start with modernization. Hey, you know, we've got to take costs out of the equation. We've got to reduce our carbon footprint. We've got to automate these things because we have limited resources and how do we maximize the ones that we have? And so I mentioned earlier, getting out of the data center, modernizing our apps, really monetizing our data. So I think that's number one. Number two is what you said as well, which is, hey look, I don't need to have all these capital assets. I don't want to be in charge of managing all all these assets. I just want the capability and so being able to sell them that service that says, hey, we can, we can do X number of desktops for your V. D. I. We can run your S. A. P. Environment or we can make sure that you have the, the analytics structure set up to be able to run your models that becomes super compelling and it frees up a lot of resources in cash on that front as well. And then I think the third thing is what you said, which is the world is hybrid. And so I need to find out what's going to run best in my on prem environment and what's going to run best up in the cloud. And I want to be able to optimize that so that I'm not wasting costs in one place or the other, and I want to be able to govern and govern that holistically. So I have the ability to see what's happening end to end across that so I can manage my business most effectively. So I think those are the three big things that people are really excited about with Green Lake as they enable those things. Um and you know, the reality is that it also means that they have a new partner to help them really think through how can they move forward? So it's not them by themselves. Uh It's really in a one plus one equals three type scenario and then you bring the ecosystem in and now you've got, you know, things working really well. So, >>so big enterprise tech, it's like, it's like the NFL is a sort of a copycat league. And so what, you know what I'm saying? But you guys all got >>big, yeah, >>you've got great resources, hey, this West Coast office exactly is gonna work. We're gonna get a short passing game going. And so that happened. So I feel like, okay, you've raised the bar now on as a service and that's gonna become table stakes. Um you know, it's got a lot of work to get there. I know, and it's a it's a journey, but but when you think about the future uh for H. P. E. Uh what's exciting you the most? >>I think what's exciting me the most is this the reaction that we're seeing with customers because in essence it gets them out of the bits and bytes and speeds and feeds and you know, um >>you >>know, component goo and really gets into business value, business outcomes sls and, and that's what they're looking for because what they're trying to do is break out of, you know that day to day and be able to really focus on the future and where they're going. So I think that's one, I think the second big thing is as you see all these things come together, um you know, we're able to basically provide customers with, I would say a mindset that's like, hey, I can do this holistically, but I can always pick and choose the best that I want and if I ramp up, I have capacity. If I ramp down, I don't have to pay for first scenarios. And so I'm getting the best of both worlds across that piece of it. And then third is I mentioned it earlier. But this whole relationship thing is so important because you know, this isn't about technology anymore. As much as it it is about what's the value that you're going to get out of that technology. And how does that help us move the company and the world forward? Like I love the fact that H. P. E. Was so involved in this pandemic. >>You know, >>with our systems were able to actually uh to run a set of of algorithms and analysis on how to, you know, find a vaccine on how to how to address the things that are going forward. You've seen us now up in space and as we, we broaden our frontier and so as a company you're seeing technology turned into things that are truly helping the world go forward. I think that's exciting as well. >>Yeah. Space. It's like the ultimate edge. >>I >>like you said to me if I take it, it's not not about ports and Mick, nips and gigabytes anymore. It's about the outcome. You mentioned before the S L. A. Um, you know, the thing about, you know, think about virtual, it's great. We have to get in the plane. Its downside. We all know we can't hang out, you know, afterwards, you know, have a drink or you know, chit chat about what's going on in the world, but we can't reach a lot more people. But the other downside of virtual is, you know, you don't have the hallway track. It's not like, hey, did you check out that, that demo on IOT? It's really cool. Where is that? So give us the hallway track. How can folks learn more about discover where would you direct folks? >>You bet. You know, I'm doing a full spot. Obviously let me start with at the top right Antonio Neri our ceo he's going to lay out the whole strategy and then I'll have a spotlight. It's about a 30 minute deep dive on all of these things that that you and I just talked about and then we've got a bunch of breakout sessions were doing some with our partners like Nutanix and others, um, Microsoft as well as we talk about, we didn't really touch on that, but you know, we have a strong partnership with the hyper scholars with Microsoft and with others because in essence customers are expecting an integrated solution that's hybrid. And so, you know, we're showcasing all of that with the with the discover breakouts as well and they're available on demand. We have a huge opportunity with respect to that, so really excited and you know, frankly we're here to help, like I hope people understand this is our opportunity to help you be successful and so please know that our ears are wide open to hear what the challenges are and we're ready to help customers as they needed. >>I'm glad you mentioned the partnership with Microsoft and other hyper skills. I feel like keith, the the Hyper scale is giving us a gift. They've spent last year they spent over $100 billion on Capex build out. That is like, it's like the internet. Thank you. >>Now we're gonna build on >>top of it, we're gonna build an abstraction layer that hides all that underlying complexity. We're gonna connect things and and that's really your job. That's really kind of what you're bringing to the table I think with Green Lake and some of these innovations. So >>I really >>appreciate it. Go ahead please. >>I appreciate the time as well. It's always a pleasure and it's always exciting to get a chance to share with you and and as always, any time you don't want me back, I'm happy to happy to join. Alright, >>would love to do that. So appreciate that. And thank you for spending some time with us. Stay tuned for more great coverage from HPD discovered 21 everything is available on demand as well as the that is the other good thing about virtually go back and watch all this content. This is Dave Volonte for the cube the leader in enterprise tech coverage. Be right back

>> Announcer: From Seattle, Washington, it's theCUBE! Covering AWS IMAGINE Nonprofit. