>> From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto, in Boston, bringing you data driven insights from theCUBE and ETR. This is Breaking Analysis with Dave Vollante. >> The rise of Kubernetes came about through a combination of forces that were, in hindsight, quite a long shot. Amazon's dominance created momentum for Cloud native application development, and the need for newer and simpler experiences, beyond just easily spinning up computer as a service. This wave crashed into innovations from a startup named Docker, and a reluctant competitor in Google, that needed a way to change the game on Amazon and the Cloud. Now, add in the effort of Red Hat, which needed a new path beyond Enterprise Linux, and oh, by the way, it was just about to commit to a path of a Kubernetes alternative for OpenShift and figure out a governance structure to hurt all the cats and the ecosystem and you get the remarkable ascendancy of Kubernetes. Hello and welcome to this week's Wikibon CUBE Insights powered by ETR. In this breaking analysis, we tapped the back stories of a new documentary that explains the improbable events that led to the creation of Kubernetes. We'll share some new survey data from ETR and commentary from the many early the innovators who came on theCUBE during the exciting period since the founding of Docker in 2013, which marked a new era in computing, because we're talking about Kubernetes and developers today, the hoodie is on. And there's a new two part documentary that I just referenced, it's out and it was produced by Honeypot on Kubernetes, part one and part two, tells a story of how Kubernetes came to prominence and many of the players that made it happen. Now, a lot of these players, including Tim Hawkin Kelsey Hightower, Craig McLuckie, Joe Beda, Brian Grant Solomon Hykes, Jerry Chen and others came on theCUBE during formative years of containers going mainstream and the rise of Kubernetes. John Furrier and Stu Miniman were at the many shows we covered back then and they unpacked what was happening at the time. We'll share the commentary from the guests that they interviewed and try to add some context. Now let's start with the concept of developer defined structure, DDI. Jerry Chen was at VMware and he could see the trends that were evolving. He left VMware to become a venture capitalist at Greylock. Docker was his first investment. And he saw the future this way. >> What happens is when you define infrastructure software you can program it. You make it portable. And that the beauty of this cloud wave what I call DDI's. Now, to your point is every piece of infrastructure from storage, networking, to compute has an API, right? And, and AWS there was an early trend where S3, EBS, EC2 had API. >> As building blocks too. >> As building blocks, exactly. >> Not monolithic. >> Monolithic building blocks every little building bone block has it own API and just like Docker really is the API for this unit of the cloud enables developers to define how they want to build their applications, how to network them know as Wills talked about, and how you want to secure them and how you want to store them. And so the beauty of this generation is now developers are determining how apps are built, not just at the, you know, end user, you know, iPhone app layer the data layer, the storage layer, the networking layer. So every single level is being disrupted by this concept of a DDI and where, how you build use and actually purchase IT has changed. And you're seeing the incumbent vendors like Oracle, VMware Microsoft try to react but you're seeing a whole new generation startup. >> Now what Jerry was explaining is that this new abstraction layer that was being built here's some ETR data that quantifies that and shows where we are today. The chart shows net score or spending momentum on the vertical axis and market share which represents the pervasiveness in the survey set. So as Jerry and the innovators who created Docker saw the cloud was becoming prominent and you can see it still has spending velocity that's elevated above that 40% red line which is kind of a magic mark of momentum. And of course, it's very prominent on the X axis as well. And you see the low level infrastructure virtualization and that even floats above servers and storage and networking right. Back in 2013 the conversation with VMware. And by the way, I remember having this conversation deeply at the time with Chad Sakac was we're going to make this low level infrastructure invisible, and we intend to make virtualization invisible, IE simplified. And so, you see above the two arrows there related to containers, container orchestration and container platforms, which are abstraction layers and services above the underlying VMs and hardware. And you can see the momentum that they have right there with the cloud and AI and RPA. So you had these forces that Jerry described that were taking shape, and this picture kind of summarizes how they came together to form Kubernetes. And the upper left, Of course you see AWS and we inserted a picture from a post we did, right after the first reinvent in 2012, it was obvious to us at the time that the cloud gorilla was AWS and had all this momentum. Now, Solomon Hykes, the founder of Docker, you see there in the upper right. He saw the need to simplify the packaging of applications for cloud developers. Here's how he described it. Back in 2014 in theCUBE with John Furrier >> Container is a unit of deployment, right? It's the format in which you package your application all the files, all the executables libraries all the dependencies in one thing that you can move to any server and deploy in a repeatable way. So it's similar to how you would run an iOS app on an iPhone, for example. >> A Docker at the time was a 30% company and it just changed its name from .cloud. And back to the diagram you have Google with a red question mark. So why would you need more than what Docker had created. Craig McLuckie, who was a product manager at Google back then explains the need for yet another abstraction. >> We created the strong separation between infrastructure operations and application operations. And so, Docker has created a portable framework to take it, basically a binary and run it anywhere which is an amazing capability, but that's not enough. You also need to be able to manage that with a framework that can run anywhere. And so, the union of Docker and Kubernetes provides this framework where you're completely abstracted from the underlying infrastructure. You could use VMware, you could use Red Hat open stack deployment. You could run on another major cloud provider like rec. >> Now Google had this huge cloud infrastructure but no commercial cloud business compete with AWS. At least not one that was taken seriously at the time. So it needed a way to change the game. And it had this thing called Google Borg, which is a container management system and scheduler and Google looked at what was happening with virtualization and said, you know, we obviously could do better Joe Beda, who was with Google at the time explains their mindset going back to the beginning. >> Craig and I started up Google compute engine VM as a service. And the odd thing to recognize is that, nobody who had been in Google for a long time thought that there was anything to this VM stuff, right? Cause Google had been on containers for so long. That was their mindset board was the way that stuff was actually deployed. So, you know, my boss at the time, who's now at Cloudera booted up a VM for the first time, and anybody in the outside world be like, Hey, that's really cool. And his response was like, well now what? Right. You're sitting at a prompt. Like that's not super interesting. How do I run my app? Right. Which is, that's what everybody's been struggling with, with cloud is not how do I get a VM up? How do I actually run my code? >> Okay. So Google never really did virtualization. They were looking at the market and said, okay what can we do to make Google relevant in cloud. Here's Eric Brewer from Google. Talking on theCUBE about Google's thought process at the time. >> One interest things about Google is it essentially makes no use of virtual machines internally. And that's because Google started in 1998 which is the same year that VMware started was kind of brought the modern virtual machine to bear. And so Google infrastructure tends to be built really on kind of classic Unix processes and communication. And so scaling that up, you get a system that works a lot with just processes and containers. So kind of when I saw containers come along with Docker, we said, well, that's a good model for us. And we can take what we know internally which was called Borg a big scheduler. And we can turn that into Kubernetes and we'll open source it. And suddenly we have kind of a cloud version of Google that works the way we would like it to work. >> Now, Eric Brewer gave us the bumper sticker version of the story there. What he reveals in the documentary that I referenced earlier is that initially Google was like, why would we open source our secret sauce to help competitors? So folks like Tim Hockin and Brian Grant who were on the original Kubernetes team, went to management and pressed hard to convince them to bless open sourcing Kubernetes. Here's Hockin's explanation. >> When Docker landed, we saw the community building and building and building. I mean, that was a snowball of its own, right? And as it caught on we realized we know what this is going to we know once you embrace the Docker mindset that you very quickly need something to manage all of your Docker nodes, once you get beyond two or three of them, and we know how to build that, right? We got a ton of experience here. Like we went to our leadership and said, you know, please this is going to happen with us or