>>The cube presents, Dell technologies world brought to you by Dell. >>Welcome back to the cube. Lisa Martin and Dave Vale are live in Las Vegas. We are covering our third day of covering Dell technologies world 2022. The first live in-person event since 2019. It's been great to be here. We've had a lot of great conversations about all the announcements that Dell has made in the last couple of days. And we're gonna unpack a little bit more of that. Now. One of our alumni is back with us. Shannon champion joins us again, vice president product marketing at Dell technologies, and she's a company by Pete Robinson, the director of infrastructure engineering at Salesforce. Welcome. Thank >>You. >>So Shannon, you had a big announcement yesterday. I run a lot of new software innovations. Did >>You hear about that? I heard a little something >>About that. Unpack that for us. >>Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, it's so exciting to be here in person and have such a big moment across our storage portfolio, to see that on the big stage, the boom to announce major updates across power store, PowerMax and power flex all together, just a ton of innovation across the storage portfolio. And you probably also heard a ton of focus on our software driven innovation across those products, because our goal is really to deliver a continuously modern storage experience. That's what our customers are asking us for that cloud experience. Let's take the most Val get the most value from data no matter where it lives. That's on premises in the public clouds or at the edge. And that's what we, uh, unveil. That's what we're releasing. And that's what we're excited to talk about. >>Now, Pete, you, Salesforce is a long time Dell customer, but you're also its largest PowerMax customer. The biggest in the world. Tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing with PowerMax and your experience. >>Yeah, so, um, for Salesforce, trust is our number one value and that carries over into the infrastructure that we develop, we test and, and we roll out and Parex has been a key part of that. Um, we really like the, um, the technology in terms of availability, reliability, um, performance. And it, it has allowed us to, you know, continue to grow our customers, uh, continue needs for more and more data. >>So what was kind of eye popping to me was the emphasis on security. Not that you've not always emphasized security, but maybe Shannon, you could do a rundown of, yeah. Maybe not all the features, but give us the high level. And at Pete, I, I wonder how I, if you could comment on how, how you think about that as a practitioner, but please give us that. >>Sure. Yeah. So, you know, PowerMax has been leading for, uh, a long time in its space and we're continuing to lean into that and continue to lead in that space. And we're proud to say PowerMax is the world's most secure mission, critical storage platform. And the reason we can say that is because it really is designed for comprehensive cyber resiliency. It's designed with a zero trust security architecture. And in this particular release, there's 19 different security features really embedded in there. So I'm not gonna unpack all 19, but a couple, um, examples, right? So multifactor authentication also continuous ransomware anomaly detection, a leveraging cloud IQ, which is, uh, huge. Um, and last but not least, um, we have the industry's most granular cyber recovery at scale PowerMax can do up to 65 million imutable snapshots per array. So just, uh, and that's 30 times more than our next nearest competitor. So, you know, really when you're talking about recovery point objectives, power max can't be beat. >>So what does that mean to you, Pete? >>Uh, well, it's it's same thing that I was mentioning earlier about that's a trust factor. Uh, security is a big, a big part of that. You know, Salesforce invests heavily into the securing our customer data because it really is the, the core foundation of our success and our customers trust us with their data. And if we, if we were to fail at that, you know, we would lose that trust. And that's simply not, it's not an option. >>Let's talk about that trust for a minute. We know we've heard a lot about trust this week from Michael Dell. Talk to us about trust, your trust, Salesforce's trust and Dell technologies. You've been using them a long time, but cultural alignment yeah. Seems to be pretty spot on. >>I, I would agree. Um, you know, both companies have a customer first mentality, uh, you know, we, we succeed if the customer succeeds and we see that going back and forth in that partnership. So Dell is successful when Salesforce is successful and vice versa. So, um, when we've it's and it goes beyond just the initial, you know, the initial purchase of, of hardware or software, you know, how you operate it, how you manage it, um, how you continue to develop together. You know, our, you know, we work closely with the Dell engineering teams and we've, we've worked closely in development of the new, new PowerMax lines to where it's actually able to help us build our, our business. And, and again, you know, continue to help Dell in the process. So you've >>Got visibility on the new, a lot of these new features you're playing around with them. What I, I, I obviously started with security cuz that's on top of everybody's mind, but what are the things are important to you as a customer? And how do these features the new features kind of map into that? Maybe you could talk about your experience with the, I think you're in beta, maybe with these features. Maybe you could talk about that. >>Yeah. Um, probably the, the biggest thing that we're seeing right now, other than OB the obvious enhancements in hardware, which, which we love, uh, you know, better performance, better scalability, better, and a better density. Um, but also the, some of the software functionality that Dells starting to roll out, you know, we've, we've, we've uh, implemented cloud IQ for all of our PowerMax systems and it's the same thing. We continue to, um, find features that we would like. And we've actually, you know, worked closely with the cloud IQ team. And within a matter of weeks or months, those features are popping up in cloud IQ that we can then continue to, to develop and, and use. >>Yeah. I think trust goes both ways in our partnership, right? So, you know, Salesforce can trust Dell to deliver the, you know, the products they need to deliver their business outcomes, but we also have a relationship to where we can trust that Salesforce is gonna really help us develop the next generation product that's gonna, you know, really deliver the most value. Yeah. >>Can you share some business outcomes that you've achieved so far leveraging power max and how it's really enabled, maybe it's your organization's productivity perspective, but what are some of those outcomes that you've achieved so far? >>Um, there there's so many to, to, to choose from, but I would say the, probably the biggest thing that we've seen is a as we roll out new infrastructure, we have various generations that we deploy. Um, when we went to the new PowerMax, um, initially we were concerned about whether our storage infrastructure could keep up with the new compute, uh, systems that we were rolling out. And when we went through and began testing it, we came to realize that the, the performance improvements alone, that we were seeing were able to keep up with the compute demand, making that transition from the older VMAX platforms to the PMAX practically seamless and able to just deploy the new SKUs as, as they came out. >>Talk about the portfolio that you apply to PowerMax. I mean, it's the highest of the highest end mission critical the toughest workloads in the planet. Salesforce has made a lot of acquisitions. Yeah. Um, do you throw everything at PowerMax? Are you, are you selective? What's your strategy there? So >>It's, it's selective. In other words that there's no square peg that meets every need, um, you know, acquisitions take some time to, to ingest, um, you know, some run into cloud, some run in first, in, in first party. Um, but so we, we try to take a very, very intentional approach to where we deploy that technology. >>So 10 years ago, someone in your position, or maybe someone who works for you was probably do spent a lot of time managing lawns and tuning performance. And how has that changed? >>We don't do that. <laugh> we? >>We can, right. So what do you do with right. Talk, talk more double click on that. So how talk about how that transition occurred from really non-productive activities, managing storage boxes. Yeah. And, and where you are today, what are you doing with those resources? >>It, it, it all comes outta automation. Like, you know, the, you know, hardware is hardware to a point, um, but you reach a point where the, the manageability scale just goes exponential and, and we're way, well past that. And the only way we've been able to meet that, meet that need is to, to automate and really develop our operations, to be able to not just manage at a lung level or even at the system level, but manage at the data center level at the geographical, you know, location level and then being able to, to manage from there. >>Okay. Really stupid question. But I'm gonna ask it cause I wanna hear your answer. True. Why can't you just take a software defined storage platform and just run everything on that? Why do you need all these different platforms and why do you gotta spend all this money on PowerMax? Why, why can't you just do >>That? That's the million dollar question. Uh, I, I ask that all the time. <laugh>, um, I think software defined is it's on its way. Um, it's come a long way just in the last decade. Yeah. Um, but in terms of supporting what I consider mission critical, large scale, uh, applications, it's, it's not, it's just simply not on par just yet with what we do with PowerMax, for example. >>And that's exactly how we position it in our portfolio. Right? So PowerMax runs on 95% of the fortune 100 companies, top 20 healthcare companies, top 10 financial services companies in the world. So it's really mission critical high end has all of the enterprise level features and capabilities to really have that availability. That's so important to a lot of companies like Salesforce and, and Pete's right, you know, software define is on its way and it provides a lot of agility there. But at the end of the day for mission critical storage, it's all about PowerMax. >>I wonder if we're ever gonna get to, I mean, you, you, you, it was interesting answer cuz you kind of, I inferred from your that you're hopeful and even optimistic that someday will get to parody. But I wonder because you can't be just close enough. It's almost, you have to be. >>I think, I think the key answer to that is it's it's the software flying gets you halfway there. The other side of the coin is the application ecosystem has to change to be able to solve that other, other side of it. Cuz if you simply simply take an application that runs on a PowerMax and try to run it, just forklift it over to a software defined. You're not gonna have very much luck. >>Recovery has to be moved up to stack >>Operations recovery, the whole, whole whole works. >>Jenny, can you comment on how customers like Salesforce? Like what's your process for involving them in testing in roadmap and in that direction, strategic direction that you guys are going? Great >>Question. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, customer feedback is huge. You've heard it. I'm sure this is not new right product development and engineering. We love to hear from our customers. And there's multiple ways you heard about beta testing, which we're really fortunate that Salesforce can help us provide that feedback for our new releases. But we have user groups, we have forums. We, we hear directly from our sales teams, our, you know, our customers, aren't shy, they're willing to give us their feedback. And at the end of the day, we take that feedback and make sure that we're prioritizing the right things in our product management and engineering teams so that we're delivering the things that matter. Most first, >>We've heard a lot of that this week. So I would agree guys, thank you so much for joining Dave and me talking about Salesforce. What you doing with PowerMax? All the stuff that you announced yesterday, alone. Hopefully you get to go home and get a little bit of rest. >>Yes. >>I'm sure that there's, there's never a dull moment. Never. Can't wait guys. Great to have you. >>Thank you. You guys, >>For our guests on Dave Volante, I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching the queue. We are live day three of our coverage of Dell technologies world 2022, Dave and I will be right back with our final guest of the show.