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in the waterfront in Seattle, Washington, it's absolutely gorgeous here the last couple of days. We're here for the AWS IMAGINE Nonprofit event. We were here a couple weeks ago for the education event, now they have a whole separate track for nonprofits, and what's really cool about nonprofits is these people, these companies are attacking very, very big, ugly problems. It's not advertising, it's not click here and get something, these are big things, and one of the biggest issues is human trafficking. You probably hear a lot about it, it's way bigger than I ever thought it was, and we're really excited to have an expert in the field that, again, is using the power of AWS technology as well as their organization to help fight this cause. And we're excited to have Brad Myles, he is the CEO of Polaris and just coming off a keynote, we're hearing all about your keynote. So Brad, first off, welcome. >> Yeah, well thank you, thank you for having me. >> Absolutely, so Polaris, give us a little bit about kind of what's the mission for people that aren't familiar with the company. >> Yeah, so Polaris, we are a nonprofit that works full-time on this issue. We both combat the issue and try to get to long-term solutions, and respond to the issue and restore freedom to survivors by operating the National Human Trafficking Hotline for the United States, so, it's part kind of big data and long-term solutions, and it's part responding to day-to-day cases that break across the country every day. >> Right, in preparing for this interview and spending some time on the site there was just some amazing things that just jump right off the page. 24.9 million people are involved in this. Is that just domestically here in the States, or is that globally? >> That's a global number. So when you're thinking about human trafficking, think about three buckets. The first bucket is any child, 17 or younger, being exploited in the commercial sex trade. The second bucket is any adult, 18 or over, who's in the sex trade by force, fraud, or coercion. And the third bucket is anyone forced to work in some sort of other labor or service industry by force, fraud, or coercion. So you've got the child sex trafficking bucket, you've got the adult sex trafficking bucket, and then you've got all the labor trafficking bucket, right? You add up those three buckets globally, that's the number that the International Labour Organization came out and said 25 million around the world are those three buckets in a given year. >> Right, and I think again, going through the website, some of the just crazy discoveries, it's the child sex trafficking you can kind of understand that that's part of the problem, the adult sex trafficking. But you had like 25 different human trafficking business models, I forget the term that was used, for a whole host of things well beyond just the sex trade. It's a very big and unfortunately mature industry. >> Totally, yeah, so we, so the first thing that we do that we're kind of known for is operating the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The National Human Trafficking Hotline leads to having a giant data set on trafficking, it's 50,000 cases of trafficking that we've worked on. So then we analyzed that data set and came to the breakthrough conclusion that there are these 25 major forms, and almost any single call that we get in to the National Hotline is going to be one of those 25 types. And once you know that then the problem doesn't seem so overwhelming, it's not, you know, thousands of different types, it's these 25 things, so, it's 18 labor trafficking types and seven sex trafficking types. And it enables a little bit more granular analysis than just saying sex trafficking or labor trafficking which is kind of too broad and general. Let's get really specific about it, we're talking about these late night janitors, or we're talking about these people in agriculture, or we're talking about these women in illicit massage businesses. It enables the conversation to get more focused. >> Right, it's so interesting right, that's such a big piece of the big data trend that we see all over the place, right? It used to be, you know, you had old data, a sample of old data that you took an aggregate of and worked off the averages. And now, because of big data, and the other tools that we have today, now actually you can work on individual cases. So as you look at it from a kind of a big data point of view, what are some of the things that you're able to do? And that lead directly to, everyone's talking about the presentation that you just got off of, in terms of training people to look for specific behaviors that fit the patterns, so you can start to break some of these cases. >> Exactly, so, I think that the human trafficking field risks being too generic. So if you're just saying to the populace, "Look for trafficking, look for someone who's scared." People are like, that's not enough, that's too vague, it's kind of slipping through my fingers. But if you say, "In this particular type of trafficking, "with traveling magazine sales crews, "if someone comes to your door "trying to sell you a magazine with these specific signs." So now instead of talking about general red flag indicators across all 25 types, we're coming up with red flag indicators for each of the 25 types. So instead of speaking in aggregate we're getting really specific, it's almost like specific gene therapy. And the data analysis on our data set is enabling that to happen, which makes the trafficking field smarter, we could get smarter about where victims are recruited from, we could get smarter about intervention points, and we could get smarter about where survivors might have a moment to kind of get help and get out. >> Right, so I got to dig into the magazine salesperson, 'cause I think we've all had the kid-- >> Brad: Have you had a kid come to you yet? >> Absolutely, and you know, you think first they're hustlin' but their papers are kind of torn up, and they've got their little certificate, certification. How does that business model work? >> Yeah, so that's one of the 25 types, they're called mag crews. There was a New York Times article written by a journalist named Ian Urbina who really studied this and it came out a number of years ago. Then they made a movie about it called "American Honey," if you watch with a number of stars. But essentially this is a very long-standing business model, it goes back 30 or 40 years of like the door-to-door salesperson, and like trying to win sympathy from people going to door-to-door sales. And then these kind of predatory groups decided to prey on disaffected U.S. citizen youth that are kind of bored, or are kind of working a low-wage job. And so they go up to these kids and they say, "Tired of working at the Waffle House? "Well why don't you join our crew and travel the country, "and party every night, and you'll be outdoors every day, "and it's coed, you get to hang out with girls, "you get to hang out with guys, "we'll drink every night and all you have to do "is sell magazines during the day." And it's kind of this alluring pitch, and then the crews turn violent, and there's sometimes quotas on the crew, there's sometimes coercion on the crew. We get a lot of calls from kids who are abandoned by the crew. Where the crew says, "If you act up "or if you don't adhere to our rules, "we'll just drive away and leave you in this city." >> Wherever. >> Is the crews are very mobile they have this whole language, they call it kind of jumping territory. So they'll drive from like Kansas City to a nearby state, and we'll get this call from this kid, they're like, "I'm totally homeless, my crew just left me behind "because I kind of didn't obey one of the rules." So a lot of people, when they think of human trafficking they're not thinking of like U.S. citizen kids knocking on your door. And we're not saying that every single magazine crew is human trafficking, but we are saying that if there's force, and coercion, and fraud, and lies, and people feel like they can't leave, and people feel like they're being coerced to work, this is actually a form of human trafficking of U.S. citizen youth which is not very well-known but we hear about it on the Hotline quite a lot. >> Right, so then I wonder if you could tell us more about the Delta story 'cause most of the people that are going to be watching this interview weren't here today to hear your keynote. So I wonder if you can explain kind of that whole process where you identified a specific situation, you train people that are in a position to make a difference and in fact they're making a big difference. >> Yeah. So the first big report that we released based on the Hotline data was the 25 types, right? We decided to do a followup to that called Intersections, where we reached out to survivors of trafficking and we said, "Can you tell us about "the legitimate businesses that your trafficker used "while you were being trafficked?" And all these survivors were like, "Yeah, sure, "we'll tell you about social media, "we'll tell you about transportation, "we'll tell you about banks, "we'll tell you about hotels." And so we then identified these six major industries that traffickers use that are using legitimate companies, like rental car companies, and airlines, and ridesharing companies. So then we reached out to a number of those corporate partners and said, "You don't want this stuff on your services, right?" And Delta really just jumped at this, they were just like, "We take this incredibly seriously. "We want our whole workforce trained. "We don't want any trafficker to feel like "they can kind of get away with it on our flights. "We want to be a leader in transportation." And then they began taking all these steps. Their CEO, Ed Bastian, took it very seriously. They launched a whole corporate-wide taskforce across departments, they hosted listening sessions with survivor leaders so survivors could coach them, and then they started launching this whole strategy around training their flight attendants, and then training their whole workforce, and then supporting the National Human Trafficking Hotline, they made some monetary donations to Polaris. We get situations on the Hotline where someone is in a dangerous situation and needs to be flown across the country, like an escape flight almost, and Delta donated SkyMiles for us to give to survivors who are trying to flee a situation, who needs a flight. They can go to an airport and get on a flight for free that will fly them across the country. So it's almost like a modern day Underground Railroad, kind of flying people on planes. