(upbeat music) >> In 1946, the acerbic manager of the Dodgers, Leo the Lip Durocher famously said of baseball, great Mel Ott who was player manager of the Giants at the time. You know what happens to nice guys. They finished in last place. The phrase nice guys finish last was born. It became popular outside of baseball. Well joining me today is someone who was a consummate gentlemen and a nice guy who proves that idiom absolutely isn't true at all. He's also written a new book "Play nice and Win" Michael Dell chairman and CEO of Dell technologies, welcome back to the CUBE. >> Thank you very much, Dave, always great to be with you. Wonderful to be on the CUBE and thanks for your great coverage of Dell technologies world. >> Yeah. We're very excited to be covering the virtual version this year, next year we're back face to face I'm Sure. And we're going to talk about your book but I want to start by asking you to comment on the past 12 months, how are you going to remember 2020? >> I'm going to remember it by the resiliency of the world and our team, the adaptability the acceleration of digital transformation which is pretty amazing around the world. The vital role that technology played in addressing some of the biggest challenges, whether it was the creation of vaccines or, you know, decoding the virus itself or just addressing all the challenges that the world had. You know, I think it's a game changer in terms of disease identification and how we prevent these kinds of things going forward. You know, there's still a long way to go in terms of how do we get 7.5 billion people vaccinated and safe. I also think it exposed, you know some of the fault lines in our society. And that's a great learning for all of us in terms of access to healthcare and education and, you know, the digital resources that power the world. And so, yeah, those are some of the things that really stand out for me. >> Well, I mean, I think leaders like yourself and position of influence, absolutely passionate about some of those changes that we see coming in society. So hopefully we'll have time to talk about that but I wanted to get into the business. I think a lot of people, myself included felt that 2020 was going to be a down year for big tech companies like yours and that relied heavily on selling products that data centers and central offices but the remote work trend and the laptop, boom offset, some of those on-prem softness and headwinds combined with VMware the financial performance of Dell technologies was actually quite amazing. Why were you able to do so well last year? >> Well, first of all, you're right. We did, we had record pretty much everything record revenues, record operating income, record cashflow and be also paid down a record amount of debt. And so I think the strength and resiliency of our supply chain, as well as the broad diversified nature of what we provide our customers continue to serve us very well as they moved to this sort of do anything from anywhere in the world. And it continues the first part of this year, business is very strong >> You know, a few weeks ago, of course you officially announced the spinoff of Dell technologies. Wasn't a huge surprise but the 81% equity ownership of VMware are you worried about untethering VMware from Dell or maybe you can share more on what this means for the future of, your two companies and your customers. >> Right? So, I think this will drive additional growth opportunities for both Dell Tech and VMware, while it unlocks a lot of value for our stakeholders. What we've done is to formalize the commercial relationship into a series of agreements and those are unique and differentiated and they provide lots of flexibility and we've driven a tremendous amount of innovation together and that's going to continue and it will, one of the things we said back in 2015 you'll remember is our commitment to keep the VMware ecosystem open and independent and working across the whole industry. We've done that. You'll continue to see us innovate together with Edge solutions, certainly all the great work we've done with VxRail SD LAN, you know Tanzu creates this platform to modernize applications and VMware Cloud and Dell technologies are the easy path to a multi-cloud architecture. And, that continues to work super well and is not going to be slowed down at all. So... and of course, I'll continue to be a chairman of both companies and we're not selling VMware we're distributing our ownership to our shareholders. >> Well, of course, Dell is the largest sort channel if you will, for VMware. So that's ... you guys got a tight relationship but I want to ask you about digital transformation and everybody talked about it pre COVID but nobody really knew exactly what it was but COVID sort of brought that into focus very quickly. If you weren't a digital business, you were out of business. So going forward, how do you see that whole digital transformation playing out? >> You know I think the plot of any company is to figure out how it can use its data and turn that into insights and outcomes and better results and ultimately competitive advantage faster. And as you said, you know, if it's not able to do that, it's probably going to go out of business. And that agenda just got massively accelerated because it was kind of digital was sort of the only thing that worked during this, this past period. So every organization has figured out that technology is not the IT department, it's actually the fulcrum of progress in the entire company. And so we're seeing sort of across the board a dramatic acceleration in the investment in digital technologies, you know, Edge is growing very fast. I think 5G just accelerates this and, you know you're seeing it in all the demand trends. It's quite positive and, you know, I think you'll see even a more rapid separation from those companies that are able to take advantage of this and quickly adjust their businesses their organizations, and those that are >> You better hop on board or get left behind, you know, the Edge. You mentioned the Edge it's a little bit like digital transformation, you know kind of pre COVID and even post COVID. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people but the telecoms transformation and 5G they have there certainly real. How do you see the Edge? >> You know, the Edges is ... think of it as actually the real world, right? It's, not a data center sitting in the center of the universe somewhere. And look today, you know only 10% of data is processed outside of the data center, but, you know, it's estimated by 2025 you got 75% of enterprise data will be processed outside of a traditional data center or a Cloud. And so as everything becomes intelligent connected 5G accelerates that it's going to be a huge acceleration of this whole process of digital transformation. And you know, again, think about this. I mean, the cost of making something intelligent used to be really expensive. Now it's asymptotically approaching zero. And of course all those things are connected. They're talking to each other and exactly what does this mean for every industry. Nobody's really quite sure and not everything is going to work, but, you know we're seeing it in manufacturing, in retail, in healthcare and the growth on the Edge is really accelerating in a meaningful way. And it's not so much about, you know people talking people with machines, we know how to do that. Now it's about the thing right And, you know you've got like 200 billion arm processors, you know out there in the last couple of years, all those things talking to the other things, generating data it happens in the real world. That's what the Edge is. >> Yeah as you know, we're a big fans of the arm model. And I think it just presents huge opportunities for companies like Dell. I want to ask you about Cloud. And I have to say, I think, you know companies like Dell have been maybe a little bit defensive over the last several years when it comes to Cloud but I think you starting to see the Cloud as a gift with all that CAPEX that's being built out by these hyperscalers. You know, thank you. It seems to me, you can build on top of that. How are you thinking about the Cloud as an opportunity for you and your customers especially as the definition of Cloud evolves? >> Well, first, you know, what we see is and the Edge is kind of the third place or the third premise, right? You got Clouds in the public form, you've got the Colo which is really growing fast and, you know the private hybrid Clouds, and now you've got the Edge. And so you've got infrastructure all over the place with Edge being the fastest growing. You know, one of the big things we see is that customers want a consistent way to operate and execute across that whole platform. And, you know, one of the other things that we've been focused on at Dell technologies is how can we move our business to more of a service and subscription on demand and provide customers that flexibility to to pay as they consume. And so, to some extent this is an evolution of, you know, products to services to managed services, to everything as a service. And so, you know, looking at our balance sheet you'll see over $40 billion in remaining performance obligations as we moved the business to that kind of model and it's been growing double digits for several quarters in a row. And so, you know, we're embracing Cloud and on-demand, and as a service, and obviously here at Dell technologies world we're talking a lot about Apex and our continuing initiatives to move our whole business in that direction. >> Yeah. Apex is a real accelerator for that model. I want to switch topics a little bit. I got a long list of things I want to talk about ESG, sustainability, inclusion, you know, is another topic that, that I'm interested in. I want it. And I said before, people like yourself in a position of influence to influence public policy and obviously the employees and your ecosystem why is it not just the right thing to do? Why is... why are those things good business, Michael? >> Well, it's good business because people want to be part of something that is important and purposeful. You know, it's not just make a profit and earn a living right? You know, people want to be inspired and feel that they're part of something special. And look, I think if you look at the positive changes that have occurred in the world certainly you could turn on the news and see the horrible things that happened in the last 24 hours or something like that. But if you step back and think about the amazing progress that's happened in the last several decades, you know a lot of it's been driven by technology and by businesses that have stepped up and made a difference and made commitments. And, you know, we're one of those companies that has made a series of commitments you know, 10 years ago, we set out with our 2020 goals. We accomplished significant majority of those retired those. Now we set out our progress made real 2030 goals all around the ESD themes. And it's not only the right thing to do but it is good for business. It inspires our team members, our customers and I think initiatives like progress made real at Dell and thousands of other companies. Ultimately, those are the things that are going to drive progress forward. I believe, you know, more so than government edicts or regulation, those can play a role. But I think, companies voluntarily driving things like the circular economy and how we include everyone in our business and provide opportunities for everyone to succeed no matter where they come from. I think those are the things that are really going to drive the world forward. >> Well, I want to ask you about public policy because as you say, it's not just the government, but of course sometimes the government can get in the way. You're seeing a lot of vitriol around Val break up big tech but the same time, you're seeing the US government and the EU very willing to help out with the semiconductor competitiveness in the like I know you were tapped with the new administration President Biden, tapping, you know, the best minds in tech and you were asked to part sort of participate give feedback. What can you tell us about, you know your advice to the US government? >> Well, you know, lots of great discussion with the new administration and it's a delight to see that they're focused on semiconductors and sort of the industries of the future. This is a big deal. I mean, you know, we've got some big global competitors out there other nations that are with a deterministic strategy very focused on the industries of the future. But US, you know if you think about the atomic age and, you know the Apollo missions that created the whole semiconductor industry ARPANET and ultimately the Internet and that kind of stopped right there, you know, there wasn't as much government investment in some of those big R and D initiatives that really drove an enormous creation of industries and success for the United States and its citizens. And so I think focusing on semiconductors and how you