>> theCUBE presents Dell technologies World, brought to you by Dell. >> Hey everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of Dell Technologies World 2022, from the show floor, the Venetian in lively Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here with Dave Vellante. We're having a little reunion with our guests that we haven't seen in a couple years. Please welcome back to theCUBE, Doug Schmitt, President of Dell Technologies and Services. Alex Barretto joins us as well, the Senior Vice President at Emerging Services and Technology. Guys, it's great to see you in 3D. >> I know great to be back. >> Yes. >> Its Awesome to be back. >> Isn't it great? >> And fantastic. >> It is. >> We were talking about how we have to get our sea legs back about, even just interacting with in life. >> That's exactly right. Being able to see everybody be back in person at these events. And it's great to see everybody it's like coming back to family. >> It is, it's been a reunion since Sunday. One of the, obviously the last two years have been quite challenging for everybody, for customers. Dell is coming off it's best year ever in FY22, over 100 billion in revenues, 17% growth year over year, astounding growth. The voice of the customer is always strong here at Dell technologies. But Doug, talk to us about some of the things that have been going on services perspective and how you really stepped in to help customers across industries succeed in the dynamic times we've been living in. >> Well. Yeah, thank you, and you're right. Coming off a very great, great year. And I think as you can see behind us and in the room here just great solutions for our customers. And that's what it's about, delivering the outcomes. And service is a huge piece of that, of making sure we bring all that together, deliver the outcomes our customers are looking for. If you look at the overall services organization just to take a step back just a little bit, we are a team around over 60,000 folks in 170 countries. And look, it's about this life cycle of services we provide. Everything from consulting to deployment to our support, manage services, security, education services, residency services, all the way to asset sustainability and recovery. So we can get all of the material back in and recycle it. So we have a great suite of services, and it's bringing all that together for the customer again to deliver with the products and the solutions and the software, the outcomes they're looking for. You asked a little bit about just to kind of double click that, about what our customers really saying, kind of what they're hearing, what we're hearing. I think there's three things. When I think about what they're looking for, one is the trusted advisor. You heard this during Michael's keynotes speech, that is key. They're navigating through the digital transformation, hybrid cloud, all of these things. Determining what they need to do to deliver their outcomes. And Dell can bring that trusted advisor status to them. So we can consult with them professional services, help bring that. The second thing is really around that life cycle services I talked about, all those different services that we bring. We allow our customers clearly the choice to say what pieces of the services do they need. Now we think we can bring everything together into a managed solution for them, but if there's certain pieces that they need to just, double click on, we can help with that. And then look, the third item that I'm hearing and that we can bring and that we have for them is flexible consumption. They can choose the way they want to consume the technology. You consume it by usage. You can consume by month, by quarter, or if you want the stability of long term contracts one, two, three years we'll do that. So really it's about trusted advisor and choice to help them deliver their outcomes. >> So a lot changed during the isolation economy. You guys obviously had to support new initiatives. First of all, budgets got squeezed in 2020. Then boom back, so they sort of slingshot it, real focus on obviously client solutions, remote work, endpoint security, identity access, VDI. Now in the post isolation economy, it's like, okay, some of the stuff at HQ you maybe needs to be updated, maybe we're rethinking the network. So, what are you hearing from customers? Where are they in their digital transformations, Alex? You know, what's hot. >> Yeah, so we actually recently created an emerging services group. And the reason for that is exactly what you're alluding today. So we actually talked in that group everything in this emerging. So APEX, telco, edge, data management, all the things our customers are asking for and we are convening new solutions, new services to meet their needs, and all that is housing in one unit, and we're thinking about the product management, the technology that goes with it, and we're working partnership with our customers to actually build and develop solutions that they're looking for. >> Yeah, there was no as a service really. I mean, you could do it with financial machinations before, now it's becoming much more mainstream. I mean, I know it's not a hundred percent of your business and maybe never will be. >> Yeah. >> But that's a whole new mindset. What else is changing in the business that you guys see? >> Well, yeah, I think there's, I think that's what comes back to what we saw, first of all we listen to the customers, follow what their needs are, and you're right. As far as the, as a service, I think it's back to that choice. If they want to purchase or consume as flexible or as needed, we'll do that. They want the contracts, the standard CapEx model, we'll do that as well. Look, there's three things. Professional services is really changing as well. We're seeing the needs again for going in and being able to deliver the services to customers, but also manage that in a lot of cases, they're asking us to take the workloads from them so that they can go and change their transformation, and their digitalization is one of the things that we're clearly hearing. And I know you're hearing the second one, security. I mean that is top of mind for everyone. And I, we have launched a lot of services around this. Some of those like MDR or Managed Detection Response our cyber vault, as well as our APEX cyber recovery services as well that we've announced here. So security's number two. And then the third one is this sustainability, again very important for us and our customers, is we have a 2030 goal around this as I'm sure or you've heard, but more importantly, that's something I know my team and I and everyone at Dell, that's a great personal feeling too. When you're getting up and you're doing something that you know, is right, really just doing it to help the customers as well is just an extra added benefit. So those would be the three things professional services changing, doing more and more of the manage take workloads off, two is the security, and the third is the sustainability clearly. >> We talked with JJ Davis yesterday, and we're talking a lot about ESG and how a tremendous percentage of RFPs come in wanting to know what is Dell technologies doing from an environmental, social, governance perspective. That it's really your customers wanting to work with companies like Dell who have a focused clear agenda on ESG. One thing that I'm curious when you talk about the increase in advantage services, the great resignation. We've all, that's been happening now for a couple years. It's probably going to persist for a while. Customers suddenly, labor shortages and the supply chain issues. How have you helped organizations deal with some of the challenges that they're going through from a labor perspective is that why one of the reasons the managed services is we're seeing an increase there. >> Yeah. I'm sure that can be and I wouldn't doubt that, you mean in terms of our customer is wanting more and more the managed and the professional. Yeah, I think that is a piece of it, but I also think part of that is that speed matters and customers are looking for the additional assistance to take things off, that they may have traditionally done so that they can, they can really get this transformation, this hybrid cloud, getting things moving very, very quickly. There's just so much to be done in terms of data management and bringing information to their end user customers. And they want to spend more time doing that. And so I'm hearing that more, but you are right. There's absolutely, there's absolutely the times where we have a residency service, we, and that has been growing very, very fast. And that tends to be why they ask for it, is because people have either left or are leaving >> Alex, Doug really kind of alluded to an area that I want to probe a little bit. And it's that's, I was talking to Jen Felch recently she's going to be on soon. And the, you mentioned security, Doug, as the top initiative clearly. And the distance between number two is widening, but number two is cloud migration. Now I asked Jen about that, because internally Dell has its own cloud. And I said, how do you interpret that? Or how do you, what's your second priority? She goes, well, I would translate that into modernization. So we're essentially building our own cloud is how I interpreted it. So my question to you is, are you seeing that with customers, how closely do you work with your own IT to take those learnings to your customers? And what does modernization actually mean to your customers? >> Yeah, that's a great question. It's actually the essence of why we're here. Talking to our customers and showcasing what we do within services, what we do within IT. Jen and I talk very often about her roadmap, our roadmap, and we want to showcase that to our customers because it's a proof point, it's a proof point of how they can do the transformation on their own. Do we have a whole slue of products from a services standpoint that are tied with what Jen is doing as well? And that's what we bring to market. So whether that's on APEX, that we announced right here two days ago, the cyber recovery services available now, that's working very closely with our IT counterparts. And we have a whole slue of roadmap with high performance computing, to be announced soon and machine learning operations, all that is to meet the customer needs, and what they're asking for. And if you look at the emergence of needs from a customer standpoint, it goes in a multitude of uses. We have telco customers, they have very specific needs and we're looking to meet those needs. We have the traditional customers, which may be going at a slower speed in their adoption of the cloud, we're there to help them. And we're all about to hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud is a hundred percent of our strategy. So whether you want to go cloud based, whether you want to be OnPrem or you want to be hybrid, we're there to solve your needs. >> What's the partner story in terms of delivering services, we know that the Dell technologies' partner ecosystem is massive. We know how important partners are to the growth. I think I saw 59 billion in revenue came through the channel last year alone. How do you enable partners to deliver some of those key services that you talked about? >> To leverage the partners for the, on the broader ecosystem for that? >> Yes. >> Yes, well, you're right. We do have a very large partner network and we're very flexible on that. Again, it sounds like we are flexible in everything and we are by the way, for our customers and our partners, 'cause look it is about delivering first of all, how our customers want their service. I do like this idea and we talk about modernization, transformation, digitalization all these things are kind of the same thing about going in and looking about how we're improving the overall infrastructure and these outcomes. And to that end, we work with the customer on what they're looking for. And then we'll either do a couple things with working with the partners. Either we take prime and we'll take that and take the pieces that they can deliver and we can deliver together. But again, it's with the customer in mind of how they want to do that, working with the customer. We do have code delivery services as well. And look, we're very open with our partners about if they want to be prime and then leverage those same lifecycle services we have. What this is about is about getting this transformation and this technology and these so into the hands of the customers in the best way possible. >> So, I could white label as a partner. Could I white label your services? >> We don't have the white label. >> Okay. >> We do have co-delivery. >> Okay. So that's what I could do. I can say, okay, I'm bringing this value. Dell's bringing that value. You're visible to the customer. >> That's correct. >> Which is I presume a benefit to the customer. >> Correct, correct. >> The trust that you've built up. >> Now that gets, just the white label you would say like our ProSeries, ProSupport, ProDeploy, ProManage, all of those things. Isn't a white label, but at the same time our customers especially in the professional service side of it could be the prime, which would be the same thing as a label. >> How are client? This is kind of interesting thought I had the other day. How are client services changing? Do you see the point where, I mean, maybe you're doing it already. It's just a full manage all my client devices and just take that away from me, and Dell you take care of that and I'll pay you a monthly fee. >> Well, yeah, we are seeing that. And one of the things that they like the best about is doing that management, is bringing kind of the AI and the BI to it that we can with our support assist and all of the data that we give back, we're actually able to help manage those environments much better. And in terms of an end to end, keep things updated, upgraded, manage it. But more importantly, what we see when we do have those client managed services end to end, the customers are actually coming back and asking us to help improve their operational performance. And, and what I mean by that is, all of a sudden you'll see things where the trouble tickets are coming in 'cause we're seeing that. And we're actually going back in with that information to help alleviate or improve their operational processes, so that they're able to function and spend more time on their business outcomes >> And reduce that complexity, sorry, Dave. >> No worries. How about the tip of the spear, the consulting piece? What are you seeing there? Are we going through and as we modernize, are we going through another wave of application rationalization, people trying to figure out their digital transformation, what to double down on? What to retire? What to sun set? What's that like? >> Yeah, I think it's similar to the managed service conversation we just had. It's really pivoting to technology. Even in the services space, it was all about our physical footprint. Five, six years ago, our physical capabilities, the number of people, depots et cetera that we had, right now, our customers and even internally what we're pivoting towards is technology. They want to know how are you going to do is solve our problems, whether it's consulting or managed services using technology. Precisely to the point that Doug was making, because they want insights, value add from the services we provide, not just consult for me, not just manage my service, but provide me value added service on top of that so that I can actually differentiate my services, my solutions and that's where we're building, that's what delivering really leveraging technology. You look at the number of software engineers we have, data scientists, the algorithms we're building now inside services. It's really become a technology hub, whereas it used to be a physical hub. >> I'm just going to, oh, I'm sorry please. >> No, go ahead. >> Follow up. >> Where it's really headed is, if you look at this it's going to become this outcome based services. When I talk about outcome based services, it's not managing just the IT infrastructure, that you have to do, you have to modernize and transform. However you want to say that to customers. But in addition to that, they're looking for us to take that information and help change their business models as well, with the data and the and the insights we're getting back. >> Their operating model. >> Absolutely. >> But changing that in the last couple years and pivoting over and over again, to survive and to thrive, talk to us, Alex about the emerging services and how you've maybe a particular customer example of how you've helped an organization radically transform in the last two years to be competitive and to be thriving in this new economy in which we're living. >> Yeah. I think a great example is Dish. If you look at Dish, they're actually launching one of the first Open RAN networks. Leveraging the power of 5G. And we're working very closely with them on the services and solutions to enable them to deliver that service to their customers. And that's a new area for us, a new area for them. So we're actually working together in innovating and coming up with solutions and bringing those to the market. It's a great example. >> Lot of collaboration guys, thank you so much for joining us. Great to see you back in person again after couple years, probably three. We appreciate your time and your insights. >> Thanks guys. >> Thanks for having us. >> Our pleasure. Dave Vellante, Lisa Martin here, you're watching theCUBE's live from Dell Technologies World 2022. Stick around. Be right back with our next guest. (gentle music)