without us. And I think it, the world would be better if we helped. >> So the open source strategy became more compelling as they studied the problem because it gave Google a way to neutralize AWS's advantage because with containers you could develop on AWS for example, and then run the application anywhere like Google's cloud. So it not only gave developers a path off of AWS. If Google could develop a strong service on GCP they could monetize that play. Now, focus your attention back to the diagram which shows this smiling, Alex Polvi from Core OS which was acquired by Red Hat in 2018. And he saw the need to bring Linux into the cloud. I mean, after all Linux was powering the internet it was the OS for enterprise apps. And he saw the need to extend its path into the cloud. Now here's how he described it at an OpenStack event in 2015. >> Similar to what happened with Linux. Like yes, there is still need for Linux and Windows and other OSs out there. But by and large on production, web infrastructure it's all Linux now. And you were able to get onto one stack. And how were you able to do that? It was, it was by having a truly open consistent API and a commitment into not breaking APIs and, so on. That allowed Linux to really become ubiquitous in the data center. Yes, there are other OSs, but Linux buy in large for production infrastructure, what is being used. And I think you'll see a similar phenomenon happen for this next level up cause we're treating the whole data center as a computer instead of trading one in visual instance is just the computer. And that's the stuff that Kubernetes to me and someone is doing. And I think there will be one that shakes out over time and we believe that'll be Kubernetes. >> So Alex saw the need for a dominant container orchestration platform. And you heard him, they made the right bet. It would be Kubernetes. Now Red Hat, Red Hat is been around since 1993. So it has a lot of on-prem. So it needed a future path to the cloud. So they rang up Google and said, hey. What do you guys have going on in this space? So Google, was kind of non-committal, but it did expose that they were thinking about doing something that was you know, pre Kubernetes. It was before it was called Kubernetes. But hey, we have this thing and we're thinking about open sourcing it, but Google's internal debates, and you know, some of the arm twisting from the engine engineers, it was taking too long. So Red Hat said, well, screw it. We got to move forward with OpenShift. So we'll do what Apple and Airbnb and Heroku are doing and we'll build on an alternative. And so they were ready to go with Mesos which was very much more sophisticated than Kubernetes at the time and much more mature, but then Google the last minute said, hey, let's do this. So Clayton Coleman with Red Hat, he was an architect. And he leaned in right away. He was one of the first outside committers outside of Google. But you still led these competing forces in the market. And internally there were debates. Do we go with simplicity or do we go with system scale? And Hen Goldberg from Google explains why they focus first on simplicity in getting that right. >> We had to defend of why we are only supporting 100 nodes in the first release of Kubernetes. And they explained that they know how to build for scale. They've done that. They know how to do it, but realistically most of users don't need large clusters. So why create this complexity? >> So Goldberg explains that rather than competing right away with say Mesos or Docker swarm, which were far more baked they made the bet to keep it simple and go for adoption and ubiquity, which obviously turned out to be the right choice. But the last piece of the puzzle was governance. Now Google promised to open source Kubernetes but when it started to open up to contributors outside of Google, the code was still controlled by Google and developers had to sign Google paper that said Google could still do whatever it wanted. It could sub license, et cetera. So Google had to pass the Baton to an independent entity and that's how CNCF was started. Kubernetes was its first project. And let's listen to Chris Aniszczyk of the CNCF explain >> CNCF is all about providing a neutral home for cloud native technology. And, you know, it's been about almost two years since our first board meeting. And the idea was, you know there's a certain set of technology out there, you know that are essentially microservice based that like live in containers that are essentially orchestrated by some process, right? That's essentially what we mean when we say cloud native right. And CNCF was seated with Kubernetes as its first project. And you know, as, as we've seen over the last couple years Kubernetes has grown, you know, quite well they have a large community a diverse con you know, contributor base and have done, you know, kind of extremely well. They're one of actually the fastest, you know highest velocity, open source projects out there, maybe. >> Okay. So this is how we got to where we are today. This ETR data shows container orchestration offerings. It's the same X Y graph that we showed earlier. And you can see where Kubernetes lands not we're standing that Kubernetes not a company but respondents, you know, they doing Kubernetes. They maybe don't know, you know, whose platform and it's hard with the ETR taxon economy as a fuzzy and survey data because Kubernetes is increasingly becoming embedded into cloud platforms. And IT pros, they may not even know which one specifically. And so the reason we've linked these two platforms Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift is because OpenShift right now is a dominant revenue player in the space and is increasingly popular PaaS layer. Yeah. You could download Kubernetes and do what you want with it. But if you're really building enterprise apps you're going to need support. And that's where OpenShift comes in. And there's not much data on this but we did find this chart from AMDA which show was the container software market, whatever that really is. And Red Hat has got 50% of it. This is revenue. And, you know, we know the muscle of IBM is behind OpenShift. So there's really not hard to believe. Now we've got some other data points that show how Kubernetes is becoming less visible and more embedded under of the hood. If you will, as this chart shows this is data from CNCF's annual survey they had 1800 respondents here, and the data showed that 79% of respondents use certified Kubernetes hosted platforms. Amazon elastic container service for Kubernetes was the most prominent 39% followed by Azure Kubernetes service at 23% in Azure AKS engine at 17%. With Google's GKE, Google Kubernetes engine behind those three. Now. You have to ask, okay, Google. Google's management Initially they had concerns. You know, why are we open sourcing such a key technology? And the premise was, it would level the playing field. And for sure it has, but you have to ask has it driven the monetization Google was after? And I would've to say no, it probably didn't. But think about where Google would've been. If it hadn't open source Kubernetes how relevant would it be in the cloud discussion. Despite its distant third position behind AWS and Microsoft or even fourth, if you include Alibaba without Kubernetes Google probably would be much less prominent or possibly even irrelevant in cloud, enterprise cloud. Okay. Let's wrap up with some comments on the state of Kubernetes and maybe a thought or two about, you know, where we're headed. So look, no shocker Kubernetes for all its improbable beginning has gone mainstream in the past year or so. We're seeing much more maturity and support for state full workloads and big ecosystem support with respect to better security and continued simplification. But you know, it's still pretty complex. It's getting better, but it's not VMware level of maturity. For example, of course. Now adoption has always been strong for Kubernetes, for cloud native companies who start with containers on day one, but we're seeing many more. IT organizations adopting Kubernetes as it matures. It's interesting, you know, Docker set out to be the system of the cloud and Kubernetes has really kind of become that. Docker desktop is where Docker's action really is. That's where Docker is thriving. It sold off Docker swarm to Mirantis has made some tweaks. Docker has made some tweaks to its licensing model to be able to continue to evolve its its business. To hear more about that at DockerCon. And as we said, years ago we expected Kubernetes to become less visible Stu Miniman and I talked about this in one of our predictions post and really become more embedded into other platforms. And that's exactly what's happening here but it's still complicated. Remember, remember the... Go back to the early and mid cycle of VMware understanding things like application performance you needed folks in lab coats to really remediate problems and dig in and peel the onion and scale the system you know, and in some ways you're seeing that dynamic repeated with Kubernetes, security performance scale recovery, when something goes wrong all are made more difficult by the rapid pace at which the ecosystem is evolving Kubernetes. But it's definitely headed in the right direction. So what's next for Kubernetes we would expect further simplification and you're going to see more abstractions. We live in this world of almost perpetual abstractions. Now, as Kubernetes improves support from multi cluster it will be begin to treat those clusters as a unified group. So kind of abstracting multiple clusters and treating them as, as one to be managed together. And this is going to create a lot of ecosystem focus on scaling globally. Okay, once you do that, you're going to have to worry about latency and then you're going to have to keep