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> So they've just been an amazing partner, and they even then took the bold step of saying, "Well let's air a PSA on our flights "so the customer base can see this." So when you're on a Delta flight you'll see this PSA about human trafficking. And it just kept going and going and going. So it's now been about a five-year partnership and lots of great work together. >> And catching bad guys. >> Yeah, I mean, their publicity of the National Human Trafficking Hotline has led to a major increase in calls. Airport signage, more employees looking for it, and I actually do believe that the notion of flying, if you're going to be a trafficker, flying on a Delta flight is now a much more harrowing experience because everyone's kind of trained, and eyes and ears are looking. So you're going to pivot towards another airline that hasn't done that training yet, which now speaks to the need that once one member of an industry steps up, all different members of the industry need to follow suit. So we're encouraging a lot of the other airlines to do similar training and we're seeing some others do that, which is great. >> Yeah, and how much of it was from the CEO, or did he kind of come on after the fact, or was there kind of a champion catalyst that was pushing this through the organization, or is that often the case, or what do you find in terms of adoption of a company to help you on your mission? >> That's a great question. I mean, the bigger picture here is trafficking is a $150 billion industry, right? A group of small nonprofits and cops are not going to solve it on their own. We need the big businesses to enter the fight, because the big businesses have the resources, they have the brand, they have the customer base, they have the scale to make it a fair fight, right? So in the past few years we're seeing big businesses really enter the fight against trafficking, whether or not that's big data companies like AWS, whether or not that's social media companies, Facebook, whether or not that's hotel companies, like Wyndham and Marriott, airlines like Delta. And that's great because now the big hitters are joining the trafficking fight, and it happens in different ways, sometimes it's CEO-led, I think in the case of Delta, Ed Bastian really does take this issue very seriously, he was hosting events on this at his home, he's hosted roundtables of other CEOs in the Atlanta area like UPS, and Chick-fil-A, and Home Depot, and Coca-Cola, all those Atlanta-based CEOs know each other well, he'll host roundtables about that, and I think it was kind of CEO-led. But in other corporations it's one die hard champion who might be like a mid-level employee, or a director, who just says, "We really got to do this," and then they drive more CEO attention. So we've seen it happen both ways, whether or not it's top-down, or kind of middle-driven-up. But the big picture is if we could get some of the biggest corporations in the world to take this issue seriously, to ask questions about who they contract with, to ask questions about what's in their supply chain, to educate their workforce, to talk about this in front of their millions of customers, it just puts the fight against trafficking on steroids than a group of nonprofits would be able to do alone. So I think we're in a whole different realm of the fight now that business is at the table. >> And is that pretty much your strategy in terms of where you get the leverage, do you think? Is to execute via a lot of these well-resourced companies that are at this intersection point, I think that's a really interesting way to address the problem. >> Yeah, well, it's back to the 25 types, right? So the strategies depend on type. Like, I don't think big businesses being at the table are necessarily going to solve magazine sales crews, right? They're not necessarily going to solve begging on the street. But they can solve late night janitors that sometimes are trafficked, where lots of big companies are contracting with late night janitorial crews, and they come at 2:00 a.m., and they buff the floors, and they kind of change out the trash, and no one's there in the office building to see those workers, right? And so asking different questions of who you procure contracts with, to say, "Hey, before we contract with you guys, "we're going to need to ask you a couple questions "about where these workers got here, "and what these workers thought they were coming to do, "and we need to ID these workers." The person holding the purse strings, who's buying that contract, has the power to demand the conditions of that contract. Especially in agriculture and large retail buyers. So I think that big corporations, it's definitely part of the strategy for certain types, it's not going to solve other types of trafficking. But let's say banks and financial institutions, if they start asking different questions of who's banking with them, just like they've done with terrorism financing they could wipe out trafficking financing, could actually play a gigantic role in changing the course of how that type of trafficking exists. >> So we could talk all day, I'm sure, but we don't have time, but I'm just curious, what should people do, A, if they just see something suspicious, you know, reach out to one of these kids selling magazines, or begging on the street, or looking suspicious at an airport, so, A, that's the question. And then two, if people want to get involved more generically, whether in their company, or personally, how do they get involved? >> Yeah, so there are thousands of nonprofit groups across the country, Polaris is in touch with 3,000 of them. We're one of thousands. I would say find an organization in your area that you care about and volunteer, get involved, donate, figure out what they need. Our website is polarisproject.org, we have a national Referral Directory of organizations across the country, and so that's one way. The other way is the National Human Trafficking Hotline, the number, 1-888-373-7888. The Hotline depends on either survivors calling in directly as a lifeline, or community members calling in who saw something suspicious. So we get lots of calls from people who were getting their nails done, and the woman was crying and talking about how she's not being paid, or people who are out to eat as a family and they see something in the restaurant, or people who are traveling and they see something that doesn't make, kind of, quite sense in a hotel or an airport. So we need an army of eyes and ears calling tips into the National Human Trafficking Hotline and identifying these cases, and we need survivors to know the number themselves too so that they can call in on their own behalf. We need to respond to the problem in the short-term, help get these people connected to help, and then we need to do the long-term solutions which involves data, and business, and changing business practice, and all of that. But I do think that if people want to kind of educate themselves, polarisproject.org, there are some kind of meta-organizations, there's a group called Freedom United that's kind of starting a grassroots movement against trafficking, freedomunited.org. So