(bright music) >> Hi, this is Dave Volante, and we're getting ready to bring the Cube to Dell Tech World 2022. This is the first Dell Tech World that will be held in person since 2019. And, it's the first major Dell customer and industry gathering since Dell spun out VMware, as a completely separate company. Without Dell ownership, of course the chairman remains the same. Now, that Dell is untethered from VMware, it means its most lucrative asset is no longer going to show up on the income statement. Now, with the client business as an increasingly large share of revenue for Dell, over the past couple of years, thanks to the pandemic, Dell's gross margin line stands out more going from the low 30s to around 20%. Now, as part of the spin, Dell executed a special commercial agreement with VMware. Dell is VMware's number one distribution channel and sells tons of VMware software. So, that combined with the fact that Michael Dell is leading both companies was plenty of incentive for VMware to make disagreement. The special commercial agreement sets certain terms and conditions regarding how the two companies will work together to maximize technical integrations, co-marketing initiatives, and other go to market opportunities. This was done to ensure that the relationship between the two companies remains as strong as it was prior to the spin. It's interesting, a lot of people complained about the acquisition, that Dell and VMware shouldn't be together but customers, by all accounts, loved it. The other major change is Dell... For, with Dell post spin, is it now is a much stronger balance sheet. It has paid down a ton of debt to where it's now considered investment grade by the ratings bureaus. This means lower interest rates for Dell on its debt. And, it also means Dell has more flexibility to do dividends and stock buybacks and MNA. Dell, in our view, will begin to do some more of these tuck in acquisitions and beef up its software portfolio, As it still relies heavily on VMware software for much of its data center business, but we think it needs to diversify. It's increasingly going to look to expand into cloud offerings with its apex as a service. And, apex really is this as of surface offer, which is essentially Dell's version of their cloud and it spans on premises, the public cloud, and ultimately out to the edge. So, at Dell Tech World, expect the following areas to be emphasized client solutions. It's around half of the company's revenue. So, laptops and desktops and client side solutions have to be part of the discussion. It's a lower margin business than enterprise, but with COVID been growing quite rapidly as remote work has become the thing. The other thing we expect to hear, the other theme, is around ransomware, cyber resiliency, cyber threats are top of mind. Expect Dell to stress the importance of having sound security and data protection strategies in the post COVID era. You may see some specific offerings from Dell or perhaps even further emphasizing security in many of its products or both. Okay, we would also expect more storage innovation. Dell's legacy EMC storage business has been under pressure from the cloud and other competitors like Pure and some new entrants, nipping at Dell's heels. We would expect Dell to beef up its as a service offering both on prem within systems, AKA boxes, and as part of apex. Now, apex is going to be a big theme at the show. The as a service is going to absolutely be a big focus in our view. Dell has entered the market after HPE came in with GreenLake and Dell doesn't want to be overshadowed by HPE's all in as a service strategy. So, expect Dell to provide updates on its progress with apex, identify differentiation from some of the other players, AKA HP, and announce new services across its portfolio. You'll likely also hear some discussion about the ecosystem and partnerships with some global system integrators and also of some announcements about how they plan to appeal to the developer community. I think multi cloud is another theme that you're going to hear. Sometimes we call it super cloud. We would expect Dell to emphasize the importance of its ability to serve customers irrespective of physical location, right? Cloud is not a destination. It's an operating model kind of thing. On-prem, public cloud, across clouds, at the edge. Some of this is going to be vision, a lot of it of course will be vision, but some of it's going to be offerings. Might see some things in Telco and hear some 5g talk, as well as some Edge and Telco partnerships to attack that 5g opportunity and other opportunities at the edge. Dell's a large company. They, I think very conscious of responsibility. So, you're going to hear, I would say some, maybe not tons, but some fair dose of ESG, environmental, social, and governance. This will likely be a theme as companies like Dell, they got to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion, as well as the sustainability of the environment. They can move the needle. They may likely also get into privacy, things like that. Maybe tech for good, or maybe talk a little bit about AI for good, maybe even AI solutions, although let's, we'll see, we'll report if we hear that. You're going to also hear about digital transformation like any conference and how Dell is helping customers transform their businesses. What maybe what Dell's doing internally with its own technology organization and its own digital transformation. Dell's role is to provide technologies and services that can accelerate those digital transformations. So, you'll hear Dell position itself there we think. And, finally channel partnerships and ecosystems as Dell transforms to a cloud company, that's going to redefine cloud. It has to, in our view, increasingly emphasize its ecosystem partnerships which are a critical component of cloud companies. Now, I hope as a company building out its own cloud vision, and trying to reset the cloud narrative, that we hear some focused discussion around developers. I mentioned that before, and how infrastructure's code is a key aspect of Dell's vision and offerings. Now, the Cube will be there. We start Monday evening. It'll be late east coast time, but it'll be 6, 6:30 west coast time. We're going to feature myself, John Farrier, Lisa Martin, and David Nicholson as host. Monday is largely focused on partners. And, then we go all day, wall to wall, on Tuesday and Wednesday with our typical Cube coverage. Several key execs are going to be joining us including, of course, Michael Dell and Chuck Whitten, who's the new co-chief operating officer, along with Jeff Clark, who is also vice chairman. He's going to be joining us and several others from Dell's ELT, including Cheryl Cook, JD Davis, Alison Dew, and a number of Dell customers, partners, and several members from the product teams coming on to talk about the new announcements that they're making at the show. And, of course, you'll get the Cube's take on all the keynotes, the product announcements, and the vibe at the show and what's happening in the hallways and in the evening events. So, tune into the cube.net, check out siliconangle.com for all the news and coverage. And, we'll see you there. (bright music)

>> theCube presents Dell Technologies World, brought to you by Dell. >> Hi everyone, welcome back to Dell Technologies World 2022. You're watching theCube's coverage of this, three-day coverage wall to wall. My name is David Vellante John Furrier's here, Lisa Martin, David Nicholson. Talk of the town here is data. And one of the big announcements at the show is Snowflake and Dell partnering up, building ecosystems. Snowflake reaching into on-prem, allowing customers to actually access the Snowflake Data Cloud without moving the data or if they want to move the data they can. This is really one of the hotter announcements of the show. Martin Glynn is here, he's the Senior Director of Storage Product Management at Dell Technologies. And Clark Patterson, he's the Head of Product Marketing for Snowflake. Guys, welcome. >> Thanks for having us. >> So a lot of buzz around this and, you know, Clark, you and I have talked about the need to really extend your data vision. And this really is the first step ever you've taken on-prem. Explain the motivation for this from your customer's perspective. >> Yeah. I mean, if you step back and think about Snowflake's vision and our mission of mobilizing the world's data, it's all around trying to break down silos for however customers define what a silo is, right? So we've had a lot of success breaking down silos from a workload perspective where we've expanded the platform to be data warehousing, and data engineering, and machine learning, and data science, and all the kind of compute intensive ways that people work with us. We've also had a lot of success in our sharing capabilities and how we're breaking down silos of organizations, right? So I can share data more seamlessly within my team, I can do it across totally disparate organizations, and break down silos that way. So this partnership is really like the next leg of the stool, so to speak, where we're breaking down the silos of the the data and where the data lives ultimately, right? So up until this point, Cloud, all focus there, and now we have this opportunity with Dell to expand that and into on-premises world and people can bring all those data sets together. >> And the data target for this Martin, is Dell ECS, right? Your object store, and it's got S3 compatibility. Explain that. >> Yeah, we've actually got sort of two flavors. We'll start with ECS, which is our turnkey object storage solution. Object storage offers sort of the ultimate in flexibility, you know, potential performance, ease of use, right? Which is why it fits so well with Snowflake's mission for sort of unlocking, you know, the data within the data center. So we'll offer it to begin with ECS, and then we also recently announced our software defined object scale solution. So add even more flexibility there. >> Okay. And the clock, the way it works is I can now access non-native Snowflake data using what? Materialized views, external tables, how does that work? >> Some combination of all the above. So we've had in Snowflake a capability called external tables which we refer to, it goes hand in hand with this notion of external stages. Basically through the combination of those two capabilities, it's a metadata layer on data wherever it resides. So customers have actually used this in Snowflake for data lake data outside of Snowflake in the Cloud up until this point. So it's effectively an extension of that functionality into the Dell on-premises world, so that we can tap into those things. So we use the external stages to expose all the metadata about what's in the Dell environment. And then we build external tables in Snowflake so that data looks like it is in Snowflake. And then the experience for the analyst or whomever it is, is exactly as though that data lives in the Snowflake world. >> Okay. So for a while you've allowed non-native Snowflake data but it had to be in the Cloud. >> Correct. >> It was the first time it's on-prem, >> that's correct >> that's the innovation here. Okay. And if I want to bring it into the Cloud, can I? >> Yeah, the connection here will help in a migration sense as well, right? So that's the good thing is, it's really giving the user the choice. So we are integrating together as partners to make connection as seamless as possible. And then the end user will say like, look I've got data that needs to live on-premises, for whatever reasons, data sovereignty whatever they decide. And they can keep it there and still do the analytics in another place. But if there's a need and a desire to use this as an opportunity to migrate some of that data to Cloud, that connection between our two platforms will make that easier. >> Well, Michael always says, "Hey, it's customer choice, we're flexible." So you're cool with that? That's been the mission since we kind of came together, right? Is if our customers needed to stay in their data center, if that makes more sense from a cost perspective or, you know, a data gravity perspective, then they can do that. But we also want to help them unlock the value of that data. So if they need to copy it up to the public Cloud and take advantage of it, we're going to integrate directly with Snowflake to make that really easy to do. >> So there are engineering integrations here, obviously that's required. Can you describe what that looks like? Give us the details on when it's available. >> Sure. So it's going to be sort of second half this year that you'll see, we're demoing it this week, but the availability we second half this year. And fundamentally, it's the way Clark described it, that Snowflake will reach into our S3 interface using the standard S3 interface. We're qualifying between the way they expect that S3 interface to present the data and the way our platform works, just to ensure that there's smooth interaction between the two. So that's sort of the first simplest use case. And then the second example we gave where the customer can copy some of that data up to the public Cloud. We're basically copying between two S3 buckets and making sure that Snowflake's Snowpipe is aware that data's being made available and can easily ingest it. >> And then that just goes into a virtual warehouse- >> Exactly. >> and customer does to know or care. >> Yep Exactly. >> Yeah. >> The compute happens in Snowflake the way it does in any other manner. >> And I know you got to crawl, walk, run second half of this year, but I would imagine, okay, you're going to start with AWS, correct? And then eventually you go to other Clouds. I mean, that's going to take other technical integrations, I mean, obviously. So should we assume there's a roadmap here or is this a one and done? >> I would assume that, I mean, based on our multi-Cloud approach, that's kind of our approach at least, yeah. >> Kind of makes sense, right? I mean, that would seem to be a natural progression. My other thought was, okay, I've got operational systems. They might be transaction systems running on a on a PowerMax. >> Yeah. >> Is there a way to get the data into an object store and make that available, now that opens up even more workloads. I know you're not committing to doing that, but it just, conceptually, it seems like something a customer might want to do. >> Yeah. I, a hundred percent, agree. I mean, I think when we brought our team together we started with a blank slate. It was what's the best solution we can build. We landed on this sort of first step, but we got lots of feedback from a lot of our big joint customers about you know, this system over there, this potential integration over here, and whether it's, you know, PowerMax type systems or other file workloads with native Snowflake data types. You know, I think this is just the beginning, right? We have lots of potential here. >> And I don't think you've announced pricing, right? It's premature for that. But have you thought about, and how are you thinking about the pricing model? I mean, you're a consumption based pricing, is that kind of how this is going to work? Or is it a sort of a new pricing model or haven't you figured that out yet? >> I don't know if you've got any details on that, but from a Snowflake perspective, I would assume it's consistent with how our customers engage with