build the infrastructure of the future really important for the United States to continue to be a leader in that you know, we were, you know, producing a one point about 37% of the world's semiconductors. It's now down to 12% and dropping and really important that more investments are made in that area. It's a combination of capital, talent, you know education knowledge, and also, you know, the policies that promote the development of these kinds of businesses. >> Yah well, Pat's got a very big challenge ahead of them. And so that's why but we've said Intel's too strategic to fail in our view but I wanted to plug your book a little bit. My former boss, you and I have talked about this. He was also a gentleman who proved Leo Durocher wrong. He was very nice guy, but also a winner, Play Nice But Win, why did you decide to write another book? >> Well, you know, Dave, a lot has happened in the last 20 years and especially the last nine or so years since we went private and, you know merged with EMC and VMware and went public again. And, you know, I'd say we... first of all, you know when I wrote the first book in 1998 I wasn't comfortable disclosing a lot. And, and I wasn't vulnerable enough and didn't feel, you know, able to do that. Now I do, you know, I'm older, you know hopefully a little wiser. And so I think everybody's going to like hearing some of the fun stories about not only my childhood but you know, the dorm room and beyond, and leading up to, you know the pivotal changes that have occurred the last decade my alligator wrestling with Carl Icahn and other, you know there's lots of fun stories in there. I got arrested one time. It was only for speeding tickets, don't worry but you know, lots of fun. I'm really looking forward to the book coming out and being able to talk about it. >> I can't wait. You know, I've said many times anybody who could beat the great icon is interesting to me. I wanted to ask you, I mentioned my old boss, Pat McGovern. I used to say to them all the time, "Pat how come you don't buy more companies?" And he'd say," Dave, you know the vast majority of acquisitions and mergers they failed to meet their objectives." Did you ever imagine, I mean... I did the EMC acquisition. Did... how could it not have exceeded your expectations? I wonder if you could give us your final thoughts on that. >> You know, and I talk about this a lot in the book. I mean, these are kind of the ultimate considered decisions. And in the case of the EMC combination it was something that we had thought about going back to 2008, 2009. And then, you know, started thinking about it in 2014 worked on it for a full year before it got announced in 2015 and finally closed in 2016. But yeah, I mean, you know, we thought it would be great. It turned out to be even better than We thought the revenue synergies were far greater. The teams were quite energized. Customers liked what we were providing and you know it's ... and, of course the markets were supportive Right? You know, we were paying close attention to interest rates and how we could structure the merger in a attractive way. And, you know, thank goodness, lots of hard work lots of determination, you know, it's worked out quite well. >> Yeah, great commitment from the Dell team as well. Congratulations on that. Go ahead, please. >> And any adventure continues right? It's...( both chuckles) >> I can't wait to see the next chapter and I can't wait to get the book, but congratulations on that, all your tremendous success you're you are a winner and a gentleman and a friend of the CUBE, Michael Dell. Thanks so much. >> Thank you so much Dave. >> And thank you for watching. And this is the CUBE continuous coverage of Dell tech world 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there, right back. (upbeat music)

our Studios in the heart of Silicon Valley Palo Alto California this is a cute conversation hey welcome back here ready Jeff Rick here with the cube we're in our pal 2 studios today for a cube conversation to talk about a pretty interesting topic right which is the security issue that is pervasive and needs to be baked in all over the place and combining that with networking and software to find networking which is often talked about as kind of the last area of really software-defined execution and a lot of activity around SD win so we're happy to have with us today from Fortin at John Madison he's the CMO and EVP of products for fortinet John great to see you you too and also joining us from Atlanta is Hilton styrsky he is the CIO of Crawford & Company Hilton great to see you as well so let's just jump into it big issue right Crawford & Company Hilton give us a little bit of the which you guys are and more importantly kind of what a distributed company that you are y SD win and when particularly is a pretty important piece of the equation absolutely SD wins very important to us as we look at growth so I'm a confident company we are 77 year old you asked in management's claims company we we haven't focus on restoring and enhancing lives businesses in communities in 2018 we processed about one and a half million claims they are translated into north of fifteen billion dollars in payments but more importantly when you think about the insurance space and really any highly transactional organization will go through a digital disruption and korfin and company is no difference and in particular with the culture of innovation that we have a profiling company we looking at all facets of the business to disrupt and that's our basic infrastructure all the way to the business process applications that interact with our customers and when we think about the network that's the lifeblood of our organization span in seven countries with almost 9,000 employees and NATO it touches every facet of our organization and our business and being on an innovative modern technology enables us to support the Scanlan growth that's invariably coming down the pipes in this industry thank you thanks for that summary and John over to you you know we got a lot of conferences as we go to your guys conference we go to RSA and security the topic because all these security needs to bake be baked in throughout the process it can't just be added on at the end and you guys have taken that to heart so tell us a little bit about you know your guys solution in this SD win space and how you're approaching it slightly differently yes he'll concern just about every company's going through this digital disruption and that means they really need to