pace with security as you expand the, the threat area. And then of course recovery what happens when something goes wrong, more complexity, the harder it is to recover and that's going to require new services to share resources across clusters. So look for that. You also should expect more automation. It's going to be driven by the host cloud providers as Kubernetes supports more state full applications and begins to extend its cluster management. Cloud providers will inject as much automation as possible into the system. Now and finally, as these capabilities mature we would expect to see better support for data intensive workloads like, AI and Machine learning and inference. Schedule with these workloads becomes harder because they're so resource intensive and performance management becomes more complex. So that's going to have to evolve. I mean, frankly, many of the things that Kubernetes team way back when, you know they back burn it early on, for example, you saw in Docker swarm or Mesos they're going to start to enter the scene now with Kubernetes as they start to sort of prioritize some of those more complex functions. Now, the last thing I'll ask you to think about is what's next beyond Kubernetes, you know this isn't it right with serverless and IOT in the edge and new data, heavy workloads there's something that's going to disrupt Kubernetes. So in that, by the way, in that CNCF survey nearly 40% of respondents were using serverless and that's going to keep growing. So how is that going to change the development model? You know, Andy Jassy once famously said that if they had to start over with Amazon retail, they'd start with serverless. So let's keep an eye on the horizon to see what's coming next. All right, that's it for now. I want to thank my colleagues, Stephanie Chan who helped research this week's topics and Alex Myerson on the production team, who also manages the breaking analysis podcast, Kristin Martin and Cheryl Knight help get the word out on socials, so thanks to all of you. Remember these episodes, they're all available as podcasts wherever you listen, just search breaking analysis podcast. Don't forget to check out ETR website @etr.ai. We'll also publish. We publish a full report every week on wikibon.com and Silicon angle.com. You can get in touch with me, email me directly david.villane@Siliconangle.com or DM me at D Vollante. You can comment on our LinkedIn post. This is Dave Vollante for theCUBE insights powered by ETR. Have a great week, everybody. Thanks for watching. Stay safe, be well. And we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> From the CUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, bringing you data-driven insights from the CUBE in ETR. This is breaking analysis with Dave Vellante. >> Earlier these week, the U S department of justice, along with attorneys general from 11 States filed a long expected antitrust lawsuit, accusing Google of being a monopoly gatekeeper for the internet. The suit draws on section two of the Sherman antitrust act, which makes it illegal to monopolize trade or commerce. Of course, Google is going to fight the lawsuit, but in our view, the company has to make bigger moves to diversify its business and the answer we think lies in the cloud and at the edge. Hello everyone. This is Dave Vellante and welcome to this week's Wiki Bond Cube insights powered by ETR. In this Breaking Analysis, we want to do two things. First we're going to review a little bit of history, according to Dave Vollante of the monopolistic power in the computer industry. And then next, we're going to look into the latest ETR data. And we're going to make the case that Google's response to the DOJ suit should be to double or triple its focus on cloud and edge computing, which we think is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity. So let's start by looking at the history of monopolies in technology. We start with IBM. In 1969 the U S government filed an antitrust lawsuit against Big Blue. At the height of its power. IBM generated about 50% of the revenue and two thirds of the profits for the entire computer industry, think about that. IBM has monopoly on a relative basis, far exceeded that of the virtual Wintel monopoly that defined the 1990s. IBM had 90% of the mainframe market and controlled the protocols to a highly vertically integrated mainframe stack, comprising semiconductors, operating systems, tools, and compatible peripherals like terminal storage and printers. Now the government's lawsuit dragged on for 13 years before it was withdrawn in 1982, IBM at one point had 200 lawyers on the case and it really took a toll on IBM and to placate the government during this time and someone after IBM made concessions such as allowing mainframe plug compatible competitors to access its code, limiting the bundling of application software in fear of more government pressure. Now the biggest mistake IBM made when it came out of antitrust was holding on to its mainframe past. And we saw this in the way it tried to recover from the mistake of handing its monopoly over to Microsoft and Intel. The virtual monopoly. What it did was you may not remember this, but it had OS/2 and Windows and it said to Microsoft, we'll keep OS/2 you take Windows. And the mistake IBM was making with sticking to the PC could be vertically integrated, like the main frame. Now let's fast forward to Microsoft. Microsoft monopoly power was earned in the 1980s and carried into the 1990s. And in 1998 the DOJ filed the lawsuit against Microsoft alleging that the company was illegally thwarting competition, which I argued at the time was the case. Now, ironically, this is the same year that Google was started in a garage. And I'll come back to that in a minute. Now, in the early days of the PC, Microsoft they were not a dominant player in desktop software, you had Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect. You had this company called Harvard Presentation Graphics. These were discreet products that competed very effectively in the market. Now in 1987, Microsoft paid $14 million for PowerPoint. And then in 1990 launched Office, which bundled Spreadsheets, Word Processing, and presentations into a single suite. And it was priced far more attractively than the some of the alternative point products. Now in 1995, Microsoft launched Internet Explorer, and began bundling its browser into windows for free. Windows had a 90% market share. Netscape was the browser leader and a high flying tech company at the time. And the company's management who pooed Microsoft bundling of IE saying, they really weren't concerned because they were moving up the stack into business software, now they later changed that position after realizing the damage that Microsoft bundling would do to its business, but it was too late. So in similar moves of ineptness, Lotus refuse to support Windows at its launch. And instead it wrote software to support the (indistinct). A mini computer that you probably have never even heard of. Novell was a leader in networking software at the time. Anyone remember NetWare. So they responded to Microsoft's move to bundle network services into its operating systems by going on a disastrous buying spree they acquired WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, which was a Spreadsheet and a Unix OS to try to compete with Microsoft, but Microsoft turned the volume and kill them. Now the difference between Microsoft and IBM is that Microsoft didn't build PC hardware rather it partnered with Intel to create a virtual monopoly and the similarities between IBM and Microsoft, however, were that it fought the DOJ hard, Okay, of course. But it made similar mistakes to IBM by hugging on to its PC software legacy. Until the company finally pivoted to the cloud under the leadership of Satya Nadella, that brings us to Google. Google has a 90% share of the internet search market. There's that magic number again. Now IBM couldn't argue that consumers weren't hurt by its tactics. Cause they were IBM was gouging mainframe customers because it could on pricing. Microsoft on the other hand could argue that consumers were actually benefiting from lower prices. Google attorneys are doing what often happens in these cases. First they're arguing that the government's case is deeply flawed. Second, they're saying the government's actions will cause higher prices because they'll have to raise prices on mobile software and hardware, Hmm. Sounds like a little bit of a threat. And of course, it's making the case that many of its services are free. Now what's different from Microsoft is Microsoft was bundling IE, that was a product which was largely considered to be crap, when it first came out, it was inferior. But because of the convenience, most users didn't bother switching. Google on the other hand has a far superior search engine and earned its rightful place at the top by having a far better product than Yahoo or Excite or Infoseek or even Alta Vista, they all wanted to build portals versus having a clean user experience with some non-intrusive of ads on the side. Hmm boy, is that part changed, regardless? What's similar in this case with, as in the case with Microsoft is the DOJ is arguing that Google and Apple are teaming up with each other to dominate the market and create a monopoly. Estimates are that Google pays Apple between eight and $11 billion annually to have its search engine embedded like a tick into Safari and Siri. That's about one third of Google's profits go into Apple. And it's obviously worth it because according to the government's lawsuit, Apple originated search accounts for 50% of Google search volume, that's incredible. Now, does the government have a case here? I don't know. I'm not qualified to give a firm opinion on this and I haven't done enough research yet, but I will say