us today. >> Yeah. >> And we'll offer both possibilities, right? So you can either continue with the standard, you know, sort of CapEx motion, maybe that's the most optimal for you from a cost perspective, or you can take advantage through our OpEx option, right? So you can do consumption on-prem also. >> Okay. So it could be a dual model, right? Depending on what the customer wants. If they're a Snowflake customer, obviously it's going to be consumption based, however, you guys price. What's happening, Clark, in in the market? Explain why Snowflake has so much momentum and, you know, traction in the marketplace. >> So like I spent a lot of time doing analysis on why we win and lose, core part of my role. And, you know, there's a couple of, there's really three things that come up consistently as to why people people are really excited about Snowflake platform. One is the most simplest thing of all. It feels like is just ease of use and it just works, right? And I think the way that this platform was built for the Cloud from the ground up all the way back 10 years ago, really a lot allows us to deliver that seamless experience of just like instant compute when you want it, it goes away, you know, only pay for what you use. Very few knobs to turn and things like that. And so people absolutely love that factor. The other is multi-Cloud. So, you know, there's definitely a lot of organizations out there that have a multi-Cloud strategy, and, you know, what that means to them can be highly variable, but regardless, they want to be able to interact across Clouds in some capacity. And of course we are a single platform, like literally one single interface, consistent across all the three Cloud providers that we work upon. And it gives them that flexibility to mix and match Cloud infrastructure under any Snowflake however they see fit. The last piece of it is sharing. And, you know, I think it's that ability as I kind of alluded to around like breaking down organizational silos, and allow people to be able to actually connect with each other in ways that you couldn't do before. Like, if you think about how you and I would've shared data before, I'd be like, "Hey, Dave, I'm going to unload this table into a spreadsheet and I'm going to send it over in email." And there's the whole host of issues that get introduced in that and world, now it's like instantly available. I have a lot of control over it, it's governed it's all these other things. And I can create kind of walled gardens, so to speak, of how far out I want that to go. It could be in a controlled environment of organizations that I want to collaborate with, or I can put it on our marketplace and expose it to the whole world, because I think there's a value in that. And if I choose I can monetize it, right? So those, you know, the ease of use aspect of it, absolutely, it's just a fantastic platform. The multi-Cloud aspect of it and our unique differentiation around sharing in our marketplace and monetization. >> Yeah, on the sharing front. I mean, it's now discoverable. Like if you send me an email, like what'd you call that? When did you send that email? And then the same time I can forward that to somebody else's not governed. >> Yeah. >> All right. So that just be creates a nightmare for the compliance. >> Right. Yeah. You think about how you revoke access in that situation. You just don't, right? Now I can just turn it off and you go in to run your query. >> Don't get access on that data anymore. Yeah. Okay. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you, Clark is Snowflake started really as analytics platform, simplifying data warehousing, you're moving into that world of data science, you know, the whole data lake movement, bringing those two worlds together. You know, I was talking to Ben Ward about this, maybe there's a semantic layer that helps us kind of talk between those two worlds, but you don't care, right? If it's in an object store, it can play in both of those worlds, right? >> That's right. >> Yeah, it's up to you to figure it out and the customer- >> Yeah. >> from a storage standpoint. Here it is, serve it up. >> And that's the thrust of this announcement, right? Is bringing together two great companies, the Dell platform, the Snowflake platform, and allowing organizations to bring that together. And they decide like it, as we all know, customers decide how they're going to build their architecture. And so this is just another way that we're helping them leverage the capabilities of our two great platforms. >> Does this push or pull or little bit of both? I mean, where'd this come from? Or customers saying, "Hey, it would be kind of cool if we could have this." Or is it more, "Hey, what do you guys think?" You know, where are you at with that? >> It was definitely both, right? I mean, so we certainly started with, you know, a high level idea that, you know, the technologies are complimentary, right? I mean, as Clark just described, and at the same time we had customers coming to us saying, "Hey, wait a minute, I'm doing this over here, and this over here, how can I make this easier?" So that was like I said, we started with a blank sheet and lots of long customer conversations and this is what resulted. So >> So what are the sequence of events to kind of roll this out? You said it's second half, you know, when do you start getting customers involved? Do you have your already, you know, to poke at this and what's that look like? >> Yeah, sure. I can weigh in there. So, absolutely. We've had a few of our big customers that have been involved sort of in the design already who understand how they want to use it. So I think our expectation is that now that the sort of demonstrations have been in place, we have some pre functionality, we're going to see some initial testing and usage, some beta type situations with our customers. And then second half, we'll ramp from there. >> It's got to be a huge overlap between Dell customers and Snowflake customers. I mean, it's hundred billion. You can't not bump into Dell somewhere. >> Exactly. Yeah, you know. >> So where do you guys want to see this relationship go, kind of how should we measure success? Maybe you could each give your perspectives of that. >> I mean, for us, I think it's really showing the value of the Snowflake platform in this new world where there's a whole new ecosystem of data that is accessible to us, right? So seeing those organizations that are saying like, "Look, I'm doing new things with on-premises data that I didn't think that I could do before", or, "I'm driving efficiency in how I do analytics, and data engineering, and data science, in ways that I couldn't do before," 'cause they were locked out of using a Snowflake-like technology, right? So I think for me, that's going to be that real excitement. I'm really curious to see how the collaboration and the sharing component comes into this, you know, where you can think of having an on-premises data strategy and a need, right? But you can really connect to Cloud native customers and partners and suppliers that live in the Snowflake ecosystem, and that wasn't possible before. And so that is very conceivable and very possible through this relationship. So seeing how those edges get created in in our world and how people start to collaborate across data, both in the Cloud and on-prem is going to be really exciting. >> I remember I asked Frank, it was kind of early in the pandemic. I asked him, come on, tell me about how you're managing things. And he was awesome. And I asked him to at the time, you know, "You're ever going to do, you know, bring this platform on-prem?" He's like unequivocal, "No way, that's never going to happen. We're not going to do it halfway house ware Cloud only." And I kept thinking, but there's got to be a way to expand that team. There's so much data out there, and so boom, now we see the answer . Martin, from your standpoint, what does success look like? >> I think it starts with our partnership, right? So I've been doing this a long time. Probably the first time I've worked so closely with a partner like Snowflake. Joint customer conversations, joint solutioning, making sure what we're building is going to be really, truly as useful as possible to them. And I think we're going to let them guide us as we go forward here, right? You mentioned, you know, systems or record or other potential platforms. We're going to let them tell us where exactly the most value will come from the integration between the two companies. >> Yeah. Follow data. I mean, remember in the old days a hardware company like Dell would go to an ISP like Snowflake and say, "Hey, we ran some benchmarks. Your software runs really fast on our hardware, can we work together?" And you go, "Yeah, of course. Yeah, no problem." But wow! What a different dynamic it is today. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. >> All right guys. Hey, thanks so much for coming to theCube. It's great to see you. We'll see you at the Snowflake Summit in June. >> Snowflake Summit in a month and a half. >> Looking forward to that. All right. Thank you again. >> Thank you Dave. >> All right. Keep it right there everybody. This is Dave Vellante, wall to wall coverage of Dell Tech World 2022. We'll be right back. (gentle music)

>> theCube presents Dell Technologies World, brought to you by Dell. >> Hi everyone, welcome back to Dell Technologies World 2022. You're watching theCube's coverage of this, three-day coverage wall to wall. My name is David Vellante John Furrier's here, Lisa Martin, David Nicholson. Talk of the town here is data. And one of the big announcements at the show is Snowflake and Dell partnering up, building ecosystems. Snowflake reaching into on-prem, allowing customers to actually access the Snowflake Data Cloud without moving the data or if they want to move the data they can. This is really one of the hotter announcements of the show. Martin Glynn is here, he's the Senior Director of Storage Product Management at Dell Technologies. And Clark Patterson, he's the Head of Product Marketing for Snowflake. Guys, welcome. >> Thanks for having us. >> So a lot of buzz around this and, you know, Clark, you and I have talked about the need to really extend your data vision. And this really is the first step ever you've taken on-prem. Explain the motivation for this from your customer's perspective. >> Yeah. I mean, if you step back and think about Snowflake's vision and our mission of mobilizing the world's data, it's all around trying to break down silos for however customers define what a silo is, right? So we've had a lot of success breaking down silos from a workload perspective where we've expanded the platform to be data warehousing, and data engineering, and machine learning, and data science, and all the kind of compute intensive ways that people work with us. We've also had a lot of success in our sharing capabilities and how we're breaking down silos of organizations, right? So I can share data more seamlessly within my team, I can do it across totally disparate organizations, and break down silos that way. So this partnership is really like the next leg of the stool, so to speak, where we're breaking down the silos of the the data and where the data lives ultimately, right? So up until this point, Cloud, all focus there, and now we have this opportunity with Dell to expand that and into on-premises world and people can bring all those data sets together. >> And the data target for this Martin, is Dell ECS, right? Your object store, and it's got S3 compatibility. Explain that. >> Yeah, we've actually got sort of two flavors. We'll start with ECS, which is our turnkey object storage solution. Object storage offers sort of the ultimate in flexibility, you know, potential performance, ease of use, right? Which is why it fits so well with Snowflake's mission for sort of unlocking, you know, the data within the data center. So we'll offer it to begin with ECS, and then we also recently announced our software defined object scale solution. So add even more flexibility there. >> Okay. And the clock, the way it works is I can now access non-native Snowflake data using what? Materialized views, external tables, how does that work? >> Some combination of all the above. So we've had in Snowflake a capability called external tables which we refer to, it goes hand in hand with this notion of external stages. Basically through the combination of those two capabilities, it's a metadata layer on data wherever it resides. So customers have actually used this in Snowflake for data lake data outside of Snowflake in the Cloud up until this point. So it's effectively an extension of that functionality into the Dell on-premises world, so that we can tap into those things. So we use the external stages to expose all the metadata about what's in the Dell environment. And then we build external tables in Snowflake so that data looks like it is in Snowflake. And then the experience for the analyst or whomever it is, is exactly as though that data lives in the Snowflake world. >> Okay. So for a while you've allowed non-native Snowflake data but it had to be in the Cloud. >> Correct. >> It was the first time it's on-prem, >> that's correct >> that's the innovation here. Okay. And if I want to bring it into the Cloud, can I? >> Yeah, the connection here will help in a migration sense as well, right? So that's the good thing is, it's really giving the user the choice. So we are integrating together as partners to make connection as seamless as possible. And then the end user will say like, look I've got data that needs to live on-premises, for whatever reasons, data sovereignty whatever they decide. And they can keep it there and still do the analytics in another place. But if there's a need and a desire to use this as an opportunity to migrate some of that data to Cloud, that connection between our two platforms will make that easier. >> Well, Michael always says, "Hey, it's customer choice, we're flexible." So you're cool with that? That's been the mission since we kind of came together, right? Is if our customers needed to stay in their data center, if that makes more sense from a cost perspective or, you know, a data gravity perspective, then they can do that. But we also want to help them unlock the value of that data. So if they need to copy it up to the public Cloud and take advantage of it, we're going to integrate directly with Snowflake to make that really easy to do. >> So there are engineering integrations here, obviously that's required. Can you describe what that looks like? Give us the details on when it's available. >> Sure. So it's going to be sort of second half this year that you'll see, we're demoing it this week, but the availability we second half this year. And fundamentally, it's the way Clark described it, that Snowflake will reach into our S3 interface using the standard S3 interface. We're qualifying between the way they expect that S3 interface to present the data and the way our platform works, just to ensure that there's smooth interaction between the two. So that's sort of the first simplest use case. And then the second example we gave where the customer can copy some of that data up to the public Cloud. We're basically copying between two S3 buckets and making sure that Snowflake's Snowpipe is aware that data's being made available and can easily ingest it. >> And then that just goes into a virtual warehouse- >> Exactly. >> and customer does to know or care. >> Yep Exactly. >> Yeah. >> The compute happens in Snowflake the way it does in any other manner. >> And I know you got to crawl, walk, run second half of this year, but I would imagine, okay, you're going to start with AWS, correct? And then eventually you go to other Clouds. I mean, that's going to take other technical integrations, I mean, obviously. So should we assume there's a roadmap here or is this a one and done? >> I would assume that, I mean, based on our multi-Cloud approach, that's kind of our approach at least, yeah. >> Kind of makes sense, right? I mean, that would seem to be a natural progression. My other thought was, okay, I've got operational systems. They might be transaction systems running on a on a PowerMax. >> Yeah. >> Is there a way to get the data into an object store and make that available, now that opens up even more workloads. I know you're not committing to doing that, but it just, conceptually, it seems like something a customer might want to do. >> Yeah. I, a hundred percent, agree. I mean, I think when