make sure that network is of high quality high speed can access the applications but most importantly is secure so what we do is make sure with all my networking gear and SDRAM being a specific example that security is totally integrated within that solution and you do it in a different way - right you're not just doing it with software but you've actually introduced you know a hardware component into this into this equation as well yeah well now obviously the software is still very important to make sure you can orchestrate and you've got the feature set but earlier this year we announced the the world's first sd1 ASIC which allows us to get that performance of the networking stack and security stack on a single appliance we're talking about five to 10 X performance and again allows the customer such as Crawford to run and networking and their security in that single appliance so help I'm curious from your perspective I have to say I feel sorry for CIOs cuz that you know as again we go to all these shows we walk around there's so much technology and in security specifically when you walk around RSA as the the granddaddy of all those conferences you know there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of vendors and I think my goodness how do you go through how do you evaluate so you know what do you do when you're looking for technology partners among this giant sea of potential opportunities and people telling you to do this that and the other you got to find a partner that's going to help you absolutely so I mean they're number of facets that come to that but first and foremost we take security and privacy not just security extremely or seriously hope it ends because of that we rely on our cyber team to help us make decisions and drive those discussion so these relationships are not just you know come about because of benefits that we see on white papers or interactions with the PIO they really are driven from our cyber organization in the indian research that they do envy attend products we're not just looking for a sexy brands name to put in our our branches in our data centers but we're really looking for a tried and tested product and it wasn't a network that really came down to our cyber team because of the integrated nature of the ESD way and the security applies it to em i'm curious in terms of the changing kind of government regulations you know ii had gdpr we've got the California Privacy Act has that impacted your you know kind of prioritization of security and privacy or has that always just been a top priority and that's just you know kind of another box to check yeah man it's always been there we haven't seen it impacted from a sigh from a networking perspective tea to date but as we think about applications we're looking for the flexibility in the application stack to adhere to GT bernini quite frankly any other regulatory control been in the insurance industry we are highly regulated and that type of scale and flexibility is something that we look to as we build new products more modern future and John to you I'm just curious you know some of the advantages of bringing these two things together to really bake the security and the SD win appliance what is that enable you to do that you couldn't do so much before well it's all about supporting the business and the applications so corporate for example you know obviously voice is very important to me they speak to a lot of people and branch offices video training their applications in the cloud and so bringing mass security and that networking together and accelerating it means they get a high quality of service to all the applications which are important to their business so what's next John what are some of the the things as you look forward and you see this this market to continuing to evolve you guys are really starting to take a real leadership position what are some of your priorities as you as you look forward and we're gonna flip the calendar here in just a few short months you know and definitely you know sd-1 an application on our appliance has exploded we just announced we're actually in the top three in terms of sd-1 benders globally what's coming next well I think what we call cloud on-ramp isn't very important where we provide specific routes and information to make sure we have even higher QoS of devices and users getting to the applications and I knew that on the land side of it was starting to roll out something called ST branch which gives you the same kind of fabric topology view control and workflow of access from Wi-Fi from Ethernet switching and we've also integrated nak network access control which gives you that visibility control of IOT devices great so I want it I want to give you the last word you know to share with your peers as they're going through this journey a lot of talk about digital transformation but when the rubber hits the road right you actually got to do do the things and do the small things that make a difference as you've gone through this and you've dealt the security you got a lot of remote branches this continuation around hybrid cloud and and distributed infrastructure what are some of the things on your top of mind and what would you share with some of your peers as they you know start to look at some of these technologies well you've got to have an open mindset and obviously like anything it's okay to fail as long as you learn from your mistakes but as we think specifically about our network and coordinate in particular I think trying to reference some of the technologies and that that requires a lot of data so you need to understand what the future looks like and provide a scale and flexible solution for our customers and John also reference Borden ACK we are in the process of deploy in that and it's all about having that single pane of glass in an integrated solution and makes it easier for a smaller supports team to manage and ultimately Triberr you and Ally investments and other parts of their company well Hilton I know we're up against it on the time I want to thank you for for taking some time out of your busy day and lovely Atlanta and sharing your story and John you know nothing but continued success to you and fortunate we've really been happy to be part of the story and share it and come to the conference's and just another step on that on that journey to success thank you thanks a lot all right thanks gentlemen all right you've been watching the cube from our Palo Alto studios thanks for watching we'll see you next time [Music]