this, even in the case of IBM where the DOJ eventually dropped the lawsuit, if the U S government wants to get you, they usually take more than a pound of flesh, but the DOJ did not suggest any remedies. And the Sherman act is open to wide interpretation so we'll see. What I am suggesting is that Google should not hang too tightly on to it's search and advertising past. Yes, Google gives us amazing free services, but it has every incentive to appropriate our data. And there are innovators out there right now, trying to develop answers to that problem, where the use of blockchain and other technologies can give power back to us users. So if I'm arguing that Google shouldn't like the other great tech monopolies, hang its hat too tightly on the past, what should Google do? Well, the answer is obvious, isn't it? It's cloud and edge computing. Now let me first say that Google understandably promotes G Suite quite heavily as part of its cloud computing story, I get that. But it's time to move on and aggressively push into the areas that matters in cloud core infrastructure, database, machine intelligence containers and of course the edge. Not to say that Google isn't doing this, but there are areas of greatest growth potential that they should focus on. And the ETR data shows it. But let me start with one of our favorite graphics, which shows the breakdown of survey respondents used to derive net score. Net score remembers ETR's quarterly measurement of spending velocity. And here we show the breakdown for Google cloud. The lime green is new adoptions. The forest green is the percentage of customers increasing spending more than 5%. The gray is flat and the pinkish is decreased by 6% or more. And the bright red is we're replacing or swapping out the platform. You subtract the reds from the greens and you get a net score at 43%, which is not off the charts, but it's pretty good. And compares quite favorably to most companies, but not so favorite with AWS, which is at 51% and Microsoft which is at 49%, both AWS and Microsoft red scores are in the single digits. Whereas Google's is at 10%, look all three are down since January, thanks to COVID, but AWS and Microsoft are much larger than Google. And we'd like to see stronger across the board scores from Google. But there's good news in the numbers for Google. Take a look at this chart. It's a breakdown of Google's net scores over three survey snapshots. Now we skip January in this view and we do that to provide a year of a year context for October. But look at the all important database category. We've been watching this very closely, particularly with the snowflake momentum because big query generally is considered the other true cloud native database. And we have a lot of respect for what Google is doing in this area. Look at the areas of strength highlighted in the green. You've got machine intelligence where Google is a leader AI you've got containers. Kubernetes was an open source gift to the industry, and linchpin of Google's cloud and multi-cloud strategy. Google cloud is strong overall. We were surprised to see some deceleration in Google cloud functions at 51% net scores to be on honest with you, because if you look at AWS Lambda and Microsoft Azure functions, they're showing net scores in the mid to high 60s. But we're still elevated for Google. Now. I'm not that worried about steep declines, and Apogee and Looker because after an acquisitions things kind of get spread out around the ETR taxonomy so don't be too concerned about that. But as I said earlier, G Suite may just not that compelling relative to the opportunity in other areas. Now I won't show the data, but Google cloud is showing good momentum across almost all interest industries and sectors with the exception of consulting and small business, which is understandable, but notable deceleration in healthcare, which is a bit of a concern. Now I want to share some customer anecdotes about Google. These comments come from an ETR Venn round table. The first comment comes from an architect who says that "it's an advantage that Google is "not entrenched in the enterprise." Hmm. I'm not sure I agree with that, but anyway, I do take stock in what this person is saying about Microsoft trying to lure people away from AWS. And this person is right that Google essentially is exposed its internal cloud to the world and has ways to go, which is why I don't agree with the first statement. I think Google still has to figure out the enterprise. Now the second comment here underscores a point that we made earlier about big query customers really like the out of the box machine learning capabilities, it's quite compelling. Okay. Let's look at some of the data that we shared previously, we'll update this chart once the company's all report earnings, but here's our most recent take on the big three cloud vendors market performance. The key point here is that our data and the ETR data reflects Google's commentary in its earning statements. And the GCP is growing much faster than its overall cloud business, which includes things that are not apples to apples with AWS the same thing is true with Azure. Remember AWS is the only company that provides clear data on its cloud business. Whereas the others will make comments, but not share the data explicitly. So these are estimates based on those comments. And we also use, as I say, the ETR survey data and our own intelligence. Now, as one of the practitioners said, Google has a long ways to go as buddy an eighth of the size of AWS and about a fifth of the size of Azure. And although it's growing faster at this size, we feel that its growth should be even higher, but COVID is clear a factor here so we have to take that into consideration. Now I want to close by coming back to antitrust. Google spends a lot on R&D, these are quick estimates but let me give you some context. Google shells out about $26 billion annually on research and development. That's about 16% of revenue. Apple spends less about 16 billion, which is about 6% of revenue, Amazon 23 billion about 8% of the top line, Microsoft 19 billion or 13% of revenue and Facebook 14 billion or 20% of revenue, wow. So Google for sure spends on innovation. And I'm not even including CapEx in any of these numbers and the hype guys as you know, spend tons on CapEx building data centers. So I'm not saying Google cheaping out, they're not. And I got plenty of cash in there balance sheet. They got to run 120 billion. So I can't criticize they're roughly $9 billion in stock buybacks the way I often point fingers at what I consider IBM's overly wall street friendly use of cash, but I will say this and it was Jeff Hammerbacher, who I spoke with on the Cube in the early part of last decade at a dupe world, who said "the best minds of my generation are spending there time, "trying to figure out how to get people to click on ads." And frankly, that's where much of Google's R&D budget goes. And again, I'm not saying Google doesn't spend on cloud computing. It does, but I'm going to make a prediction. The post cookie apocalypse is coming soon, it may be here. iOS 14 makes you opt in to find out everything about you. This is why it's such a threat to Google. The days when Google was able to be the keeper of all of our data and to house it and to do whatever it likes with that data that ended with GDPR. And that was just the beginning of the end. This decade is going to see massive changes in public policy that will directly affect Google and other consumer facing technology companies. So my premise is that Google needs to step up its game and enterprise cloud and the edge much more than it's doing today. And I like what Thomas Kurian is doing, but Google's undervalued relative to some of the other big tech names. And I think it should tell wall street that our future is in enterprise cloud and edge computing. And we're going to take a hit to our profitability and go big in those areas. And I would suggest a few things, first ramp up R&D spending and acquisitions even more. Go on a mission to create cloud native fabric across all on-prem and the edge multicloud. Yes, I know this is your strategy, but step it up even more forget satisfying investors. You're getting dinged in the market anyway. So now's the time the moon wall street and attack the opportunity unless you don't see it, but it's staring you right in the face. Second, get way more cozy with the enterprise players that are scared to death of the cloud generally. And they're afraid of AWS in particular, spend the cash and go way, way deeper with the big tech players who have built the past IBM, Dell, HPE, Cisco, Oracle, SAP, and all the others. Those companies that have the go to market shops to help you win the day in enterprise cloud. Now, I know you partner with these companies already, but partner deeper identify game-changing innovations that you can co-create with these companies and fund it with your cash hoard. I'm essentially saying, do what you do with Apple. And instead of sucking up all our data and getting us to click on ads, solve really deep problems in the enterprise and the edge. It's all about actually building an on-prem to cloud across cloud, to the edge fabric and really making that a unified experience. And there's a data angle too, which I'll talk about now, the data collection methods that you've used on consumers, it's incredibly powerful if applied responsibly and correctly for IOT and edge computing. And I don't mean to trivialize the complexity at the edge. There really isn't one edge it's Telcos and factories and banks and cars. And I know you're in all these places Google because of Android, but there's a new wave of data coming from machines and cars. And it's going to dwarf people's clicks and believe me, Tesla wants to own its own data and Google needs to put forth a strategy that's a win-win. And so far you haven't done that because your head is an advertising. Get your heads out of your ads and cut partners in on the deal. Next, double down on your open source commitment. Kubernetes showed the power that you have in the industry. Ecosystems are going to be the linchpin of innovation over the next decade and transcend products and platforms use your money, your technology, and your position in the marketplace to create the next generation of technology leveraging the power of the ecosystem. Now I know Google is going to say, we agree, this is exactly what we're doing, but I'm skeptical. Now I think you see either the cloud is a tiny little piece of your business. You have to do with Satya Nadella did and completely pivot to the new opportunity, make cloud and the edge your mission bite the bullet with wall street and go dominate a multi-trillion dollar industry. Okay, well there you have it. Remember, all these episodes are available as podcasts, so please subscribe wherever you listen. I publish weekly on Wikibond.com and Siliconangle.com and I post on LinkedIn each week as well. So please comment or DM me @DVollante, or you can email me @David.Vollante @Siliconangle.com. And don't forget to check out etr.plus that's where all the survey action is. This is Dave Vollante for the Cube Insights powered by ETR. Thanks for watching everybody be well. And we'll see you next. (upbeat instrumental)