lots of great organizations to look into, and this is a bipartisan issue, this is an issue that most people care about, it's one of the top headlines in the newspapers every day these days. And it's something that I think people in this country naturally care about because it references kind of the history of chattel slavery, and some of those forms of slavery that morphed but never really went away, and we're still fighting that same fight today. >> In terms of, you know, we're here at AWS IMAGINE, and they're obviously putting a lot of resources behind this, Teresa Carlson and the team. How are you using them, have you always been on AWS? Has that platform enabled you to accomplish your mission better? >> Yeah, oh for sure, I mean, Polaris crunches over 60 terabytes of data per day, of just like the computing that we're doing, right? >> Jeff: And what types of data are you crunching? >> It's the data associated with Hotline calls, we collect up to 150 variables on each Hotline call. The Hotline calls come in, we have this data set of 50,000 cases of trafficking with very sensitive data, and the protections of that data, the cybersecurity associated with that data, the storage of that data. So since 2017, Polaris has been in existence since 2002, so we're in our 17th year now, but starting three years ago in 2017 we started really partnering with AWS, where we're migrating more of our data onto AWS, building some AI tools with AWS to help us process Hotline calls more efficiently. And then talking about potentially moving our, all of our data storage onto AWS so that we don't have our own server racks in our office, we still need to go through a number of steps to get there. But having AWS at the table, and then talking about the Impact Computing team and this, like, real big data crunching of like millions of trafficking cases globally, we haven't even started talking about that yet but I think that's like a next stage. So for now, it's getting our data stronger, more secure, building some of those AI bots to help us with our work, and then potentially considering us moving completely serverless, and all of those things are conversations we're having with AWS, and thrilled that AWS is making this an issue to the point that it was prioritized and featured at this conference, which was a big deal, to get in front of the whole audience and do a keynote, and we're very, very grateful for that. >> And you mentioned there's so many organizations involved, are you guys doing data aggregation, data consolidation, sharing, I mean there must be with so many organizations, that adds a lot of complexity, and a lot of data silos, to steal classic kind of IT terms. Are you working towards some kind of unification around that, or how does that look in the future? >> We would love to get to the point where different organizations are sharing their data set. We'd love to get to the point where different organizations are using, like, a shared case management tool, and collecting the same data so it's apples to apples. There are different organizations, like, Thorn is doing some amazing big data-- >> Jeff: Right, we've had Thorn on a couple of times. >> How do we merge Polaris's data set with Thorn's data set? We're not doing that yet, right? I think we're only doing baby steps. But I think the AWS platform could enable potentially a merger of Thorn's data with Polaris's data in some sort of data lake, right? So that's a great idea, we would love to get to that. I think the field isn't there yet. The field has kind of been, like, tech-starved for a number of years, but in the past five years has made a lot of progress. The field is mostly kind of small shelters and groups responding to survivors, and so this notion of like infusing the trafficking field with data is somewhat of a new concept, but it's enabling us to think much bigger about what's possible. >> Well Brad, again, we could go on all day, you know, really thankful for what you're doing for a whole lot of people that we don't see, or maybe we see and we're not noticing, so thank you for that, and uh. >> Absolutely. >> Look forward to catching up when you move the ball a little bit further down the field. >> Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. >> All right, my pleasure. He's Brad, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE. We're at AWS IMAGINE Nonprofits, thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (futuristic music)

(techno music) >> Announcer: Live, from downtown San Francisco, it's theCUBE. Covering IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit 2018. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back to San Francisco everybody, this is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We're here at the Parc 55 in San Francisco covering the IBM CDO Strategy Summit. I'm here with Joel Horwitz who's the Vice President of Digital Partnerships & Offerings at IBM. Good to see you again Joel. >> Thanks, great to be here, thanks for having me. >> So I was just, you're very welcome- It was just, let's see, was it last month, at Think? >> Yeah, it's hard to keep track, right. >> And we were talking about your new role- >> It's been a busy year. >> the importance of partnerships. One of the things I want to, well let's talk about your role, but I really want to get into, it's innovation. And we talked about this at Think, because it's so critical, in my opinion anyway, that you can attract partnerships, innovation partnerships, startups, established companies, et cetera. >> Joel: Yeah. >> To really help drive that innovation, it takes a team of people, IBM can't do it on its own. >> Yeah, I mean look, IBM is the leader in innovation, as we all know. We're the market leader for patents, that we put out each year, and how you get that technology in the hands of the real innovators, the developers, the longtail ISVs, our partners out there, that's the challenging part at times, and so what we've been up to is really looking at how we make it easier for partners to partner with IBM. How we make it easier for developers to work with IBM. So we have a number of areas that we've been adding, so for example, we've added a whole IBM Code portal, so if you go to developer.ibm.com/code you can actually see hundreds of code patterns that we've created to help really any client, any partner, get started using IBM's technology, and to innovate. >> Yeah, and that's critical, I mean you're right, because to me innovation is a combination of invention, which is what you guys do really, and then it's adoption, which is what your customers are all about. You come from the data science world. We're here at the Chief Data Officer Summit, what's the intersection between data science and CDOs? What are you seeing there? >> Yeah, so when I was here last, it was about two years ago in 2015, actually, maybe three years ago, man, time flies when you're having fun. >> Dave: Yeah, the Spark Summit- >> Yeah Spark Technology Center and the Spark Summit, and we were here, I was here at the Chief Data Officer Summit. And it was great, and at that time, I think a lot of the conversation was really not that different than what I'm seeing today. Which is, how do you manage all of your data assets? I think a big part of doing good data science, which is my kind of background, is really having a good understanding of what your data governance is, what your data catalog is, so, you know we introduced the Watson Studio at Think, and actually, what's nice about that, is it brings a lot of this together. So if you look in the market, in the data market, today, you know we used to segment it by a few things, like data gravity, data movement, data science, and data governance. And those are kind of the four themes that I continue to see. And so outside of IBM, I would contend that those are relatively separate kind of tools that are disconnected, in fact Dinesh Nirmal, who's our engineer on the analytic side, Head of Development there, he wrote a great blog just recently, about how you can have some great machine learning, you have some great data, but if you can't operationalize that, then really you can't put it to use. And so it's funny to me because we've been focused on this challenge, and IBM is making the right steps, in my, I'm obviously biased, but we're making some great strides toward