>>Live from Las Vegas. It's the cube covering UI path forward Americas 2019 brought to you by UI path. Hello. We've already welcome to Las Vegas. This is day two of the year. >>Path forward conference UI path forward three. So what UI Pat does is they named their events one two three last year we were at Miami in the year before was one. Their North American event, which was in New York city. Here is three at the Bellagio hotel in in Las Vegas. 3000 people here for this rocket ship company growing revenues, they've got over $300 million in annual recurring revenue. That's up from 25 million in 2017 so you're talking about greater than 12 X increase in annual recurring revenues over 3000 employees. Now, Daniel Dienes, the CEO just named the industries the tech industry's latest billionaire. He's now dressing like a billionaire last year. He's in a tee shirt this year. He looks more like a more like a CEO. So we're going to be interviewing him later on today, but let's get right into it. The keynotes today comprised God Kirkwood who gave some predictions and that's her. >>I'm going to go, I'm going to talk about his predictions. I'm going to make some comments on those predictions and give you some thoughts of my own. Maybe throw in a few predictions of from Dave Vellante and then Craig LeClaire from Forrester gave a keynote. He was on the QBs today. Very knowledgeable analysts, probably one of the industry's top analysts, and I'll make some comments on some of the things he said. So let me get right into it. You got Kirkwood when you do these predictions, you know I put 'em out there. Of course it is smart. He's going to do these things and make them somewhat self-serving for RPA and UI path. So I'll make some comments on that as first one. One those was, there'll be a global economic downturn. I can't remember if he actually pinned a date, but I think he said it's in paint pending. >>Let's let's say 2020 he said that's good for RPA. Why would that be good for RPA? Because if there's an economic downturn, people are gonna want to get more. For less, and they're going to want to automate. They're gonna want to spend money and get fast ROI. And RPA potentially is a way to do that. It's not necessarily good news for low wage workers. They're doing mundane tasks. But nonetheless, he made the statement that it's good for our RPA. I would say this, I think a lot of this is going to depend on 2020 and the election in the United States as to what happens. I think it's very unclear right now. You saw the democratic debates last night. It's very clear that there's a, there's a swing to the left. Elizabeth Warren is, is kind of appears to be the front runner. So I would, I would make this prediction. >>I actually think Trump was gonna win the election. You know, don't hate me for saying that all you Trump haters, but I think whatever happens, maybe, maybe doesn't win the election. Maybe he wins the election and then, and then the subsequent election goes to the Democrats. But I think there's going to be a major swing back to the left. And I think that what that's gonna do, it's gonna open up the checkbooks and put more pressure on debt and I don't think there's a real issue right now of too fast economic growth of inflation. It's obviously something that economists watch, but if interest rates start rising back to the Clinton era levels, that means big trouble for the economy. But I don't see that necessarily happening in 2020 I think 2020 we'll see some moderation. I definitely think we're seeing less tech spending expected for Q four and I think that'll spill into 2020 based on the ETR and enterprise technology research data that we see. >>But I think it's actually a healthy pullback. I kind of agree with guy on that front. I actually think it is good for RPA. I think RPA is one of those sectors that you see in the ETR surveys that is gaining share relative to other tech spending and I think that will continue in any downturn. So I expect softness. However you define downturn, I don't think it's going to be falling off the cliff or a disaster, but I definitely think spending will be more tepid. Second thing he said is RPA will become the YouTube for automations. Think of YouTube as a container. I am not going to spend a lot of time on this one. A YouTube and RPA. I think no one's a consumer, but his, his analogy was around a container for automations, just like YouTube was a container for for video. I think they have aspirations to scale like YouTube, but if you look at RPA is a right now a back office, B2B business function and I think it'll stay that way for a couple of years. >>I'll make some statements on that. Automations will move from snowflake to snowball. What does he mean by that? Well today automations are all unique. Every company, and he made this statement feels like it's automations are a snowflake there. Everyone is different and what he's predicting is that over time these automations will become, there'd be more commonality in those automations. I think that's true. I do think while there are definite business processes that are unique to companies that there are a lot of similarities. Things like the UI path marketplace will allow people to share automations and I think there will be much more commonality. I think it's critical for scale. Number four, he said students entering the workforce will force employers to use automation. He didn't give a timeframe on this, but I'll tell you one thing. At a 2020 I've got three kids in college with two kids in college, one that's recently, recently graduated, who does something. >>Most kids in college have no clue what robotic process automation is, let alone what the acronym RPA stands for. So this is going to take some time. asked a hundred college kids what RPA is and I bet you maybe one or two have heard of it, even know what it is. So that's not happening today. I think that'll take probably another two cycles of graduate's before that really hits. We heard from the college of William and Mary yesterday where Tom Clancy and the college have partnered to really push in RPA into the curriculum and I think that's great. I'm going to talk, Tom Clancy's, a expert in the area of training and