(tech music) >> Announcer: Live from Madrid, Spain, it's the CUBE, covering HPE Discover Madrid 2017 brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> Welcome back to Madrid everybody this is the CUBE. The leader in live tech coverage. This is day one of our coverage of HPE Discover 2017. I'm Dave Vollante with my co-host Peter Burris. Jim Jackson is here, he's the senior vice president of the Enterprise Group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> Happy to be here. Good to see you again and Jason Newton, vice president of global marketing at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Guys, it wouldn't be a Discover without some big news, transitioning to Antonio. We're about to hear the key note but Jim, set up the week for us. The big news that we can expect. Show us a little leg. >> Yeah well first of all, thanks for having us here guys. We're really excited for this week. It's gonna be probably one of our biggest weeks of innovation. We've got a pretty amazing Discover lined up. So you're gonna see us talk about AI in the data center, so bringing predictive analytics from our Nimble acquisition it's called info site. We're extending that to three par so that really helps our customers predict and anticipate problems and solve them in advance. So that's really software-based leading with that. Another area is we're bringing consumption-based capabilities. A whole new suite of consumption offerings. We're branding it HPE Green Lake and it's really, think of purpose-built solutions for things like backup, SAP, data like environments but it's really outcomes as a service. So we're not able to give our customers the ability to have infrastructure as a service, and now outcomes as a service. And the other part of making hybrid IT simple that you're gonna hear about is how we're really helping our customers unify and manage that multi cloud environment. So applications are sitting in public clouds, private clouds, what we're hearing from our customers is, hey we need to be able to manage this a lot easier and have holistic ability to see all of that. So you're gonna see us talk about that on main stage as well. So new brands, a lot of innovation. We've also got some partnerships that we'll be rolling out later today. So a lot happening. >> Jason, you've spent a lot of time, sweat, toil, blood on branding. Obviously you're a big part of the branding exercise. Up leveling the messaging, we had you on two or three years ago, and you said, look, we're gonna change things. We're gonna shift the focus from product and widgets and really talk about what customers care about. How has that gone? Where are you at with that? It resonates extremely well with customers. In fact we just got out of a panel where we had four of our top customers, ABV, Dreamworks, IKEA and Nokia. And we just spent an hour just talking about their digital transformation journey and what they're all about. The room was packed. I think we had over 400 people who were in there. That's showing that we can be an innovation partner to those customers enabling them to share their stories at a venue like this is really powerful. >> We're becoming much more software and services led and it's really all about experiences. Providing that experience that our customers are looking for. >> Just follow up to that, so a lot of people think oh well HP, spun merge it's software business but you're leading with services and software. So help us clear that. >> We're doing a ton in software today. So if you just think of our software portfolio. We have HP 1V to manage our customers complete infrastructure estate, service storage and networking. We extended that last year with composability so HP and Synergy, we have over a thousand new customers since we announced that last year actually at this event. So we're seeing a lot of progress. Synergy enables our customers to really have one environment that can flex to the needs of multiple different applications so reduces over provisioning. AI, I talked about AI in the data center. So what we're doing with info site, that's software based, we're extending that to 3PAR and you'll see us extend that to other parts of the portfolio going forward. Nyara, and on the Aruba side of the house, software based. Aruba is very software centric and then of course, we'll be announcing this afternoon our code name project new stack, really about helping to manage that multi cloud environment. A lot happening in the software space and an area that we're very focused on. >> One of the things... By the way, we think that those three things that you mentioned, automation in the data center, on-premise capabilities and a cross multi cloud approach to management and managing your assets, absolutely spot-on. And we think ultimately and here's a question, we think that what's going to drive the determination is what does the data need? So talk to us a little bit about how you are articulating the idea of data as the new value source, the new value and hardware infrastructure and software and these capabilities, making it possible for the work to exist where the data requires. >> Yeah and I'll start maybe you can pile on a little bit. Our conversation starts with apps and data so we're starting the dialogue there and you know what we're seeing is you know really moving from large data centers, or only large data centers to centers of data that are really everywhere, right? So we're starting to see that edge really starting to proliferate and drive a lot more change, and what our customers are saying is wherever might, regardless of where my data sits, I need to manage it, I need to secure it, I need to process it, I need to be able to translate it into insight and that's really what our strategy is all about. We've been talking for the last couple of years about making hybrid IT simple. and we're really doing a lot in that space. So for example, we announced the acquisition of cloud technology partners and really what we're trying to do there it's the foremost authority really in helping customers understand how to migrate applications to to AWS or even to Google or Azure, and when you combine that with our on-prem capabilities, it really now starts to talk about data, we want to say your data is what matters and we want to help you manage that holistically. The software investments that we're doing enable you to have that complete view. And then from a consumption perspective, some of the things I talked about earlier, rolling that out right, making it easier to consume this as a service and only pay for what I use. So, we are in alignment. It all starts with data and wherever that data sits, it's how do I manage it? >> And that's why Aruba is such a great asset for us, because a lot of people think about Aruba as you know, you just replace copper wire and WiFi ... And hey, don't get me wrong, it's a money-making great business, but if you'd asked Kierty, he'd probably say we're a data business, right? >> Peter: We did ask him, and that is what he said. >> Is that what he said? Well, good, we're on message then. We're on message today, alright, yeah. I mean, because that's where the action is happening, that's where the data is being created, and so everything that they're doing around the the security 360 platform, the mobile first platform, everything is centered around, how do I draw a value in context from that data? >> Well I want to ask you about Aruba, because when you acquired Aruba, we said wow, this is a great business, it's gonna be a growth business, but is it a strategic weapon for HPE? Is it a strategic infrastructure component? From a messaging standpoint, It's all about the intelligent edge, that you've up-leveled that. Where'd that come from? Maybe take us through sort of the anatomy of-- >> Well I mean, the message is just exactly what we were saying. That if if value is gonna be created at the edge, if the data's gonna be coming from the edge, we have to drive a whole lot more intelligence into that edge in order to collect, process, analyze, secure the data that's coming in and make use of it, right? So I mean, that's where the genesis of the intelligent edge came from. >> Yeah, I mean I would say the other thing about Aruba that we're really seeing is all about experiences. So when we talk to our customers about Aruba, they're looking to deliver a different experience. Whether it's in retail, whether it's in