unifying the, this tool chain. Which is data management, to data science, to operationalizing, you know, machine learning. So that's what we're starting to see with Watson Studio. >> Well, I always push Dinesh on this and like okay, you've got a collection of tools, but are you bringing those together? And he flat-out says no, we developed this, a lot of this from scratch. Yes, we bring in the best of the knowledge that we have there, but we're not trying to just cobble together a bunch of disparate tools with a UI layer. >> Right, right. >> It's really a fundamental foundation that you're trying to build. >> Well, what's really interesting about that, that piece, is that yeah, I think a lot of folks have cobbled together a UI layer, so we formed a partnership, coming back to the partnership view, with a company called Lightbend, who's based here in San Francisco, as well as in Europe, and the reason why we did that, wasn't just because of the fact that Reactive development, if you're not familiar with Reactive, it's essentially Scala, Akka, Play, this whole framework, that basically allows developers to write once, and it kind of scales up with demand. In fact, Verizon actually used our platform with Lightbend to launch the iPhone 10. And they show dramatic improvements. Now what's exciting about Lightbend, is the fact that application developers are developing with Reactive, but if you turn around, you'll also now be able to operationalize models with Reactive as well. Because it's basically a single platform to move between these two worlds. So what we've continued to see is data science kind of separate from the application world. Really kind of, AI and cloud as different universes. The reality is that for any enterprise, or any company, to really innovate, you have to find a way to bring those two worlds together, to get the most use out of it. >> Fourier always says "Data is the new development kit". He said this I think five or six years ago, and it's barely becoming true. You guys have tried to make an attempt, and have done a pretty good job, of trying to bring those worlds together in a single platform, what do you call it? The Watson Data Platform? >> Yeah, Watson Data Platform, now Watson Studio, and I think the other, so one side of it is, us trying to, not really trying, but us actually bringing together these disparate systems. I mean we are kind of a systems company, we're IT. But not only that, but bringing our trained algorithms, and our trained models to the developers. So for example, we also did a partnership with Unity, at the end of last year, that's now just reaching some pretty good growth, in terms of bringing the Watson SDK to game developers on the Unity platform. So again, it's this idea of bringing the game developer, the application developer, in closer contact with these trained models, and these trained algorithms. And that's where you're seeing incredible things happen. So for example, Star Trek Bridge Crew, which I don't know how many Trekkies we have here at the CDO Summit. >> A few over here probably. >> Yeah, a couple? They're using our SDK in Unity, to basically allow a gamer to use voice commands through the headset, through a VR headset, to talk to other players in the virtual game. So we're going to see more, I can't really disclose too much what we're doing there, but there's some cool stuff coming out of that partnership. >> Real immersive experience driving a lot of data. Now you're part of the Digital Business Group. I like the term digital business, because we talk about it all the time. Digital business, what's the difference between a digital business and a business? What's the, how they use data. >> Joel: Yeah. >> You're a data person, what does that mean? That you're part of the Digital Business Group? Is that an internal facing thing? An external facing thing? Both? >> It's really both. So our Chief Digital Officer, Bob Lord, he has a presentation that he'll give, where he starts out, and he goes, when I tell people I'm the Chief Digital Officer they usually think I just manage the website. You know, if I tell people I'm a Chief Data Officer, it means I manage our data, in governance over here. The reality is that I think these Chief Digital Officer, Chief Data Officer, they're really responsible for business transformation. And so, if you actually look at what we're doing, I think on both sides is we're using data, we're using marketing technology, martech, like Optimizely, like Segment, like some of these great partners of ours, to really look at how we can quickly A/B test, get user feedback, to look at how we actually test different offerings and market. And so really what we're doing is we're setting up a testing platform, to bring not only our traditional offers to market, like DB2, Mainframe, et cetera, but also bring new offers to market, like blockchain, and quantum, and others, and actually figure out how we get better product-market fit. What actually, one thing, one story that comes to mind, is if you've seen the movie Hidden Figures- >> Oh yeah. >> There's this scene where Kevin Costner, I know this is going to look not great for IBM, but I'm going to say it anyways, which is Kevin Costner has like a sledgehammer, and he's like trying to break down the wall to get the mainframe in the room. That's what it feels like sometimes, 'cause we create the best technology, but we forget sometimes about the last mile. You know like, we got to break down the wall. >> Where am I going to put it? >> You know, to get it in the room! So, honestly I think that's a lot of what we're doing. We're bridging that last mile, between these different audiences. So between developers, between ISVs, between commercial buyers. Like how do we actually make this technology, not just accessible to large enterprise, which are our main clients, but also to the other ecosystems, and other audiences out there. >> Well so that's interesting Joel, because as a potential partner of IBM, they want, obviously your go-to-market, your massive company, and great distribution channel. But at the same time, you want more than that. You know you want to have a closer, IBM always focuses on partnerships that have intrinsic value. So you talked about offerings, you talked about quantum, blockchain, off-camera talking about cloud containers. >> Joel: Yeah. >> I'd say cloud and containers may be a little closer than those others, but those others are going to take a lot of market development. So what are the offerings that you guys are bringing? How do they get into the hands of your partners? >> I mean, the commonality with all of these, all the emerging offerings, if you ask me, is the distributed nature of the offering. So if you look at blockchain, it's a distributed ledger. It's a distributed transaction chain that's secure. If you look at data, really and we can hark back to say, Hadoop, right before object storage, it's distributed storage, so it's not just storing on your hard drive locally, it's storing on a distributed network of servers that are all over the world and data centers. If you look at cloud, and containers, what you're really doing is not running your application on an individual server that can go down. You're using containers because you want to distribute that application over a large network of servers, so that if one server goes down, you're not going to be hosed. And so I think the fundamental shift that you're seeing is this distributed nature, which in essence is cloud. So I think cloud is just kind of a synonym, in my opinion, for distributed nature of our business. >> That's interesting and that brings up, you're right, cloud and Big Data/Hadoop, we don't talk about Hadoop much anymore, but it kind of got it all started, with that notion of leave the data where it is. And it's the same thing with cloud. You can't just stuff your business into the public cloud. You got to bring the cloud to your data. >> Joel: That's right. >> But that brings up a whole new set of challenges, which obviously, you're in a position just to help solve. Performance, latency, physics come into play. >> Physics is a rough one. It's kind of hard to avoid that one. >> I hear your best people are working on it though. Some other partnerships that you want to sort of, elucidate. >> Yeah, no, I mean we have some really great, so I think the