education that's going to take some time to bake out. So I would put that again. Guy didn't give a timeframe, but I would, I would say that's, that's five to eight years away. Number five, we'll continue to be surprised by the intelligence of machines and the stupidity of humans. >>Well, what he meant by that was there are some things that humans do that are repetitive, that are mistakes. They make the same mistakes over and over and over again, and machines won't necessarily do that. I do think this, that the gap or the number of things, if you make a list between the number of things that humans can do versus what robots can do with a physical or software robots, that gap is closing. There's no question about it. It's, you know, short few years ago, robots couldn't even climb stairs and now they can and you're, you're seeing things like chatbots improving. There's still, you know, a lot of them are still crap frankly, but, but you're going to see a lot of money go into chatbots. And so I do think that that gap will, will close. And I think it's, it's gonna, it's gonna come down to education and creativity in terms of the impact on job loss. >>And I'll make some comments about that in a moment. The six prediction, there are seven overall, so bear with me here. Automation will be discussed in the United nations con and the context will be jobs, wages and global economics. That's already happened. It's already happening. People are concerned about the impact on productivity and, and so, you know, that's a lock. The last one was consolidation amongst RPA vendors and automation led services will accelerate. I totally agree with this. He mentioned work fusion and amp works as two companies that are gonna. We're going to where we're going to see consolidation. We've already seen it. SAP got bought Contexto so you see in the big whales come into this market in four talks a lot about RPA. Anytime there's a fast growing software segment like RPA and as a leader like UI path, would you other companies all you know on their tail automation anywhere and blue prism automation anywhere in UI path have a ton of dough. >>You're going to see the big software companies say, wait a minute, I need a piece of that pie. Because software companies generally feel like every dime that's spent on software should go to them. That's the mentality of an SAP or an Oracle or even IBM and so either, unquestionably, you're going to see some consolidation. You mentioned service providers as well. Companies like symphony. I've been making a lot of comparisons this week between what I see in the UI path ecosystem and what I saw way back in the early part of this decade in the service now ecosystem. You had a company with Fritz like cloud sharper, which nobody ever heard of. They were a service management ITSMs expert and Accenture eventually snapped them up and came in. You saw DXC or CSC at the time do the same thing. And so I think you'll see the same thing here in this ecosystem. >>This ecosystem here is happening. It's buzzing, but it's got to grow and, and you're already seeing Deloitte and cognizant and E Y and PWC. The big guys could have jump in here. I often say that SIS love to eat at the trough and they know where the money is and the money appears to be in RPA because really there's so many screwed up processes inside companies. RPA is actually can give them a quick ROI. Now let me turn to some of my thoughts on this. Let me talk about the job impact of automation the vendors would have. You believe that it's all good, that people love this and and when they bring in software robots, it makes their lives better because they're doing less money, less money, less of the mundane tasks, and they're able to focus on new, more strategic things to our customer that we've talked to here in the cube. >>And also privately. This is true, people do love your software. Robots. When we were Jean younger yesterday from security benefit. If you Civ most excited she's ever been, you know, having said that, Craig Le Claire's research shows that over the next 10 years we will see a 16% job loss of jobs will disappear, rolls will disappear, and by the way, foresters at the low end of the spectrum of that forecast. Most forecast say 30 40% of jobs are going to get disrupted. I tend to believe that Craig's number is probably a better one at the lower end of that spectrum, but that's still a huge number. You are going to see unquestionably job impact from automation. Absolutely. No question in my mind. I think you're already seeing it now. Look it. Humans have always been replaced by machines, but for the first time in history we're seeing Keith cognitive functions replacing humans and as going to have a big disruptive impact on the workforce. >>And the other piece of this I would predict we are going to see a productivity boost. I think a significant productivity boost. Let me share you some data with the Bureau of labor statistics, which you know, you may look at that, you know in question some of their methodologies, but over the longterm, I think it's a viable metric from 2007 to 2018 productivity grew at 1.3% that's an anemic rate from from 1947 to 2018 productivity grew at 2.1% so Oh seven to 18 half the longterm productivity gain, 2000 to 2007 2.7% and then from, and then what we saw in Q one of 19 3.4% uptick in productivity. Is that sustainable? I think it is. I think we're now entering a, a new phase of productivity growth and I think it's gonna be driven by things like RPA and other automation. So that is going to have an impact back to the earlier statements on job loss. >>Okay. The other thing is I want to talk about the forecast, the market. Last year at UI path two in Miami, I said that I thought that forecast was low. They had like $4 billion by 2020 and I sort of called out Craig LaClaire on that, you know, and so I said this could be 10 billion by 2020 now he clarified that today up on stage. I was including services in, in my prediction, correct. Declares follows this market much more closely than I do. So I'll defer to him on, on on that. But he put in the services number and he showed the services to license ratio of around, you know, three X or so. But he actually