stadiums, whether it's in the campus space. It's all about delivering a better experience. And that's really the value prop behind Aruba. Very software centric, open software, mobile solution. The other thing is, it's enabling us to engage more and more with parts of the company, customers that we might not have had as much engagement before. You know, the c-suite, you know, talking more with the line of business. because what they're focused on is how do I deliver that better experience? And Aruba's really playing a key role in doing that. We also have the view that ultimately, and you started the conversation about data, and we totally agree. But it has to be thought of from the edge, to the core, to the cloud. So whether we engage with Aruba, whether we engage with our core data center, capabilities, and our strengths there, or with services ... That's enabling us to holistically have a much more strategic conversation with our customers. So we're excited about that. >> I'd like to dig a little bit on this notion of AI for the data center, or AI for managing IT (mumbles). We'd like to talk about the difference between a breadth-first, which is I'm gonna do this, like in this big broad way, and we'll figure out how we're gonna get the components to participate, versus a depth-first. Which is, let's lean on suppliers, who know that hardware, know the software best, and ask them to create simulacrums, you know, digital representations that then will allow me to apply AI machine learning, et cetera. We like the depth-first approach, but customers ultimately want to see this bloom into a breadth approach. Talk to us a little bit about how individual elements are being represented, but in a coherent consistent way, so that you can get to a broader, overall set of automation across entire infrastructure. >> Well, I mean, I think that you're seeing the paradigm shift now. I mean for decades we've been chasing this idea that we can make the one tool to rule them all, this sort of magic management environment, one single pane of glass, everyone says that right? >> I've written a lot of research papers that suggested that, right? >> Right? And look, I think that's, we're done, alright? And the only thing we can do now is, how do we embed intelligence to make the infrastructure so smart it can take care of itself? And that's ultimately the experience that our customers are telling us that they want, right? Is, I don't want to be an expert on IT anymore. I don't wanna touch this stuff, I don't want to deal with it. >> Peter: Not just want, need. >> Right? I can't handle it, right? I mean, the scale and speed of everything is beyond the capacity ... I can't hire enough people to take care of it. So you know, I think starting there and saying, okay we're gonna start embedding that type of intelligence. Right now it's mostly predictive analytics type of stuff, but increasingly you're gonna see more true AI come in not just in the data center, with what we're doing with Nimble, right? But also with Nyara. Now we call it introspect, right at the edge. How do we start weaving that across to do a variety of things? Whether it's maintenance or performance optimization, or security. I think thinking of it like a continuous platform across the infrastructure is gonna give you that depth and kind of breadth of control that you're looking for. >> So that leads to kind of an ecosystem question, and I liked your comments on that. Because the question of breadth or depth, the answer is yes, you got to have both. The ecosystem posture has totally changed in the last year or so, subsequent. Because we had PWC on today. We've had Veam on earlier. These are-- >> Jason: They love us. Partners that you're putting forth, yeah. >> Jason: We're making them money. >> For sure, right. But they are partners that previously, you know, you wouldn't have profiled. Whether on stage, on the Cube, wherever. >> Jason: Yeah. >> How has the ecosystem evolved? >> I mean it's opening up a whole new set of opportunities for us. You know, if you think of when we had ES, a lot of people just felt like, hey we were gonna compete with them, right? Now that ES has spun out, we actually created another great partner in ES, but we've got a whole host of other SIs that want to engage with us. They want to take our capabilities in IT systems. Our consumption capabilities, and then align it with a value prop that they'll bring. So you talked about Veam for example, right? Data availability is really, really important for customers. So taking HPE and Veam together, we're able to deliver a great solution from data protection to recovery. Really powerful stuff, and we're seeing some great opportunities out there in the marketplace, and a very strong ROI. I mean, we have some data that says, hey over five years, is a 200% ROI. Another area, when you think of just partnering, right? Is what we're doing with our channel partners. So we're giving them more solutions that are channel centric, that we're driving through our channel organization, yeah. And then, we just announced a relationship a couple weeks ago with Rackspace. It's a managed private cloud, open source solution. We're using our consumption capabilities, combined with with Rackspace, their environment. And this is giving our customers the flexibility to now spin up very quickly, a private cloud environment that they're looking for with a lot of the public cloud capabilities. Very strong economics behind it. And then the edge, that's the other area we're seeing lots of new partnering opportunities as the edge continues to expand. So we believe that innovation is a team sport, and we're leaning in really hard, and I know you know the Gartner's and the IDCs don't track who are the best partners, but I think if they did, we would be at the top of the list. >> Well, probably a lot of this activity was going on previously, so it's not like you're starting from ground zero. >> Jim: Correct. >> But you just, from a marketing standpoint, you really didn't talk about it, because you had colleagues, whether it was from EDS or the software division that's saying, hey, don't talk about that, help us out here. So, how has that changed the way in which you market? One of the big values is your go-to-market. I mean, people are drooling to now partner with HPE. >> Yeah, and one of the big reasons is honestly, is point next. Because they see the value in what Accenture or PwC, or Wipro can bring from understanding a business, or whatever, versus the deep technical knowledge of a point next to come in, and what they really love is the consumption model stuff that we've been able to wrap around it. They see that customers want, that in order to move fast with less risk, right? You've gotta have some sort of financial lever that says, okay, I can start small and I can grow over time. I'm not putting all my money out in one place and we've been building that with flex capacity over the last several years. You're gonna see, well, I guess we announced yesterday, a new Green Lake ... Making that even simpler to consume. Every one of our partner says, I wanna take your IT expertise in that consumption based model and wrap it around a total solution. And that's what's like white-hot right now, and there's unlimited opportunity right now from ... As Jim said, edge to core to cloud. >> And we have another one we're gonna announce on stage in a couple of hours, so we're pretty excited about that as well. >> Well, you see that in the numbers too, yeah. >> Jason: I think we might have a clue what that is. >> We're excited about that. >> Yeah, I know, it is. Well, look, and you kind of you kind of gave something of a preview when you talked about the three things that you want to be able to do. Because there's one brand that hasn't been mentioned yet. But ultimately the business is recognizing that the technology questions that we're raising here are crucial to their future success, but they don't want them to be a continuous source of antagonism. >> Group: Right. >> So they recognize that they need the capability, but they want to dramatically simplify the degree to which it's evasive. I once had a CIO tell me that the value of my infrastructure is adversely proportional to the degree to which anybody in my business knows anything about it. So how do you then take steps to ensure that your customers don't know anything about the infrastructure, even though they have the infrastructure where the data demands, which is gonna be at the edge, and on premise? >> I think that's some of the things we're focused on now. So software to make infrastructure much more frictionless. And you're not really worrying about managing that infrastructure, it's just there to power the business, to deliver the business. Consumption-based offerings with Green Lake, this is truly purpose-built stacks for specific things, because our customers are telling us, I don't want to have to set all that up and manage it, but I want that outcome, and I only want to pay for what I use. So those are just a couple of examples of how we're trying to simplify it. Because ultimately it's all about the experience and the outcome and being able to translate all that data into insight. >> Well, when you're simplifying your face to the world, we heard in the last earnings call, new reporting structure going forward. Hybrid IT ... intelligent edge, and financial services, which is exploding, the consumption base modeling 22% growth last quarter. So organizationally, presumably, you've started to take that shape, and that's how you're presenting your face to the world. Is that right? >> Yeah, and that's helping us to really break down some of the silos, that has existed in this company for a while. And you're seeing that really, really becoming much more unified in terms of how we go to market, and how we think about