key kind of partnership, I would say area, that I would allude to is, one of the things, and you kind of referenced this, is a lot of our partners, big or small, want to work with our top clients. So they want to work with our top banking clients. They want, 'cause these are, if you look at for example, MaRisk and what we're doing with them around blockchain, and frankly, talk about innovation, they're innovating containers for real, not virtual containers- >> And that's a joint venture right? >> Yeah, it is, and so it's exciting because, what we're bringing to market is, I also lead our startup programs, called the Global Entrepreneurship Program, and so what I'm focused on doing, and you'll probably see more to come this quarter, is how do we actually bridge that end-to-end? How do you, if you're startup or a small business, ultimately reach that kind of global business partner level? And so kind of bridging that, that end-to-end. So we're starting to bring out a number of different incentives for partners, like co-marketing, so I'll help startups when they're early, figure out product-market fit. We'll give you free credits to use our innovative technology, and we'll also bring you into a number of clients, to basically help you not burn all of your cash on creating your own marketing channel. God knows I did that when I was at a start-up. So I think we're doing a lot to kind of bridge that end-to-end, and help any partner kind of come in, and then grow with IBM. I think that's where we're headed. >> I think that's a critical part of your job. Because I mean, obviously IBM is known for its Global 2000, big enterprise presence, but startups, again, fuel that innovation fire. So being able to attract them, which you're proving you can, providing whatever it is, access, early access to cloud services, or like you say, these other offerings that you're producing, in addition to that go-to-market, 'cause it's funny, we always talk about how efficient, capital efficient, software is, but then you have these companies raising hundreds of millions of dollars, why? Because they got to do promotion, marketing, sales, you know, go-to-market. >> Yeah, it's really expensive. I mean, you look at most startups, like their biggest ticket item is usually marketing and sales. And building channels, and so yeah, if you're, you know we're talking to a number of partners who want to work with us because of the fact that, it's not just like, the direct kind of channel, it's also, as you kind of mentioned, there's other challenges that you have to overcome when you're working with a larger company. for example, security is a big one, GDPR compliance now, is a big one, and just making sure that things don't fall over, is a big one. And so a lot of partners work with us because ultimately, a number of the decision makers in these larger enterprises are going, well, I trust IBM, and if IBM says you're good, then I believe you. And so that's where we're kind of starting to pull partners in, and pull an ecosystem towards us. Because of the fact that we can take them through that level of certification. So we have a number of free online courses. So if you go to partners, excuse me, ibm.com/partners/learn there's a number of blockchain courses that you can learn today, and will actually give you a digital certificate, that's actually certified on our own blockchain, which we're actually a first of a kind to do that, which I think is pretty slick, and it's accredited at some of the universities. So I think that's where people are looking to IBM, and other leaders in this industry, is to help them become experts in their, in this technology, and especially in this emerging technology. >> I love that blockchain actually, because it's such a growing, and interesting, and innovative field. But it needs players like IBM, that can bring credibility, enterprise-grade, whether it's security, or just, as I say, credibility. 'Cause you know, this is, so much of negative connotations associated with blockchain and crypto, but companies like IBM coming to the table, enterprise companies, and building that ecosystem out is in my view, crucial. >> Yeah, no, it takes a village. I mean, there's a lot of folks, I mean that's a big reason why I came to IBM, three, four years ago, was because when I was in start-up land, I used to work for H20, I worked for Alpine Data Labs, Datameer, back in the Hadoop days, and what I realized was that, it's an opportunity cost. So you can't really drive true global innovation, transformation, in some of these bigger companies because there's only so much that you can really kind of bite off. And so you know at IBM it's been a really rewarding experience because we have done things like for example, we partnered with Girls Who Code, Treehouse, Udacity. So there's a number of early educators that we've partnered with, to bring code to, to bring technology to, that frankly, would never have access to some of this stuff. Some of this technology, if we didn't form these alliances, and if we didn't join these partnerships. So I'm very excited about the future of IBM, and I'm very excited about the future of what our partners are doing with IBM, because, geez, you know the cloud, and everything that we're doing to make this accessible, is bar none, I mean, it's great. >> I can tell you're excited. You know, spring in your step. Always a lot of energy Joel, really appreciate you coming onto theCUBE. >> Joel: My pleasure. >> Great to see you again. >> Yeah, thanks Dave. >> You're welcome. Alright keep it right there, everybody. We'll be back. We're at the IBM CDO Strategy Summit in San Francisco. You're watching theCUBE. (techno music) (touch-tone phone beeps)

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE! Covering IBM Think 2018. Brought to you by IBM. >> Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's exclusive, three days of coverage here at IBM Think 2018. I'm John Furrier co-host with Dave Vellante, hosting three days and next is Joel Horowitz, Vice President Strategic Partnerships and Offering, of The Digital Business Group. >> Thanks. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. Good to see you. >> Good to see you guys. Thanks for having me here. >> Thanks for coming on. >> You've been on theCUBE, probably so many times, talking big data, talking analytics, now, in your new role in The Digital Group, the digital transformation. I really want to just ask you right off the bat about your new role, and how it relates to the changing ecosystem. >> Joel: Yeah. >> All of these markets are changing big time, the role of the ecosystem, the leverage that they have with technology and the value propositions, whether it's decentralized applications in Blockchain to storage and infrastructure, and big data. What is your role, take a minute to explain what you're doing, because you have a unique position, because this demand for partnerships, this demand for collaboration at many levels. What's the latest? >> So I would describe my role as being a champion of our partners, for sure. I look at, you know, I take, a very outside in perspective on IBM. Joining just over three years ago now, I came in, really through analytics, as you know, focused on machine learning, data science, and the growth of A.I. at that time. Last year I was part of the corporate development team over there. So looking, really, at a lot of the industry trends and what's going on, as well, in analytics, data, and A.I. This year, you know, we recognize that we're only going to do so many strategic partnerships a year, right, where there's probably a handful that we're going to work with. For example, last year we did a great partnership with Lightbend to bring their reactive platform to IBM, and we launched the iPhone 10, with Verizon on Lightbend's platform. But, these days, my team, can't be everywhere, obviously, and part of the value of digital, and that route to market is really the idea that partner should be able to self service. So, you know, my job this year, is frankly to put myself out of a job, right. Meaning, if I can get, you know, 70% of the work my team does, right, contracting, legal, setting up, provisioning, all of that on our cloud, and partners can just do that themselves. Then we'll capture a much larger swath of the emerging A.I., data, and cloud market. >> I want to