we brought our team together we started with a blank slate. It was what's the best solution we can build. We landed on this sort of first step, but we got lots of feedback from a lot of our big joint customers about you know, this system over there, this potential integration over here, and whether it's, you know, PowerMax type systems or other file workloads with native Snowflake data types. You know, I think this is just the beginning, right? We have lots of potential here. >> And I don't think you've announced pricing, right? It's premature for that. But have you thought about, and how are you thinking about the pricing model? I mean, you're a consumption based pricing, is that kind of how this is going to work? Or is it a sort of a new pricing model or haven't you figured that out yet? >> I don't know if you've got any details on that, but from a Snowflake perspective, I would assume it's consistent with how our customers engage with us today. >> Yeah. >> And we'll offer both possibilities, right? So you can either continue with the standard, you know, sort of CapEx motion, maybe that's the most optimal for you from a cost perspective, or you can take advantage through our OpEx option, right? So you can do consumption on-prem also. >> Okay. So it could be a dual model, right? Depending on what the customer wants. If they're a Snowflake customer, obviously it's going to be consumption based, however, you guys price. What's happening, Clark, in in the market? Explain why Snowflake has so much momentum and, you know, traction in the marketplace. >> So like I spent a lot of time doing analysis on why we win and lose, core part of my role. And, you know, there's a couple of, there's really three things that come up consistently as to why people people are really excited about Snowflake platform. One is the most simplest thing of all. It feels like is just ease of use and it just works, right? And I think the way that this platform was built for the Cloud from the ground up all the way back 10 years ago, really a lot allows us to deliver that seamless experience of just like instant compute when you want it, it goes away, you know, only pay for what you use. Very few knobs to turn and things like that. And so people absolutely love that factor. The other is multi-Cloud. So, you know, there's definitely a lot of organizations out there that have a multi-Cloud strategy, and, you know, what that means to them can be highly variable, but regardless, they want to be able to interact across Clouds in some capacity. And of course we are a single platform, like literally one single interface, consistent across all the three Cloud providers that we work upon. And it gives them that flexibility to mix and match Cloud infrastructure under any Snowflake however they see fit. The last piece of it is sharing. And, you know, I think it's that ability as I kind of alluded to around like breaking down organizational silos, and allow people to be able to actually connect with each other in ways that you couldn't do before. Like, if you think about how you and I would've shared data before, I'd be like, "Hey, Dave, I'm going to unload this table into a spreadsheet and I'm going to send it over in email." And there's the whole host of issues that get introduced in that and world, now it's like instantly available. I have a lot of control over it, it's governed it's all these other things. And I can create kind of walled gardens, so to speak, of how far out I want that to go. It could be in a controlled environment of organizations that I want to collaborate with, or I can put it on our marketplace and expose it to the whole world, because I think there's a value in that. And if I choose I can monetize it, right? So those, you know, the ease of use aspect of it, absolutely, it's just a fantastic platform. The multi-Cloud aspect of it and our unique differentiation around sharing in our marketplace and monetization. >> Yeah, on the sharing front. I mean, it's now discoverable. Like if you send me an email, like what'd you call that? When did you send that email? And then the same time I can forward that to somebody else's not governed. >> Yeah. >> All right. So that just be creates a nightmare for the compliance. >> Right. Yeah. You think about how you revoke access in that situation. You just don't, right? Now I can just turn it off and you go in to run your query. >> Don't get access on that data anymore. Yeah. Okay. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you, Clark is Snowflake started really as analytics platform, simplifying data warehousing, you're moving into that world of data science, you know, the whole data lake movement, bringing those two worlds together. You know, I was talking to Ben Ward about this, maybe there's a semantic layer that helps us kind of talk between those two worlds, but you don't care, right? If it's in an object store, it can play in both of those worlds, right? >> That's right. >> Yeah, it's up to you to figure it out and the customer- >> Yeah. >> from a storage standpoint. Here it is, serve it up. >> And that's the thrust of this announcement, right? Is bringing together two great companies, the Dell platform, the Snowflake platform, and allowing organizations to bring that together. And they decide like it, as we all know, customers decide how they're going to build their architecture. And so this is just another way that we're helping them leverage the capabilities of our two great platforms. >> Does this push or pull or little bit of both? I mean, where'd this come from? Or customers saying, "Hey, it would be kind of cool if we could have this." Or is it more, "Hey, what do you guys think?" You know, where are you at with that? >> It was definitely both, right? I mean, so we certainly started with, you know, a high level idea that, you know, the technologies are complimentary, right? I mean, as Clark just described, and at the same time we had customers coming to us saying, "Hey, wait a minute, I'm doing this over here, and this over here, how can I make this easier?" So that was like I said, we started with a blank sheet and lots of long customer conversations and this is what resulted. So >> So what are the sequence of events to kind of roll this out? You said it's second half, you know, when do you start getting customers involved? Do you have your already, you know, to poke at this and what's that look like? >> Yeah, sure. I can weigh in there. So, absolutely. We've had a few of our big customers that have been involved sort of in the design already who understand how they want to use it. So I think our expectation is that now that the sort of demonstrations have been in place, we have some pre functionality, we're going to see some initial testing and usage, some beta type situations with our customers. And then second half, we'll ramp from there. >> It's got to be a huge overlap between Dell customers and Snowflake customers. I mean, it's hundred billion. You can't not bump into Dell somewhere. >> Exactly. Yeah, you know. >> So where do you guys want to see this relationship go, kind of how should we measure success? Maybe you could each give your perspectives of that. >> I mean, for us, I think it's really showing the value of the Snowflake platform in this new world where there's a whole new ecosystem of data that is accessible to us, right? So seeing those organizations that are saying like, "Look, I'm doing new things with on-premises data that I didn't think that I could do before", or, "I'm driving efficiency in how I do analytics, and data engineering, and data science, in ways that I couldn't do before," 'cause they were locked out of using a Snowflake-like technology, right? So I think for me, that's going to be that real excitement. I'm really curious to see how the collaboration and the sharing component comes into this, you know, where you can think of having an on-premises data strategy and a need, right? But you can really connect to Cloud native customers and partners and suppliers that live in the Snowflake ecosystem, and that wasn't possible before. And so that is very conceivable and very possible through this relationship. So seeing how those edges get created in in our world and how people start to collaborate across data, both in the Cloud and on-prem is going to be really exciting. >> I remember I asked Frank, it was kind of early in the pandemic. I asked him, come on, tell me about how you're managing things. And he was awesome. And I asked him to at the time, you know, "You're ever going to do, you know, bring this platform on-prem?" He's like unequivocal, "No way, that's never going to happen. We're not going to do it halfway house ware Cloud only." And I kept thinking, but there's got to be a way to expand that team. There's so much data out there, and so boom, now we see the answer . Martin, from your standpoint, what does success look like? >> I think it starts with our partnership, right? So I've been doing this a long time. Probably the first time I've worked so closely with a partner like Snowflake. Joint customer conversations, joint solutioning, making sure what we're building is going to be really, truly as useful as possible to them. And I think we're going to let them guide us as we go forward here, right? You mentioned, you know, systems or record or other potential platforms. We're going to let them tell us where exactly the most value will come from the integration between the two companies. >> Yeah. Follow data. I mean, remember in the old days a hardware company like Dell would go to an ISP like Snowflake and say, "Hey, we ran some benchmarks. Your software runs really fast on our hardware, can we work together?" And you go, "Yeah, of course. Yeah, no problem." But wow! What a different dynamic it is today. >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. >> All right guys. Hey, thanks so much for coming to theCube. It's great to see you. We'll see you at the Snowflake Summit in June. >> Snowflake Summit in a month and a half. >> Looking forward to that. All right. Thank you again. >> Thank you Dave. >> All right. Keep it right there everybody. This is Dave Vellante, wall to wall coverage of Dell Tech World 2022. We'll be right back. (gentle music)

>> Announcer: theCUBE presents Dell Technologies World, (gentle electronic music) brought to you by Dell. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Dell Tech World 2022. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm here with my co-host, David Nicholson. Dave, I think first time we've co-hosted this week. >> Yeah. >> Excited to be with you. >> Very excited. >> Live wall to wall coverage. Two and a half days, two days and one evening. I'd say 7,000 plus people here, so really good showing. Caitlin Gordon is here, she's the vice president of product management for cloud solutions and tech alliances at Dell Technologies. Caitlin, welcome back to theCube, always a pleasure to see you, thanks for coming on. >> It is really good to be back in a physical cube, with three dimensional humans. >> Yeah, so unbelievable. >> And it was good to see you up on stage today, so fantastic job. I think the keynotes have been good. I think it's funny, coming out of COVID, it seems like the keynotes are really tight. >> Caitlin: Yeah. >> This year, you know. And, so I think that's good. You have a lot to say, so that's why we love theCube, so you can come back and. >> Caitlin: Nice to have a live audience, get the feedback, yeah. Yeah, they were, I tell you, the audience was engaged today, right? I mean, lots of hooping and hollering, so let's talk about multicloud. You know, it's, pre-COVID, post-COVID, feels like things have changed. Maybe, maybe due to COVID, maybe not, but what are you seeing, the patterns in customers around multicloud? >> Well it's been interesting. I've been in a multicloud world tour here over the last six to nine months, and you know, one thing is clear, for the first time as an industry, we agree on something, (Dave laughing) And that's multicloud. We don't agree on what it means, but we do agree that multicloud is our reality. And customers are having a lot of challenges with what that means. That means today reality is multicloud most of the time just means multi contract, alright. I know what hyperscaler's my primary, I have secondary, I probably brought someone that brought someone else in. I've got SaaS providers, I got my on-prem partners. But there's not a lot of continuity and consistency across that. It's really operational silos, data silos, being able to predict that spend is the challenge. And there's a lot of people challenges in there. Whether it's developer velocity, as Jen talked about earlier today. Or even just simply having enough people with the right skills, is a real big challenge because no matter what definition you have of multicloud, it means distributed, and it means a lot of different places, and that's a big challenge. >> I tagged you in my Tweet today, when you were up on stage, I don't know if you saw it. But basically you know, we use this term super cloud, and it was pretty clear to me anyway, an example of what I think of as what multicloud should be. An experience that spans location, that is the consistent experience with all my policies, and my security, my governance. Talk about what you guys are doing to map into the trends that you see. >> You used my favorite phrase, consistent experience. And really what we're doing is two things. We're building a portfolio of software and services, and that's really targeted at that consistent experience. You can have your data, and your workloads in the right place, but you can have a consistent experience with what you already have on-prem. We really need to have true hybrid cloud operations. We overused that term and we ruined it, and then we didn't use it anymore. But that's what we're talking about. On-prem to multiple public clouds have that consistency. But that's not enough because this is just such a complex landscape. The second part of what we're building is really an ecosystem of cloud partnerships. So whether it's the hyperscaler, certainly. But also colocation providers like Equinix. Or SaaS providers like Snowflake. The more we can partner with the key providers in the multicloud landscape, the more we can simplify that across. >> Yes, so you mentioned something that's key. Most people when they think about multicloud, they're not going into that because they really want to do the same thing nine different ways. So that consistency. >> Caitlin: It's not the design point. >> No, exactly. >> Caitlin: No. >> It's like, I want multi something. But not multi everything you offer. So the concept of using this well worn, well proven set of storage intelligence software titles, and putting them out into a variety of cloud providers, linking them with a unified experience is obviously powerful. And that seems to be what's behind Alpine? Is that the strategy? >> Yeah, it's absolutely right. Because you want that consistency because you have established multi lots of things. But you want to be able to get the consistency. But you want to be able to get that across all your data types. You can't just have consistency for file. You can't not only have consistency for object. You want to have that flexibility in who the providers are, and what type of data. And yet have, still have that operational consistency not so matter what. So that's that, that's the tough combination. Keeping flexibility, but also that simplicity and consistency. >> So Project Alpine, tell us more about it, what it is, why is is called a project, when will it be a product. >> (laughing) All of the things. >> Dave: Yeah. So Project Alpine, if you've been tuned in this week, you've heard this a few times. But it is our initiative to bring our block file and object storage software, to all of the major public clouds. So that is all about being able to really break the barriers between your data, and native public cloud services. The key thing, that you started off with it, operational consistency. If I have a power store on-prem, I can run our block software in the cloud, have that operational consistency, so it's the same UI, it's the same API's. Why that really matters, the undercurrent of that comes back to people. If you have the same tools, the same API's, you don't have to learn anything new. You don't have to re-skill or re-hire any people. And eventually you can drive that even more efficiently all through API's. So it's all about that consistent operations. I'm not going to