engaging with our partners how we engage with our customers. >> Are your customers breaking down those silos at a consistent rate? Are you a little bit ahead, a little bit behind? How would you evaluate that? I think it's a transition, it depends on which customer, which sector. We still see some of some of them that are maybe a little behind. Some that are a little bit ahead, but really everybody wants to start the conversation much more about, how do I move faster? How do I accelerate my business? It's all focused on outcomes starting at that data level, and then how can you help me? And this is where I think some of the acquisitions that we've made, like CTP are very empowerful, and then all the software capabilities that we're bringing as well. So we're leading the dialogue much more around that. >> And the only way they're gonna get there is to break down those silos. >> Jim: Absolutely, absolutely. And we have to help them do that, right? We have to help them do that and give them the solutions to do this. >> So Jim, I want to go back to a point that you made about those other two research firms, Gartner and IDC I think it was. But you said that if they were measuring the value, or if there was a magic quadrant for who is the best partner, you guys would be up in the upper right hand quadrant? But partners in this world, especially here in Europe, are more than just the big guys. >> Jim: Yes. >> How are you taking steps to ensure that that large mass of crucially important companies out there, that still where a lot of that innovation, a lot of that excitement really is, are coming with you, are able to move with you? Because your ability to certainly provide them with financial support is important, but your ability to show them the future, and have them see their business in the future, is going to be crucial to whether or not they stay with you. >> And I think we're doing a couple of things. We created our Pathfinder program, I'm sure you guys are aware of that, right? So these are some of the newer partners coming up, we're actually investing in them, helping to scale them, because we think it's going to be unique innovation. Another area is this program that we have called Cloud 28 Plus, where we have a whole network of providers, service providers, ISVs, SPs, that's part of a network that we're able to grow and kind of scale that ecosystem, so I don't know if you want to comment anything more on that, but-- >> Jason: Up to 700 now (mumbles). >> Yeah, so Saviea is very passionate about this obviously, but he's done some some really good things-- >> Peter: And he should be passionate about it. >> But that gives us an ecosystem now of partners who are part of that HPE ecosystem, but different use cases, different compliance needs, they sit in different regions, so we're able to give our customers a lot of that flexibility. >> Alright, gotta give us something on the key note. Just a tidbit. What can you share? A little nugget? >> I mean, you know-- >> Dave: Teaser. >> Some themes we've talked about. You'll hear the word friction free a lot, how do we make things invisible? And really demonstrating how with services and software, and consumption-based service models, can we do that for customers? You'll hear a lot of those themes. We'll highlight some of the things we've announced over the last 24 hours, a few weeks. So we'll emphasize what we've done around Nimble and info site, and the importance of AI in the data center. We'll obviously spotlight point next, and Anna and her energy, she's gonna be out there and really firing people up. And a few surprises in the software space that will come today, that it'll probably cause the market to do a bit of a double take and say who is that that's doing this again? Yeah, it's us, it's HPE doing that. >> And you'll see us also talk about a little bit of a vision in terms of how we see the market starting more at the edge, bringing in AI, composing for different kinds of environments, and then how HPE has really been able to invest, so we're gonna start to show that over the last couple years, we have had a very clear agenda where we want it to go, and now that's all coming to fruition, so we'll start to show all that holistically in terms of our technology vision. So that's another thing that we're gonna be highlighting. >> Great. Perfect timing, we can hear the announcement. Keynotes are coming up, we'll be broadcasting those on our twitch channel. Siliconangle.com/twitch You can go to HPE.com and see the keynotes as well. Gents, great energy, awesome to see you. >> It's great to see you guys, thank you. >> We'll be watching the college football ranks. You guys have a fun little rivalry of Ohio State here. >> The Ohio State. >> Dave: ... Yale, but nobody cares. >> Baker for Heisman. >> Dave: Gents, thanks very much for coming. >> Thanks guys, appreciate it. >> Keep right there everybody, we'll be back with our next guest right after this short break. (soft tech music)

>> Announcer: Live, from Washington, DC, it's the cube. Covering dot next conference. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back to DC everybody, this is the Nutanix dot next conference #NEXTConf, and this is the cube, the leader in live tech coverage. We go out to the events, we extract the signal from the noise. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm here with my co-host Stu Miniman. Dr. Arthur Langer is here, he's a professor at Columbia University, and a cube alum. Good to see you, thanks very much for coming on. >> Great to be back. >> Dave: Appreciate your time. So, interesting conversations going on at dot next. People talking about cloud and you hear a lot about virtualization and infrastructure. We're going to up level it a bit. You're giving a talk-- you're hosting a panel today, and you're also giving a talk on strategic IT. Using IT as a competitive weapon. It wasn't that long ago where people were saying does IT matter. We obviously know it matters. What's your research showing, what is your activity demonstrating about IT and how is it a strategic initiative? >> Well, if you were to first look at what goes on on board meetings today, I would say, and I think I mentioned this last time, the three prominent discussions at a board is how can I use technology for strategic advantage, how can I use predictive analytics, and how are you securing and protecting us? And when you look at that, all three of those ultimately fall in the lap of the information technology people. Now you might say digital or other parts of it, but the reality is all of this sits at the heart of information technology. And if you look at many of us in that world, we've learned very efficiently and very good how to support things. But now to move into this other area of driving business, of taking risks, of becoming better marketers. Wow, what an opportunity that is for information technology leadership. >> Dave: So, obviously you believe that IT is a strategic advantage. Is it sustainable though? You know, I was sort of tongue-in-cheek joking about the Nick Car book, but the real premise of his book was it's not a sustainable competitive advantage. Is that true in your view? >> I don't believe that at all. I live and die by that old economics curve called the S curve. In which you evaluate where your product life is going to be. I think if you go back and you look at the industrial revolution, we are very early. I think that the changes, the acceleration of changes brought on by technological innovations, will continue to haunt businesses and provide these opportunities well past our life. How's that? So, if anybody thinks that this is a passing fad, my feeling is they're delusional. We're just warming up. >> So it can be a sustainable competitive advantage, but you have to jump S curves and be willing to jump S curves at the right time. Is that a fair difference? >> Yeah, the way I would say it to you, the S curve is shrinking, so you have less time to enjoy your victories. You know, the prediction is that-- how long will people last on a dow 500 these days? Maybe two, three years, as opposed to 20, 30, 40 years. Can we change fast enough, and is there anything wrong with the S curve ending and starting a new one? Businesses reinventing themselves constantly. Change a norm. >> Professor Langer, one of the challenges we hear from customers is keeping up with that change is really tough. How do you know what technologies, do you have the right skill set? What advice are you giving? How do people try to keep up with the change, understand what they should be doing internally versus turning to partners to be able to handle. >> I think it's energy and culture and excitement. That's the first thing that I think a lot of people are missing. You need to sell this to your organizations. You need to establish why this is such a wonderful time. Alright, and then you need to get the people in, between the millenials and the baby boomers and the gen x's, and you got to get them to work together. Because we know, from research right now, that without question, the millenials will need to move into management positions faster than any of their predecessors. Because of retirements and all of the other things that are going on. But the most important thing, which is where I see IT needing to move in, is you can't just launch one thing. You have to launch lots of things. And this is the old marketing concept, right. You don't bat a thousand. And IT needs to come out of its shell in that area and say I have to launch five, six, eight, 10 initiatives. Some of them will make it. Some of them won't. Can you imagine private equity or venture people trying to launch every company and be successful? We all know that in a market of opportunity, there are risks. And to establish that as an exciting thing So, you know what, it comes back