talk about the killer app creating value and then the role the market place is playing. You mentioned self service. I want to kind of go down that. Before we get there, I want to get your thoughts on this because I noticed, in your role you're covering, it's cutting across a lot of different things, and you know we've been talking about cloud, as a horizontally disrupting technology, >> Joel: Yeah. >> Certainly in the data space you saw that. And stacks will be horizontally scalable with the cloud. >> Yeah. >> But you could be vertical specialization in the applications. So I noticed you're covering analytics, Watson, Cloud, hybrid cloud, emerging technologies. >> Yeah. >> Blockchain, and many others. >> Yeah. >> So talk about, it's obvious you guys are now cutting across, horizontally, across the different IBM divisions. Is that by design? >> Yeah. >> What's the impact of the ecosystem and partners for that horizontally cut over? >> Yeah, I know, I mean it's a great question, I think. Look, there are some specific design patterns that we see across every technology, across every, you know, business at IBM. One design pattern is pretty obvious, you saw it with the launch of the IBM cloud private data. Following up on last years IBM Cloud Private. And that design pattern is really about people containerizing applications. And so, at the end of the week, we have the business partner, or PartnerWorld Leadership conference. Excuse me. Where a number of our partners really are looking at how do I bring that work load to the cloud. And it's not so much the cloud is the end point. That's really the starting off point to A; Get much wider distribution and B; Be able to take advantage of a lot of these emerging technologies, like Blockchain, like A.I. Like IOT, and numerous others, Quantum, et cetera, they'll just keep coming. So really cloud to me is just a way for us to open the door to a lot of the technology that's flooding the market. >> Dave: Joel, can you talk about partnership, you mentioned before that you guys are kind of selective, John calls them Barney deals, ya know. I love you, you love me. You guys sound like you don't look for those, not volume, it's quality. >> Yeah. >> What are the criteria that you're looking for? How do you get value out of those? How do you measure that value out of the partnerships? If someone is a prospective partner out there, how should I be interacting with you? >> Yeah, I think, there's probably two steps. I think one is really recognizing that, in my own personal view, is that we really want to partner with folks who embrace open standards. Now I'm not going to like go as far to say open source, 'cause I think there is a lot that goes into that. But I will say open standards, meaning, not these like large monolithic applications, but can you actually integrate with us in some meaningful way? And to do that, that's why we actually started on this new platform that we are launching today. Called IBM Partner Self-service. Is the ability to first integrate with IBM. So, if you can demonstrate that you can build with IBM first, whether that's a startup, an ISV, a business partner. Like that's criteria number one. Criteria number two is are you a trusted partner? So, do you actually have the same level of competency that we would expect from, frankly, our own sellers, and our own people. And so, to do that, we've also launched new competency paths for business partners and partners as well. So, those are the two major criterias. And then the third one, which I think is kind of the holy grail, is selling with IBM. So we also launched a sell with path today where you can actually list in our marketplace. And then we will actually help you reach new markets. And then demonstrate there's clients, there's a client need that really wants our joint solution, right? And so, to me, those are the three things, to re-state. Like, you know, building with us, having a level of competency with us, and then demonstrating client success with us. >> Okay, so, integrate, you really don't need you guys to do that. I can just dive in and do that. Bake it out a little bit, and then approach you. What kind of help do you give? Do you have programs once you get by those gates? >> So, you know, I would categorize into two groups, I think we have a ton of online support. So, you know, we even embrace Slack at IBM. If you're not aware of that, we have Slack everywhere. And, so, for a self service, I want to say, look, what does zero touch mean, right, in this day and age, for a partner. And so, they can go to our site today, and actually get, you know, sign up for Slack, and talk directly to our technical specialist as well as to our developer advocates. And so, on the enablement and integration side, my colleague, Angel Diaz and team, have done a great job of launching hundreds of IBM code patterns. So that you can just pick these artifacts up, these assets up, and leverage them to integrate all sorts of capabilities into your product. >> You know, Dave, I want to get your thoughts on this, because you and I have been talking about the API integration, and I want to get back to Joel's point in a second because I think this is critical for startups and ecosystem partners. API's are the (speaking quickly) for developers right now, so if I don't want to take a big chance on being all in on IBM, say I want to kick the tires, API's are critical. So the question is, are you seeing that traction on your side of the house, in terms of the end now, since the level of API integration, is that the touchpoint? Is it like the beginning phases? And what level of commitment that you're seeing with people. >> Well, John, to me it comes down to innovation, and it's interesting because Joel came out of the data world. To me, the innovation in the next 10 years starts with data. The second component of that innovation, I think, over the next decade or so is going to be, really, A.I., whether you call it cognitive or machine intelligence or artificial intelligence. And then third, I think is cloud economics and that's really where the API economy fits in. You got to have API'S to integrate, as Joel was saying. You've got to have marginal... You've got to have scale, marginal costs go to zero eventually. You've got to have network effects and you've got to be able to track startups, which is another question I have. >> Now Joel, back to you, on the start on the integration, whether it's a startup or a big company. It used to be, the old days, you got to go all in. You've got to get the developer kit, >> Joel: Yeah. >> Download it, line it to a swim lane, get deeper, prove your value. >> Yeah. >> Find the value's faster; what's the first hurdle if someone wants, hey I want to give IBM a shot here? Love the sell, holy grail option, is it API'S, can people integration on their own? Talk about that specific first step because some people might open up the door and go whoa! There's more here than I thought. Or, wow, there's some real tech. Or, I don't want to use IBM tech, I want to use some of mine. There's that first indifference point. >> Yeah, I think there are areas where we've seen dramatic customer experience improvements. So to give one example, as we've partnered with Ubisoft, Redstorm last year around a new title game that they released called Star Trek Bridge Crew, and so, you know, to me, we went on our own merit, and I think that publisher chose IBM because Watson Conversation is absolutely the best on the market. And so what that did is it enabled game players, their end customer, their end user, to speak into a VR headset and just give commands, as you would naturally. And so, I think a lot of, as you think about IBM, it's, yeah, we've made it completely easy to access our API'S. I think, there's a great quote from the founder of Flickr that I read years ago, I'll go dig it up for you guys later, but it was along the lines of business development means, today is exposing your API'S, like, that's it! And, on the other side of it, we give a lot away in terms of cloud credits, right, and so, today, if you go and sign up on our self service platform, we'll give you $10,000 a month in free cloud credits to build and build quickly. Because, at the end of the day, if it's not self service, if it requires more heavy lifting, then, frankly, we're not doing our jobs. And so