ignore your project questions so I'll get to that as well. >> Thank you. >> It's a project because for a number of reasons, it's something we're working towards, and it's going to have deliverables and milestones over a number of months and years, to be honest. We actually first announced Project Alpine back in January as you know. And we have already extended that now in May to say what we're talking about and any news, started to show you what that's looking like. So original announcement as a project in January. Technology preview here in May. And then we're going to start to have early access for some of these to customers later this year. And then availability into next year. >> Excellent. So the primary value proposition I've been hearing is that operational consistency. Is there another dimension of value, in terms of function? In other words, I get why I'm not going to get that operational consistency across clouds and on-prem from a public cloud provider. Are there functional capabilities that you bring, I mean yes, help us understand that gap. >> Yeah. >> Between what you can offer as a long term, you know, the leader in storage, versus kind of the new entrance in the public cloud. >> Yeah, two things come to mind. The number one is data mobility. So having that very efficient and very simple data mobility. Because what's the most efficient way to send data from an on-prem storage appliance? Use the native mobility services that are already built into that platform. They're already there, you already know how to use them, and they're very efficient. So they're going to be very smart about what data you send to, and what data you send back from the cloud. Which is critical from a people standpoint, but also from a cost standpoint. Which is the other piece of this. We've been talking about the technology, but as you well know, the business requirements are pretty important. So being able to also, not only have your software in the cloud, but transact that through a public cloud marketplace, and in one case will actually be delivered as a native cloud service, is critical. So all the pre-committed spend that you have with any one of these hyperscalers, you can actually draw down against that credit to purchase these software and services, which is equally important to the technology value prop. >> Hence your expanding ecosystem kind of goes both ways. Okay, so when I'm on a console within one of the public clouds, I want to go into Alpine, and now I'm into a Dell experience. Is that correct? >> I talked about flexibility right, and choice. You have that consistency to say, if you want to standardize on one of the hyperscaler ecosystems, we'll inter-operate that through our API's. We're not going to force you into any single walled garden, but if you have chosen an ecosystem you want to be working through, you can abstract out our value through API's and still leverage that underneath the covers, really at the data layer. So we are really all about that consistency at the data layer, but inter-operating with whatever control planes, and whatever ecosystems you are working with. Which is, I've said it five times, but API's are a critical part of this. We love UI's, and they're pretty in a nice demo, but the reality is probably API's is where this is mostly going to be consumed. >> So, I have a question for you as a marketer. You mentioned technology versus business value. Clearly, outcomes, the actual business value associated with what we do in technology, is key. However, as an old time storage guy myself, (Caitlin laughing) I realize that what you're talking about here is decades of development, focusing on things like data protection, resiliency, performance, built originally in an environment that wasn't instrumented for high availability. >> Caitlin: Hmm. >> You needed things like clusters. There wasn't the concept of just JBOD in servers, one server fails, you throw it away, and it automatically goes to another. How do you balance, this is a very long question here, how do you balance the fact that your underlying technology is so good, with the desire to communicate the business value? Do you find yourself having to not talk about the technology as much anymore? Because there's so much impressive stuff there. >> Yeah, I'm a recovering marketing person myself. Um, it is really interesting having been at this show for many, many, many years. Not as many as Dave probably. (Dave laughing) >> Old man Dave. (Caitlin laughing) >> What can I say. >> I would say, a number of those years we spend most of our time talking about speeds and feeds. How many IOPS? What's the latency? What's our HERO number of the day? And we still care about that right, and data protection, what's your BD braid? How much can we save you? Still important. But it's a secondary conversation. What are we talking about now? Cloud native app mobility, and that modernization, and the underlying infrastructure isn't always going to be Dell's anymore, it's going to by in the hyperscalers in some cases. So it's a completely different conversation and different people we're talking to. It's very exciting, it's a little bit foreign to us, but we welcome it, and it's also still important that we understand the infrastructure side too. Because ultimately, even if this is being delivered as a service, someone is still delivering and managing that infrastructure and that is still critically important. >> So okay, Project Alpine, is it multicloud? Is it Apex? Is it subscription? Is it as a service? >> Caitlin: Yeah. >> We should be thinking about it. >> Yeah, all those things. Yes, check. (Dave laughing) All of the things. >> So they're coming together is the. >> It's coming together, right. You hit all of the right buzz words, bingo. But multicloud, the value prop is Project Alpine, multicloud data, and yes subscription is going to really be the model from an economic standpoint, that's really the key. But ultimately it all comes together. >> What are you seeing with data architectures? Kind of up leveling a bit these days, where you know, customers generally, they'll shove everything into a big data warehouse, or a single store, or cloud. You you guys talked about the edge a lot. We just had a great conversation with Lowes, and what they're doing with VxRail and their stores. How are you seeing the evolution of data architectures? >> I think the Snowflake announcement was a really really really good example. And it came through as an announcement but it's a partnership, right. And what's really interesting is it's very clear that what we've kind of inherently understood as an on-prem, primarily an on-prem vendor traditionally, is that data has a ton of gravity, and between data privacy, and just governance regulations, there's a lot of reason the data is not going to move. And what that means from a modern cloud based analytics standpoint like Snowflake, is they need to be able to support the data no matter where it lives. That doesn't mean pulling it into the cloud. Many customers including us will not do that. It means being able to access that data so that more distributed data architecture, but still being able to use those cloud based tools, is really where we're seeing, and why we've really announced this partnership this week. I think there's a ton more opportunity in that space. >> Well that's the epiphany of the Snowflake deal is you're able to access non-native Snowflake data, into the Snowflake data cloud, that's a first. >> Caitlin: Yup. >> Now there, I'm sure Snowflake is going to want to migrate it at some point. But to your point, you won't as a customer, a lot of customers to say, no. First of all, a lot of times, it's not a business case. If I don't have to move it, why should I move it? If it's cost effective, and it's protected. And then, there are constraints. >> Caitlin: Yeah. >> To moving data, like legal constraints and so forth. >> Absolutely. And data regulations are not getting less stringent, right? >> Right. Alright, we got to go. Caitlin Gordon, thanks so much for coming back in theCube. It was great to see you. Congratulations for all the announcements, and awesome to see you face to face. >> Yes, thanks for having me. >> Alright, you're very welcome. >> Good to have you. >> Thank you for watching, this is Dave Vellante, for David Nicholson, Lisa Martin, and John Furrier. You're watching theCube's coverage of Dell Technologies World 2022 from Las Vegas. We'll be right back. (gentle electronic music)

>> Announcer: theCUBE presents Dell Technologies World brought to you by Dell. >> Welcome back to Dell Tech World 2022. You're watching theCUBE. My name is Dave Vellante, I'm here with my co-host John Furrier, live event, I would say seven to eight thousand people, really exceeded our expectations. And we're here with Chuck Whitten, who is the co chief operating officer and chief dot connector, I sometimes call him, at Dell Technologies. Chuck, welcome to theCUBE. >> I am thrilled to be here. How great is it to be, you know, back in Las Vegas, seven to eight thousand people here, talking innovation. It's great. >> Yeah, it's like Jeff said this morning, I'm not really thrilled to be in Vegas maybe, but I'm happy to be back live, so yeah. >> It's great to be here. >> Awesome. Okay, the operative phrase is multicloud by default, that's kind of the buzz from your keynote. What do you mean by that? >> Well, look, customers have woken up with multiple clouds you know, multiple public clouds, on-premises clouds, increasingly as the edge becomes much more a reality for a customer, clouds at the edge. And so that's what we mean by multicloud by default. It's not yet been designed strategically. I think our argument yesterday was it can be and it should be, it is a very logical place for architecture to land because ultimately customers want the innovation across all of the hyper scale public clouds. They will see workloads and use cases where they want to maintain an on-premises cloud. On-premises clouds are not going away, I mentioned edge cloud, so it should be strategic. It's just not today. It doesn't work particularly well today, so when we say multicloud by default, we mean that's the state of the world today. Our goal is to bring multicloud by design, as you heard. >> Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with you a hundred percent. We all know multicloud exists. It's by default, it's not going away. It's only going to get more complicated. What are you guys seeing in terms of the customer needs as this becomes more of the strategy plus operations, I want to operationalize multicloud as an abstraction layer, how do you guys see the customer requirements? What problems are they trying to solve? >> Well, look, multicloud by default today are isolated clouds. They don't work together. Your data is siloed. It's locked up and it is expensive to move and make sense of it. So, you know, I think the word you and I were batting around before, this is an interconnected tissue. That's what the world needs. They need the clouds to work together as a single platform. That's the problem that we're trying to solve. And you saw it in some of our announcements here that we are starting to make steps on that journey to make multicloud work together much simpler. >> It's interesting. You mentioned the hyperscalers and all that CapEx investments. Why wouldn't you want to take advantage of a cloud and build on the CapEx and then ultimately have the solutions, machine learning is one area, you see some specialization with the clouds, but you start to see the rise of super clouds, Dave calls them, and that's where you can innovate on a cloud. Then go to the multiple clouds, Snowflake's one, we see a lot of examples of super clouds. >> Project Alpine was another one. I mean, it's early, but it's clearly where you're going. The technology is just starting to come around. I mean, it's real. >> Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you want to take advantage of all of the cloud innovation out there? Well, the answer would be, I don't want to do that if I'm going to feel locked up, if it's going to be too expensive. So again, I think Project Alpine's a perfect example of a step on that journey. If you can create a common storage pool, a fabric if you will, that allows you to choose how, where you're going to process your data and store it. And more importantly, give your teams the same M and O tools, the same skillsets, the ability to operate on-premises or in the public clouds. You know, I think ultimately the theme of the last couple days in multicloud for us has been customer choice. We want to give them the choice to operate, how they want to, so they can take advantage of all those cloud services. >> Real quick. Where does that innovation go from that Alpine Project? Because that's software defined, and I believe that's all your IP to all Dell technologies IP. >> It is, yeah. >> So that factors in, so is that going to make the hardware more innovative? Is it going to be more application specific? Where do you see that going? >> Well, look, our, you know, putting our file block and object storage into the public clouds just gives them choice on taking advantage of enterprise class storage software. You know, you saw in our announcements today, we're not stopping the innovation in our core arrays and hardware. And in fact, the theme today was software innovation. I think we announced five hundred different software updates across power flex, power max and power store. So look, we're going to continue to innovate across the storage portfolio. Now we're giving customers the choice. Hey, you want it in the public cloud? That's what Project Alpine will let you do. >> Michael had a smile on a, I won't say a spring in his step, because he was sitting in that chair, but he was smiling about the market share numbers on that, so pretty impressive. You guys got a good commanding lean there. The super cloud thing, back to that concept, Snowflake is we consider super cloud. They took their IP, put it on a hyperscaler, differentiated themselves, have great value and scale and they're running away with it. It looks like at this point, I mean, you've got data breaks, and you've got Redshift in there and other stuff, but as a concept that's working, and now they're on multiple clouds. How do you see that super cloud connecting with Snowflake, because you guys are building a little Snowflake connected. It's one of the big announcements here is Snowflake and Dell. >> Yeah. >> So can you talk about that? >> It was probably the one that got the most excitement from customers in the last day. And so look, you said it well, Snowflake, you know, one of the most exciting companies in the data space right now, and a vision from that company to say, hey, let's make the consumption of data as simple as cloud operating models have made the consumption of infrastructure. Well we share that vision and love that vision but we're each coming at it from different parts of the stack, right? So we're coming at it from storage up to data, they're coming data management down to data. It's a perfect match of our capabilities. So that, the announcements we made in our partnership, we're going to start with two use cases that our customers have been asking for. You know, the first is the ability to buy directionally copy data from our storage to Snowflake's data cloud. That's exciting, but the more exciting one that created the buzz is, if you don't want to move your data to the public cloud, Snowflake only operates in the public cloud today, we're now giving the opportunity to access their data services on-premises. And that's the excitement from customers that have said, hey, look, I want to take advantage of Snowflake's capabilities, but for regulatory or security reasons, I'm not doing that today. This is a groundbreaker. >> Well, it's the interesting thing, because, you know, as many people know, Snowflake requires you to put their data in their cloud, in Snowflake format, this is the first example of non-native data being accessed into the Snowflake cloud. >> Exactly right, exactly right. So, you know, again for customers that say, I just can't do it, I cannot move my data, now they have the option. It's the first time Snowflake has collaborated with an on-premises infrastructure player. >> How'd that deal come about? >> Well, it started as all great deals in our business do, Michael, to the top. So it was a, you know, and then it's been our teams working together closely, always, you know alongside our customers, because