had this very serial number about 10 billion by 2020 so I felt, felt good about that. That kind of bat my back of napkin prediction. I used to do this stuff at IDC for a living. >>So you know, actually got a little knack for that on an analog basis. Then he showed sort of his, his forecast for the market, you know, growing at a very linear rate. Now I'll say this, I think hot markets like RPA, they generally don't grow at a, at a, at a linear steady rate. If you look at some of the emerging forecasts that I, you know, for instance, IDC had in my years there, we would always have these linear like smooth growth forecasts. You know, some of those big markets, you know, think, you know, early days of the PC, the, the, the, the internet flash storage, you know, things of that nature. They tend to, these disruptive technologies tend to grow in an curve or an S curve. So what you see is sort of this momentum building where the market is being seeded. Know Gardner has RPA now in the trough of disillusionment. >>So you're seeing some of this, okay, the little engine that could, and then what you see is this steep part of the S curve growing and then after it explodes and hits escape velocity, it's sort of stretches out into maturity. And I think that's what you're going to see with RPA. But some things have to happen before that happens. And one is specifically the RPA has to move from the back office to the front office. It has to move from only really dealing with pretty simple, mundane tasks to more complicated automations. It's got to be able to deal with unstructured data. It's gotta be able to handle on attended or rather attended bots where you're injecting humans into the equation and you're actually using machine learning and artificial intelligence to to learn and then identify other areas of automation and actually have systems of agency that can act. >>In other words, a bot will call another bot that actually can complete a transaction and so you're going to see a lot of money spent here. This is a big chasm. I think that RPA has to cross. We're going to talk to Daniel DNAs about this. He's a big ticker. He's a go big or go home guy, and so I think those things I would predict those things actually are going to happen because you're going to see so much effort and money and emphasis put into AI and for competitive advantage that I actually think that RPA can lead that and then again come back to the consolidation. I think you will see some consolidation. I think you're seeing UI path. Try to take the lead automation anywhere is kind of pressing the lead if you will. Both companies have raised a couple of billion dollars if you combine them and I think the way this market shakes out is any and you're going to have some of the big whales come in like SAP. >>I think the way this happened is you're going to see one or two specialists emerge. I think UI path is on its way there automation anywhere as well and and the number one player is going to make a lot of money. The number two players going to do two. OK the number three player is going to struggle and everybody else is kinda be either break even or they're going to bundle it in like SAP as part of their overall portfolio and compete on that basis. So I would predict that UI path will maintain its lead. I think its got the culture to do that. I think automation anywhere also could company is going to keep pressing that lead and those should are two companies you know that you need to watch me. Interesting to see. Blue prism, I think they are somewhat under capitalized. They went to the public markets. >>The spending data actually shows all three of these companies as well as some of the legacy companies like Pega systems actually gaining could have more share relative to other initiatives. So I think even some of these legacy companies are going to continue to chug along and actually do pretty well in the business. But, but the real darling, you know, I think it's going to be UI path. All the bankers are hovering around earlier on this week trying to get their business. They know there's an IPO coming at some point. Again, we'll ask Daniel Dienes about that today. You have it. That's my intro. Some of my predictions. Some a guy Kirkwood's predictions. Wall-to-wall coverage on the cube today, day two at UI path forward three from Las Vegas. We'll be right back right after this short break.

>> Live from Boston Massachusetts, it's theCUBE, covering AWS re:Inforce 2019. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and its ecosystem partners. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to the live cube coverage here in Boston Massachusetts. This is theCUBE's coverage, I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. Special guest Shira Rubinoff, president of Prime Tech, Cybermind genius, VIP influencer. Love havin' her on. We are here at AWS re:Inforce, AWS inaugural event. Great to have you on, be host with us and to do more hosting and co-hosting with us as we bring the community cube to security. >> Excellent, I think this is the perfect conference to do that. >> Shira and Dave, so day one's in the books. We got another full day of coverage, a lot of action happening. I think the seminal point of this event is that you have Amazon Web Services. They already run the biggest event, re:Invent. They have summits all around the world. Some summits get huge numbers but this has been rebranded, re:Inforce, by design, this is not another summit, Dave, this is a game statement from Amazon. >> Well, Pat Gelsinger, several years ago, told us on theCube security's a do over, it's got to be reinvented and Amazon is reinforcing that message. And, rebuilding it from the ground up with developers and the security is code mindset. Your thoughts. >> Now certainly as technology advances, cloud security has to advance as well and the cloud is looking towards technology to know how to differentiate itself and continue to add to it and change up. And, as we talk about AWS, they secure the cloud and the customers have to secure in the cloud. Which is a very important piece because it almost lends itself. When people are talking about, how do you secure an environment and even if you look