that's my commitment, is to make sure that is available, is accessible, and there's experts there that can help you on your journey. >> So that attracts startups, obviously, 10K a month is a honey pot for those guys. What about existing IBM clients that want to get to the cloud. Migrate to the cloud. How do you help those guys? >> Yeah, so, in the migration front, we have a great team in place with IBM services, who basically have set up a migration factor, if you will, and there are numerous ways to chart your course to the cloud. Whether it's, you know, full cloud or hybrid cloud, or some offloading, some aspects to the cloud. There's a lot of different paths you can take and so to do that, we're offering $50,000 in migration credits for the first couple months. We're also offering 35% off for professional services. So, we have a great offer going on over the next few months to help people make that first step. >> Incentives are key. >> And, look, we're here with you so it's not like, here, throwing it over the fence, and good luck! You know, tweet at me, instant message me, I'm around. And I will be absolutely committed to partner success. >> Yeah, you know, incentives are critical, that's going to get the market going. But, the end of the day, it's the type of value, and I want to get your thoughts, it's something that's come up that I've heard people talk about in the hallways and other conferences. They kind of chirp about "Hey, you know, "I'd like to get this, from suppliers. "I want to see more tools, more programs "to help me get more customers, to get more value. "I'm building apps, but also got a business to run." What are some of the conversations you've had over the past year with customers and partners? Stack rank the top three or four things that they talk about, either their pain points or things that are on their mind, that's worth noting? >> I mean, I would say first and foremost, I mean, me, myself, being in a startup at H2O. Three, four years ago. We used to walk in there and sell into the data scientists, right, so if you don't know H2O, they're a great company, a machine learning company, but we would get the data scientists really excited about working with our product, and then lo and behold, we'd get to the CIO office saying, "Hey, what is this stuff? "Get it out of here." You know, Hadoop was the same way, by the way, 2010 working at AVG, like, we'd bring in Hadoop. Like what is this data like thing? There's no governance, it's a mess. Where they could really, you know, work with IBM, where they see value from IBM is when we go into the CIO office together and say, look, we've demonstrated that there's value here. We've demonstrated that there's actual customer need. We can create a lot of help in terms of getting the rest of the organization bought in. Put in the right governance around it. Because, look, I mean GDPR is real, it's a big deal. Like, data privacy, is huge. So, you know, Rob Thomas likes to say, "You can't have good A.I. without I.A." I think that's a great information architecture. So, I agree, and so I think that's what the number one benefit is. Really get in there, move quickly, demonstrate value, and then when you're ready to make that next step of how you roll that out to the rest of the enterprise, that's when IBM becomes a huge help. >> You know, you mentioned GDPR. With regulatory issues now are becoming criteria for a lot of application developers that are small that may not have the resources to handle the right to get your name out of a database or other tools, and other regulations, certainly. Decentralize applications with Blockchain, another regulatory challenge-- >> Yep. >> Opportunity as well. Are you guys having those kinds of conversations, like putting specific things in place beyond GDPR, and if so what regulatory and legal things do you see out there that could be blockers for customers, that you guys hope to go after? >> I mean, I don't think there's a one word answer here. I do think that you take it on a case by case basis. I think you're seeing different countries adopt GDPR differently. Germany, obviously, being a very strict kind of country in doing that. So, you know, IBM services, as well as our analytics team, are really focused on that. I think, like I said, what you saw with ICP data coming out this week, I think that's a really important way to look at it. My own personal view, I think, for sure there's a lot of compliance, They have to look at, and understand the workflow, workflows of how people are using that data, as well as application architecture is big. And those are all the considerations, I think, that you are going to see as people move. I read a statistic that 40% of all CSP'S, MSP'S, are moving, are growing, like it's 40% growth from IBC, 50% of all developers are now embedding A.I. So, this market is growing and growing fast. But, you're right. If folks out there aren't really taking GDPR seriously, you can get yourself into some hot water. >> Well, we've observed that scale matters, certainly, whether it's a partner or cloud, that gets, that helps people. >> Yeah. >> Joel, well, thanks for coming onto theCUBE, we really appreciate it. >> Yeah, my pleasure. >> Before we end, I want to get your thoughts, just share with the folks that are watching. What kind of deals do you want to do? What's on your radar? What's the priorities for you? From a strategic business development standpoint. To develop across that horizontally scalable, IBM division space, as well as technology space? >> You know, it's not what deals I want to do, it's really what deals our partners want to do. >> Come on, your in charge, come on. >> It's really what deals our partners want to do, ya know. I mean, look, I get excited about transforming industries, I really do, so I look at, not what's the transactional partnership, like go, we'll do something, and there's some revenue, or something. I look at how do we transform an industry? >> Let me rephrase the question. What's on the priority list for you guys, from a transformational area, that's important for your partners. >> Yeah, I would say for sure, obviously, A.I. is huge. Obviously data is huge, obviously cloud is huge. But, looking really specific, I think you just add tech after each industry. So Addtech, Fintech, Healthtech obviously. Game tech and, I think, probably the last one, to me personally, is the most exciting. We signed an amazing deal with Unity at the end of last year, the start of this year. In fact GDC game developer conference is going on as we speak in San Francisco. So half my team right now is over there, demonstrating Watson as like VR, AR, and it's not just for games, right. It's like with BMW and VW doing some cool stuff there as well. So, I'm really excited about the, AR, VR, industry growing, especially with our partner Unity. >> There's a new creative out there-- >> Can I jump in before you exit? I want to ask you a follow up on that, because if transformation is sort of the target for your partnerships. Healthcare is an area that should be transformed. But, needs to be transformed, but it's hard to transform healthcare. >> Joel: It is, yeah. >> Do you feel like you could start moving the needle from a partnership perspective? Or is that going to take some more time? >> You know, I think there's a lot of great work being done there. I do believe... Look, in general, I think we can move a lot faster with partners, in fact, I like to call it like the Nordstrom model. Right? Like IBM in the past has been Barney's of New York, forever, right? From a branding and from how we partner with folks, like I think we need to move more to a Nordstrom, like, yeah, we'll sell our own offerings off the rack, but then we need to help partners come in and create the right styles for the right need and the right industry. >> Yeah and then there's a Nordstrom Rack you're going to need to put that on. (laughing) Over technology goes the Nordstrom Rack. Joel Horowitz, thanks for coming out. Vice President Strategic Partnerships and Offerings, here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, with three days of IBM Think live streaming, all of the videos will be up on thecube.net sports live now. Youtube.com/siliconangle for all the ondemands when the show's over. We'll be right back with more after this short break. (light techno music)