that customer feedback of I want to take advantage of Snowflake's capabilities, you know, it's been, we've been incubating it for a few months now and it was great to bring it out on stage yesterday. >> I mean, it makes a lot of sense. You connected dots so to speak. When you look at what Michael was saying, these compute hubs, towers for 5G to >> Yep. >> Small edges and big edges and data centers all coming together, really key value parts of how data's going to be moving around, it's not just storage, it's data as code. It's a big part of >> Incredible, yeah. I mean, look, this is, that was the, the start of the theme yesterday. Look, the great unsolved problems in infrastructure right now is data is everywhere. It's sprawling. It is less secure than we would like. Help, and help me make sense of multicloud. >> I'd love to get your reaction real quick while I got you up here, because data science is a well known practice. >> Yeah. >> There's been the rise of a hot persona, that seems to be, you know, growing in numbers, but it's a scarce skill that's data engineering. Because the data's not just doing visualizations, there's a lot of architectural work being done to solve that strategy problem. What's your reaction to this new data engineering at the scale that we're talking about? >> Yeah, I mean, it's a space I'm just learning about to be honest with you, data engineering, but look, part of what we observe is, it takes a lot of calories from organizations to get data in a place where you can make sense of it and make decisions. And whether that's data scientists spending too much time cleaning or the advent, as you said, of data engineering to create the architectures, to help make that decision. Look, there's a lot of work that goes into that. It would be great over time to automate that. I think that's also the next great stuff on the journey. >> You know, Chuck, when I did the intro, I really didn't set it up that well, because you know people, oh, hey, here's the new guy, but you have a lot of experience with Dell. You've been a consultant to the company for a long, long time. Tell us a little bit about that. I'm interested in what you see as your greatest strengths that you bring to Dell. >> Yeah, well, as you said, look, I am the new guy-ish, I think it's been eight months. I don't know how long I can continue to use that as the excuse, but I had worked with Dell for over a decade as a consultant previously at Bain Company. So, you know, look, my background is as a strategist and I did lots of work in sort of M and A and private acuity, and so that's my background, I'm your sort of classic MBA, whose spent a decade in technology and a decade alongside Jeff Clark and Michael in the transformation of the company. So I hope I bring the right sort of outsider's but insider's perspective to, you know, to the party, if you will. But you know, I've certainly learned a lot in the last eight months, as you get alongside and inside the machine at Dell. >> So irrespective of the financial magic. >> I think I know what question he's going to ask. >> Irrespective of the financial magic that Dell did with the VMware skin, as a consultant, one could have gone through a mental exercise of saying, hey, what about, you know, spinning it in, because you got this great software asset. Everybody wants software marginal economics. Okay, the decision was made and now we're onto the future. That obviously has an impact on margins and gross margins and everything else. So, I guess as a consultant, you turn that into opportunity. >> Yeah. >> Right. So where is that opportunity? How do you feel about, how do you think about, that really hardware, heavy hardware exposure, and where you want to go in the future? >> Well, look, I think we, that's what we've been been talking about the last couple of days. So, you know, the VMware spinoff was a moment in which the world looked at us and I think asked the question, you did, you know, what are you, right? Are you a legacy hardware company or where you're going? But the reality of the world is, it's a multicloud world, so we are, it was a signal also to the world that we're not a VMware stack competing against other cloud stacks. We are first and best with VMware. They are still our most strategic partner, but we work with all the hyperscalers and it's a big world that is becoming multicloud. So strategically speaking as that becomes the reality of infrastructure and importantly as data explodes at the edge, you know, we're perfectly positioned as a company. That's the strategy, we like to say these trends are coming our way. It's never been a better time, honestly, to be the leader in infrastructure, and the leader in client devices, all the way to sort of the core data center in the cloud. >> How do you think about, you have quite an observation space, as you know, a long time, you know, Bain consultant. How do you think about the skillsets required to make that transition? >> Yeah, absolutely. Well look, we think a lot about it, right? Because certainly we have a lot of the native skills we need to win in the data era as the leader in storage and the leader in infrastructure, you know, we secure more mission critical workloads than anybody. We know a lot about data, but what we're talking about now is not just persisting data. It's about protecting data. It's about moving data, right? And those are different skill sets that we're sort of acquiring and always looking at our teams to think about and look, you know, we can do a lot of that organically. We are also always, you know, contemplating the right strategic M and A at the right time to sort of add to that talent and technology. >> You got the balance sheet for it now, so. >> We do indeed. We do indeed. >> We get the M and A question in there, but my question to you is, as you look at these systems, because we've always said in theCUBE, many times, distributed computing is back. >> Yeah. >> It never went away. Cloud is just a version of that with on-premises and edge. It's an operating system. It's got all the IO, it's got the control plane, it's the internet, right? And so as you look at that, there's a system and with the scale of cloud, ecosystems are emerging and they're super important because if you're plugging and playing solutions, you've got glue layers, you've got automations coming, AI machine learning, the partners aren't just totally dependent on each other, the interdependencies go away. So, as you see partners that could be LEGO blocks, and be composed into these large scale solutions that you guys are rolling out, what is the role of the ecosystem? What does the future ecosystem look like? How do you tell if it's healthy, and take us through that new formula, because we see it changing. >> Well, look, I, you know, we've been very explicit in our strategy, that partnerships have to be a part of our strategy. We can't solve all of the problems of the data in multicloud world alone. And when you see announcements like Snowflake, or you see us announce, continued collaborations with each of the hyperscalers, or even how we continue to invest in and double down on our VMware relationship, it's an acknowledgement that, to solve the problems that our customers are telling us, this super cloud you're describing, this integrated multicloud journey, you know, we're going to solve a lot of it ourselves, but a lot of it we're going to have to partner with. It's just got to be part and parcel of any good strategy. Luckily we're a natural ecosystem partner. As I said, we are not another cloud stack looking to build a walled garden, right. We know our spot in this game and it is to make multicloud simpler across the infrastructure layer. >> Somebody asked me, is Snowflake a part of Dell's ecosystem, or is Dell part of Snowflake's ecosystem? I said, yes. Right, because that's a perfect example. >> I think that's exactly right. These only work, and we've learned this with VMware, when it's mutually beneficial to both sides. So you look at the use cases we're talking about with Snowflake, right? Bio directionally copy data from our storage to their data cloud. That's beneficial to Snowflake and our customers. And of course bringing data cloud on-premises is beneficial to us, so look, there's more win-wins when you stare at these partnerships, than there are zero. >> I think that's a key point from even a decade ago, the platform wars were well identified, viewer platform. They competed against each other. You got now platforms with platforms because of the synergies of the integration. This is new, this is a new dynamic. >> It's the great world of tech, it's cooperation and it's, you know, there's certainly places where we compete sometimes, but other places that we, you know, we cooperate. And so, yeah, we're excited about our position in this multicloud ecosystem. We think we positioned the company perfectly. >> How do you spend your time? >> As a COO? >> Just at Dell? I mean, you know, give us the sort of breakdown. >> Yeah, well look, I mean, I think that what makes it fun is no two days are alike, but, right? But together, Jeff Clark and I share a responsibility for setting strategy with Michael and then aligning the leadership team on our strategic priorities. And you know, in the world we live in, there's days you wake up and today is supply chain day, because something has happened in the world, but you know, often it's with customers or investors, so it's a true COO general manager job. And I would tell you, no two days are the same. >> Strategy, solving problems, keeping things moving. >> Leading the team, setting a vision, and listening to customers. I mean, at the end of the day, we talk a lot about our durable, competitive advantages as a company. I think our single greatest competitive advantage is our go to market reach. And the fact that we touch more customers and partners than anyone in technology. And that gives us a inside track on what they're worried about, what they're thinking about and how we can help. >> It's interesting, you mentioned how earlier, how things come back around on cycles and we're seeing hardware matter more than everything, in fact, we're doing a editorial thing on why hardware matters. Look at the advances in Silicon. >> Yeah. >> And smaller footprint of powerful devices compute, about towers and edges. And so the role of hardware, I think they got the software defined software and the role of open source in all of this, it's almost a perfect storm to kind of reset this, none of the trajectory of growth, where hardware innovations working with the new software. >> For sure, for sure. >> Can you react to that? >> No, I think it's spot on. I think the future of architectural innovation is really exciting, when you look at what CPUs and GPUS and DPUS, and all it's able to do in the future of infrastructure and eventually the ability to compose your infrastructure to the workload versus, you know, have it be rigid and silent. I mean, there's as much innovation inside the infrastructure as there is in the ecosystem. And, you know, that's exciting for our customers, right? It's going to make them more efficient. It's going to make them able to make decisions with data better than they are today. It's great to be in our space for sure. >> It's great to have you on. Now, you're a CUBE alumni. >> All right, well, I've watched from afar and admired, and it was really painless. So thank you. >> Thanks so much for coming on. >> Thanks for having me. >> Keep it right there, everybody, Dave Vellante and John Furrier will be back right after this short break, you're watching theCUBE at Dell Tech World 2022. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: TheCUBE presents Dell Technologies World brought to you by Dell. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage, day one, Dell Technologies World live from Las Vegas at the Venetian. Lisa Martin here with Dave Vellante and John Furrier. Guys let's talk, first of all, first time back in person since Dell Tech World 2019. Lots going on, lots of news today. I'm going to start with you, Dave, since you're closest to me. What are some of the things that have impressed you at this first in-person event in three years? >> Well, the first thing I want to say is, so John and I, we started theCUBE in 2010, John, right? In Boston, EMC World. Now of course, Dell owns EMC, so wow. It's good to be back here. Dell's built this beautiful set. I'd say the number one thing that's surprised me was how many people were here. Airport was packed, cab lines, the line at the Palazzo, the hotel, to get in was, you know, probably an hour long. And there's, I thought there'd be maybe 5,000 people here. I would say it's closer to eight. So the hall was packed today and everybody was pumped. Michael Dell was so happy to be up on stage. He talked, I dunno if you guys saw his keynote. He basically talked, obviously how great it is to be back, but he talked about their mission, building technologies that enable that better human condition. There was a big, you know, chewy words, right? And then they got into, you know, all the cool stuff they're doing so we can get into it. But they had CVS up on stage, they had USAA on stage. A big theme was trust. Which of course, if you're Dell, you know, you want people to trust you. I guess the other thing is this is the first live event they've had since the VMware spin. >> Right. >> So in 2019 they owned VMware. VMware's no longer a part of the income statement. Dell had a ton of debt back then. Now Dell's balance sheet looks actually better than VMware's because they restructured everything. And so it's a world without VMware where now with VMware their gross margins were in the 30-plus percent range. Now they're down to 20%. So we're now asking what's next for Dell? And they stood up on stage, we can talk about it some more, but a lot of multi-cloud, a lot of cyber resilience, obviously big themes around APEX, you know, hybrid work, John. So, well let's get into that. >> What are some of the key things that you heard today? >> Well, first of all, the customers on stage are always great. Dell's Technologies, 10 years for theCUBE and their history. I saw something back here, 25 years with celebrating precision, the history of Michael Dell's journey and the current Dell Technologies with EMC folded in and a little bit of VMware DNA still in there even though they're separated out. Just has a loyal set of customers. And you roam the hallways here, you see a lot of people know Dell, love Dell. Michael Dell himself was proud to talk before the event about he's number one, Dave, in PC market share. That's been his goal to beat HP for years. (laughing) And so he's got that done. But they're transforming their business cause they have to, the data center is now cloud. Cloud is now the distributed computing. Dell has all the piece parts today. We've covered this three years ago. Now it's turned into multi-cloud, which is multi-vendor, as a service is how the consumers consume, innovate with data, that's kind of the raw material. Future of work, and obviously the partners that they have. So I think Dell is going to continue to maintain the news of being the great in the front lines as a data-center-slash-enterprise, now cloud, Edge player. So, you know, I'm impressed with their constant reinvention of the company and the news hits all the cards: Snowflake partnership, cutting edge company in the cloud, partnership with Snowflake, APEX, their product that's innovating at the Edge, this new kind of product that's going to bring it together. Unifying, all those themes, Dave, are all hitting the marks. >> Chuck Whitten up on stage, obviously he was the multicloud, you know, conversation. And I think the vision that they they're laying out and Jeff Clarke talked about it as well, is a term that John and I coined. We can't remember who coined it, John or me, "supercloud." >> Yeah. (laughing) >> And they're talking about building an abstraction layer, building on top of the clouds, connecting on-prem to the clouds, across clouds, out to the Edge, hiding the underlying complexity, Dell managing all that. That's their vision. It's aspirational today but that really is supercloud. And it's more than multi-cloud. >> You coined the term supercloud. >> Did I? >> We riffed together. I called it sub-cloud. >> Oh, that's right. And then I said, no, it's got to float over. Super! Superman flies. (John laughs) Right, that's right. >> Sub-cloud, not really a good name. Nobody wants to be sub of anything. >> I think my kid gave