to leadership in many ways. >> Great point, because if you're not having those failures, your returns are going to be minuscule. If you're only investing in things that are sure things, then it's pretty much guaranteed to have low single-digit returns, if that. >> Look what happened at Ford. They did everything pretty well. They never took any of the money, right, but they changed CEO's because they didn't get involved in driverless cars enough. I mean these are the things that we're-- If you're trying to catch up, it's already over. So how do you predict what's coming. And who has that? It's the data. It's the way we handle the data. It's the way we secure the data. Who's going to do that? >> So, that brings me to the dark side of all this enthusiasm, which is security. You see things like IOT, you know the bad guys have AI as well. Thoughts on security, discussions that are going on in the board room. How CIOs should be thinking about communicating to the board regarding security. >> I've done a lot of work in this area. And whether that falls into the CISO, the Chief Information Security Officer, and where they report. But the bottom line is how are they briefing their boards. And once again, anybody that knows anything about security knows that you're not going to keep 'em out. It's going to be an ongoing process. It's going to be things like okay what do we do when we have these type >> response >> How do we respond to that? How do we predict things? How do we stay ahead of that? And that is the more of the norm. And what we see, and I can give you sort of an analogy, You know when the President comes to speak in a city, what do they, you know, they close down streets, don't they? They create the unpredictability. And I think one of the marvelous challenges for IT is to create architectures, and I've been writing about this, which change so that those that are trying to attack us and they're looking for the street to take inside of the network. We got to kind of have a more dynamic architecture. To create unpredictability. So these are all of the things that come into strategy, language, how to educate our boards. How to prepare the next generation of those board members. And where will the technology people sit in those processes. >> Yeah, we've had the chance to interview some older companies. Companies 75, 150 years old, that are trying to become software companies. And they're worried about the AirBnB's of the world disrupting what they're doing. How do you see the older companies keeping pace and trying to keep up with some of young software companies? >> Sure, how do you move 280 thousand people at a major bank, for example. How do you do that? And I think there's several things that people are trying. One is investing in startups with options to obtain them and purchase them. The other is to create, for lack of a better word, labs. Parts of the company that are not as controlled, or part of the predominant culture. Which as we know historically will hold back the company. Because they will just typically try to protect the domain that has worked for them so well. So those are the two main things. Creating entities within the companies that have an ability to try new things. Or investing entrepreneurially, or even intrapreneurally with new things with options to bring them in. And then the third one, and this last one is very difficult, sort of what Apple did. One of the things that has always haunted many large companies is their install base. The fact that they're trying to support the older technologies because they don't want to lose their install base. Well remember what Steve Jobs did. He came in with a new architecture and he says either you're with me or you're not. And to some extent, which is a very hard decision, you have to start looking at that. And challenge your install base to say this is the new way, we'll help you get there, but at some point we can't support those older systems. >> One of my favorite lines in the cube, Don Tapps, God created the world in six days, but he didn't have an install base. Right, because that handcuffs companies and innovation, in a lot of cases. I mean, you saw that, you've worked at big companies. So I want to ask you, Dr. Langer, we had this, for the last 10 years, this consumerization of IT. The Amazon effect. You know, the whole mobile thing. Is technology, is IT specifically, getting less complex or more complex? >> I think it's getting far more complex. I think what has happened is business people sometimes see the ease of use. The fact that we have an interface with them, which makes life a lot easier. We see more software that can be pushed together. But be careful. We have found out with cybersecurity problems how extraordinarily complicated this world is. With that power comes complexities. Block chain, other things that are coming. It's a powerful world, but it's a complicated one. And it's not one where you want amateurs running the back end of your businesses. >> Okay, so let's talk about the role of those guys running. We've talked a lot about data. You've seen the emergence of the chief data officer, particularly in regulated industries, but increasingly in non-regulated businesses. Who should be running the technology show? Is it a business person? Is it a technologist? Is it some kind of unicorn blend of those? >> I just don't think, from what we've seen by trying marketing people, by trying business people, that they can really ultimately grasp the significance of the technical aspects of this. It's almost like asking someone who's not a doctor to run a hospital. I know theoretically you could possibly do that, but think about that. So you need that technology. I'm not caught up on the titles, but I am concerned, and I've written an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple years ago, that there are just too many c-level people floating around owning this thing. And I think, whether you call it the chief technologist, or the executive technical person, or the chief automation individual, that all those people have to be talking to each other, and have to lead up to someone who's not only understanding the strategy, but really understands the back end of keeping the lights on, and the security and everything else. The way I've always said it, the IT people have the hardest job in the world. They're fighting a two-front war. Because both of those don't necessarily mesh nicely together. Tell me another area of an organization that is a driver and a supporter at the same time. You look at HR, they're a supporter. You look at marketing, they're a driver. So the complexities of this are not just who you are, but what you're doing at any moment in time. So you could have a support person that's doing something, but at one moment, in that person's function, could be doing a driving, risk-taking responsibility. >> So what are some of the projects you're working on now? What's exciting you? >> Well, the whole idea of how to drive that strategy, how to take risks, the digital disruption era, is a tremendous opportunity. This is our day for the-- because most companies are not really clear what to do. Socially, I'm looking very closely at smart cities. This is another secret wave of things that are happening. How a city's going to function. Within five, seven years, they're predicting that 75% of the world's population will live in major cities. And you won't have to work in the city and live there. You could live somewhere else. So cities will compete. And it's all about the data, and automation. And how do organizations get closer with their governments? Because our governments can't afford to implement these things. Very interesting stuff. Not to mention the issues of the socially excluded. And underserved populations in those cities. And then finally, how does this mess with cyber risk? And how does that come together to the promotion of that role in organizations. Just a few things, and then way a little bit behind, there's of course block chain. How is that going to affect the world that we live in? >> Just curious, your thoughts on the future of jobs. You know, look about what automation's happening, kind of the hollowing out of the middle class. The opportunities and risks there. >> I think it has to do with the world of what I call supply chain. And it's amazing that we still see companies coming to me saying I can't fill positions. Particularly in the five-year range. And an inability to invest in younger talent to bring them in there. Our educational institutions obviously will be challenged. We're in a skills-based market. How do they adopt? How do we change that? We see programs like IBM launching new collar. Where they're actually considering non-degree'd people. How do universities start working together to get closer, in my opinion, to corporations. Where they have to work together. And then there is, let's be careful. There are new horizons. Space, new things to challenge that technology will bring us. 20 years ago I was at a bank which I won't mention, about the closing of branch banks. Because we thought that technology would take over online banking. Well, 20 years later, online banking's done everything we predicted, and we're opening more branches than ever before. Be careful. So, I'm a believer that, with new things come new opportunities. The question is how do governments and corporations and educational institutions get closer together. This is going to be critical as we move forward. Or else the have nots are going to grow, and that's a problem. >> Alright, we have to leave it there. Dr. Arthur Langer, sir, thanks very much for coming in. To the cube >> It's always a pleasure to be here >> It's a pleasure to have you. Alright, keep it right there everybody, we'll be back with our next guest. Dave Vollante, Stu Miniman, be right back.