it to me, John, actually. (laughing) >> Well if we do know that Michael Dell watches theCUBE, he's been on theCUBE many times. He watches theCUBE, clearly he's paying attention! >> Yeah, well I hope so. I mean, we write a lot about this and we talk to a lot of customers and talk to a lot of people. But let's talk about the announcements if we can. So... The APEX cyber recovery service, you know, ransomware recovery. They're now also running that on AWS and Azure. So that's big. We heard Presidio, they was super thrilled about that. So they're... The thing I'd say about that is, you know, Dell used to be really defensive about cloud. Now I think they're leaning in. They're saying, "Hey we're not going to spend, you know, Charles Fitzgerald, the snarky guy, does some good work on CAPEX. I mean, you look at how much the cloud guys are spending on CAPEX a year, $30, $40 billion. >> They can't compete. >> On cloud CAPEX. Dell doesn't want compete. >> John: You can't compete. >> Build on top of that, so that's a gift. So that's cool. You mentioned the Snowflake announcement. I thought that was big. What that is... It's very interesting, so Frank Slootman has always said, "We're not doing a half-way house, we're in the cloud." Okay, so square that circle for me. Now Snowflake's coming on-prem. Well, yeah, what they're doing is allowing customers to keep data in a Dell object store, ECS or other object stores. But use Snowflake. So non-native Snowflake data on-prem. So that expands Snowflake cloud. What it also does is give Dell a little sizzle, a little better partner and there's a path to cloud migration if that's where the customers want to go. >> Well, I mean, I would say that that's a dangerous game because we've seen that movie before, VMware and AWS. >> Yeah but that we've talked about this. Don't you think that was the right move for VMware? >> At the time, but if you don't nurture the relationship AWS will take all those customers, ultimately, from VMware. >> But that product's still doing very well. We'll see with NetApp is another one. NetApp on AWS. I forget what they call it, but yeah, file and AWS. So that was, go ahead. >> I was just going to say, what's the impact of Snowflake? Why do you think Snowflake chose Dell? >> Because Dell's a $101 billion company and they have a huge distribution channel and a lot of common customers. >> They own storage on the premise. >> Yep. And so Snowflake's looking for, you know, storage options on which they can, you know, bring data into their cloud. Snowflake wants the data to go from on-prem into the cloud. There's no question about that. >> And I would add another thing, is that Snowflake can't do what Dell Technologies does on-premises with storage and Dell can't do what Snowflake's doing. So I think it's a mutual short-term and medium-term benefit to say, "Hey you want to run on Snowflake? You need some services there? Great, but come back and use Dell." So that to me, I think that's a win-win for Snowflake. Just the dangerous game is, whoever can develop the higher-level services in the cloud will ultimately be the winner. >> But I think the thing I would say there is, as I said, Snowflake would love for the migration to occur, but they realize it's not always going to happen. And so why not partner with a company like Dell, you know, start that pipeline. And for Dell, hey, you know, why fight fashion, as Jeremy Burton would say. The other thing was Project Alpine, which is file, block and object across cloud. That's again setting up this supercloud. And then APEX. I mean, APEX is the discussion. We had a one-on-one session, a bunch of analysts with Jeff Woodrow who runs ISG. We were supposed to be talking about ISG, all we talked about is APEX. Then we had another session with APEX and all we talked about, of course, is APEX. So, they're still figuring that out, I would say, at this point. They don't quite have product market fit and I think they'd admit that, but they're working hard on scaling engineering, trying to figure out the channel model, the compensation. You know, taking their time even, but moving fast if you know what I mean. >> I mean, Dave, I think the big trend that's jumping out of me here is that, something that we've been covering, the headless cloud, meaning if you can do as a service, which is one of Dell's major points today, that to me, everyone is a PaaS layer. I think everyone that's building digital transformation apps has to be their own SaaS. So they either do that with somebody, a man in service, which fits beautifully into that trend, or do it own. Now e-commerce has this nailed down. Shopify or build your own on top of the cloud. So headless retail's a hot trend. You're going to start to see that come into the enterprise where the enterprise can have their cake and eat it too and take advantage of managed services where they don't have expertise. So those two things right there I think is going to drive a lot of growth for Dell. >> So essentially Lisa, what Dell is doing is saying, "Okay, the timing's good with the VMware spin." They say, "Now we're going to build our own cloud as a service, APEX." And they're starting with infrastructure as a service, you know, storage as a service. Obviously cyber recovery is a service. So you're going to get compute and storage and data protection. Eventually they'll move into other areas. And it's really important for them to do that to have their own cloud, but they've got to build up the ecosystem. Snowflake is a small example. My view, they need hundreds and hundreds of Snowflakes to fill the gaps, you know, move up the stack in middleware and database and DevOps. I mean, they should be partnering with HashiCorp. They should be partnering with all these companies that do DevOps stuff. They should be... I'd like to see them, frankly, partner with competitors to their data protection group. Why, you know, sounds crazy, but if you're going to build a cloud, look at AWS. They partner with everybody, right? And so that's what a true cloud experience looks like. You've got this huge menu. And so I think Dell's going to have to try to differentiate from HP. HPE was first, right, and they're all in. Dell's saying we're going to let the customers tell us where to go. And so they, I think one differentiation is their ecosystem, their ability to build that ecosystem. Yeah, but HP's got a good distribution channel too. Just not as big as Dell's. >> They all got the assets in it, but they're transforming. So I think at the end of the day, as Dell and even HPE transforms, they got to solve the customer problems and reduce the complexity. So again, the managed services piece with APEX is huge. I think having the building blocks for multi hybrid cloud at the Edge, just, you can't go wrong with that. If the customers can deploy it and consume it. >> What were some of the messages that you heard from, you mentioned CVS on stage, USAA on stage. Dell's always been very, very customer-focused. They've got some great brands. What did you hear from that customer's voice that shows you they're going in the right direction? >> Well first of all, the customers are longstanding customers of Dell Technologies, so that's one recognition of the ongoing partnerships. But they're also messaged up with Dell's messaging, right? They're telling the Dell story. And what I heard from the Dell story was moving fast and reducing complexity is their number one goal. They see the cloud option has to be there. Cloud native, Edge came up a little bit and the role of data. So I think all the new application development today that's relevant has a data as code kind of concept. Data engineering is the hottest skillset on the planet right now. And data engineering is not data science. So you start to see top-level CSOs and CIOs saying the new modern applications have to have data embedded in. It's just too hard. It's too hard to find that engineering team. So I heard the customer saying, we love the direction, we love the managed services. And by the way, we want to have that supply chain and cyber risk reduced. So yeah, big endorsement for Dell. >> You know, the biggest transformation in Dell, the two biggest transformations. One was the financials. You know, the income statement is totaled at a $101 billion company, growing at 17% a year. That's actually quite remarkable. But the flip side of that, the other big transformation was the customer. And with the acquisition of EMC but specifically VMware, it changed the whole conversation for Dell with customers. I think pre-2015, you wouldn't have had that type of narrative up on stage with customers. Cause it was, you know, compellant and it was equal logic and it was small businesses. Now you're talking about really deep strategic relationships that were enabled by that transformation. So my point is, to answer your question, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens post-VMware because when VMware came together with Dell, the industry didn't like it. The VMware ecosystem was like (growls) Dell. Okay, but customers loved it, right? And that's one of the things I heard on stage today. They didn't say, oh, well we love the VMware. But he mentioned VMware, the CTO from USAA. So Dell configured this commercial agreement with VMware, Michael Dell's the chairman of both companies. So that was part of the incentive. The other incentive is Dell is the number one distribution channel for VMware. So I think they now have that muscle memory in place where they've earned that trust. And I think that will continue on past the spin. It was actually quite brilliant the way they've orchestrated that. >> Yeah, Lisa, one more thing I want to add to that is that what I heard also was, you got the classic "here's how you be a leader in the modern era." It's a big leadership message. But then when you heard some of the notes, software-defined, multi-cloud with an emphasis on operations, Dave. So, okay, if you're a good leader, stay with Dell in operations. So you see strategy and operations kind of coming together around cloud. But big software defined multi-cloud data operational story. And I think those customers are kind of on that. You know, you got to maintain your operations. DevOps is operations, DevSecOps is operations. So big, like, don't get too greedy on the modern, shiny new toy, you know, in the cloud. >> Yeah, it's a safe bet, right? For infrastructure. I mean, HPE is a good bet too, but I mean Dell's got a way broader portfolio, bigger supply chain. It's got the end-to-end with the desktop, laptop, you know, the client side business, you know, a bigger services organization. And now the big challenge in my mind for Dell is okay, what's next? And I think they got to get into data management, obviously build up as a service, build up their cloud. They need software in their portfolio. I mean, you know, 20% gross margin company, it just, Wall Street's not as interested. You know, if they want to build more value, which they do, they've got to get more into software and I think you're going to see that. Again, I think you're going to see more M&A. I'd love to see more organic R&D instead of stock buybacks but I get why they have to do that. >> Well one of the things I'm looking at, Dave, in terms of what I think the future impact's going to be is the generational shift with the gen-Z and millennials running IT in the modern era. Not your old school rack-and-stack data center mentality. And then ultimately the scoreboard will determine, in my mind, the winner in their race is, where are the workloads running? Right? The workloads, and then also what's the application development scene look like? What do the apps look like? What are they building on? What's scaling them, what's running them? And the Edge is going to be a big part of that. So to me, operations, Edge, workloads and the development and then the workforce shift. >> And I do think Edge, I'm glad you brought up Edge. Edge is, you know, so fragmented but I think there's going to be a massive opportunity in Edge. There's going to be so much compute at the Edge. Dell talked about it, so much data. It's unclear to me right now how they go after that other than in pockets, like we heard from Gill. I believe they're going to do really well in retail. No question there. >> Yeah. >> But there's so much other industrial aisle IT- >> The telco space of towers, Edge. >> And Dell's, you know, Dell's server business, eh okay, it's got Intel and AMD inside, okay great. Their high margins come from storage, not from compute. Not the case with AWS. AWS had 35% operating margins last quarter. Oracle and Microsoft, that's the level that they're at. And I'd love to see Dell figure out a way to get paid more for their compute expertise. And that's going to take some R&D. >> John: Yeah, yeah. >> Last question guys, as we wrap up our wrap of day one. Given everything that we've all been through the last couple of years, what is your overall summary of what Dell announced today? The vibe of the show? How well have they fared the last two years? >> Well, I mean, they had a remarkable last two years. In a large part thanks to the client business. I think today you're seeing, you know, them lift the veil on what's next. And I think their story is coherent. There's, again, financially, they're a much more sound company, much better balance sheet. Not the most attractive income statement from a margin standpoint and they got work to do there. But wow, as far as driving revenue, they know how to sell. >> Yeah, I mean to me, I think looking back to before the pandemic, when we were here on the stage last, we were talking end-to-end, Dell leadership. And I say the biggest thing is Dell's catching up fast, faster than I thought. And I think they got, they're skating to where the puck is going, Dave, and I'll tell you why. The end-to-end I thought wouldn't be a total flyer if the Edge got too dynamic, but the fact that the Edge is growing so fast, it's more complex, that's actually given Dell more time. So to me, what I see happening is Dell having that extra time to nail the Edge piece, cause if they get there, if they get there, then they'll have their core competency. And why do I say that? Cause hardware is back. Server god boxes are going to be back. You're going to see servers at the Edge. And look at the failure of Amazon's Outpost, okay? Amazon's Outpost was essentially hardware. That's Dell's business. So you talk about like compute as a cloud but they really didn't do well with deploying compute like Dell does with servers. EKS is kicking ass at the Edge. So serverless with hardware, I think, is going to be the killer solution at the Edge. A combination of cloud and Edge hardware. And the Edge looks more like a data center than the cloud looks like the data center, so- >> So you're saying hardware matters? >> HardwareMatters.com. >> I think that's what I heard. >> HardwareMatters.com, check out that site, coming soon. (all laughing) >> I think it matters more than ever, you know- >> Blockchain, silicon advances. >> I think reason hardware matters is cause it's barbelling. It's going from the box to the silicon and it's going, you know, upstream into software defined. >> Horizontally, scalability means good silicon at the Edge, under the cover, scaling all the stuff and machine learning and AI in the application. So we've said this on theCUBE now, what, five years now? >> Dave: Yeah, yep. >> Guys, we've got an action packed night tonight. Two days tomorrow and Wednesday. Michael Dell is on tomorrow. Chuck Whitten is on, Jeff Clarke, et cetera, et cetera. Caitlin Gordon is on Wednesday. >> All the heavy hitters are coming on. >> They're coming on, they're going to be... >> Dave: Allison Dew's coming on. >> Allison Dew's coming on. >> We're going to talk about the Matthew McConaughey interview, which was, I thought, fantastic. J.J. Davis is coming on. So we're going to have a great channel discussion, as well, with Cheryl Cook. >> That's right. >> A lot of the product people are coming on. We're going to be talking APEX, it's going to be good. With cyber recovery, the Storage Alchemist is coming on, John! (all laughing) >> Boy, I can't wait to see that one. >> Well stick around guys for our coverage all day tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday. Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante and John Furrier coming to you live from the Venetian in Las Vegas. This is Dell Technologies World 2022. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow and the next day. (bouncy, upbeat music)