at organizations, there's a talk between the CIO, what's the role of a CIO and what's the role of a COO. Almost look at it like how AWS really positions itself. Securing the cloud, securing in the cloud, securing the industry itself, securing within the company. And, what AWS really has seen and really is doing is it's saying you got to work hand in hand, it has to be a partnership. And, a partnership is able to secure things much better than a one person. Because then you're putting the ownness on everybody and if everybody is actually thinking about security all the time, it's going to yield best security. >> And the things we heard, Shira, I want to get your thoughts on, encryption always on, everyone's watching, so, shared responsibility, these are the buzz words, reasoning. This is industry wide. I know you do a lot of traveling, do a lot of public speaking. You do a lot of work with some of the big companies and their transformations. What are you seeing? Because, you're out there getting the data, we got some data. What's the big trend, what's the macro trend right now, the most important story that needs to be told in this new reimagined security renaissance? >> Well, I think it's just that. I think that people are moving towards the cloud for the reasons of, one plus one equals three. You're going to have the security of the cloud and you're also going to have the security of the organization within the cloud. And the organizations are realizing today moving to the cloud they could have better overall security. So, that is the trend that I'm seeing, certainly from the larger companies out there and the smaller ones are building it from the ground up. They're saying, you know what, let's make it a solution that we're going to build, going right from day one and not putting band-aids on it to try to make it to secure after. So, they're really learning from the experts. >> Dave, I want to get your thoughts with Shira on this because all three of us do a lot of content. We make content for a living, we kind of think about that with users in mind, the audience. Well I overheard a couple of things at this event that I've been hearing at other events. Open ecosystems and the partner networks are developing. And so that makes a lot of sense, integration's a big part of security but I hear people saying, I want to meet more people, I wannna meet the person who runs, partners of that company. So, you have, I've seen for the first time a real hunger-- >> Yeah >> for social interaction at the events, more hunger for understanding who the other partners, not just what they sell-- >> You know what? >> but what's on their mind. >> So interesting, you bring that up and that's a very new piece we are seeing today. It used to be, this is my information and I'm not sharing it with you. I'm going to build something and you're going to have to guess what I'm doing because that's my secret sauce but companies were realizing that's not going to work. We need to collaborate, we need to share ideas. And the biggest companies are all banding together to share the best breed of technology and the best breed of way how to deal with security. Because, they realize that we're all trying to protect also from the same bad actors out there and they realize by collaborating, they're all stronger as a whole and stronger by themselves as well. So, this collaboration is a big deal and that's taking the trends forward >> Dave, what's your take on this? >> Well and it comes back to something we've talked about a lot today and over the years in theCube is this whole API economy. For decades, we've been trying to solve the distributed systems problem. You saw it in little pockets, obviously the internet, but it's in limited work loads. >> Amazon kind of did that. >> And Amazon has solved that problem. Massively scalable distributed systems and then, now it's okay, how do you secure it? So the shared responsibility model is very interesting and I think misunderstood. The number one problem we're hearing here, that customers are having is keeping up with Amazon because Amazon's moving at such a fast pace. That's so rare in the technology industry, where the vendors are always a little bit ahead of the customers but not light-years ahead. Amazon is just, like, pushing them out of the plane. And, so, I think the shared responsibility model is very important, I think it's misunderstood. >> Yes. >> I think people were expecting, oh, Amazon can take care of everything in the cloud and that's not the case. >> Correct. >> So-- >> Well if you're going to use the pushing out of the airplane analogy, you got to say, you got to make sure the parachute opens. >> Well. >> So when you pull the ripcord, this is what companies have to understand, that they got to be compatible with the way the architecture of cloud-native works and the right way to lift in shifts. So, there's a way to lift in shifts and there's a way not to lift in shifts. You can lift and shift infrastructure but you can't lift and shift entire workloads. >> Very true but also, making somebody responsible for their can of worms is important too. Because that also leads back to culture of the organization. If security is part of culture and they have responsibility as within the cloud that Amazon is pushing. You handle within the cloud, that's your wheelhouse, you do that, that's becoming something that becomes part of culture and is a everyday thing. Which, in turn I talk a lot about cyber-hygiene within organization, it's not just training, it's not just awareness, it's not just security and patching, and not just zero, there's also being aware of it and making it an everyday item, that has to be utilized. Amazon is right on the button with this. >> You know, I heard a phrase. >> Yeah. >> The best thing about doing these Cube interviews is that, you meet such smart people and learn a lot. But, I love the quote I heard from the co-founder of Sumo Logic. He was awesome and he said, "Process is a reflection of culture." And so in a digital transformation equation, which we all know, it's the cliche, people process technology. >> People process technology. >> People with talent gaps or skill gaps get it, technology plenty of tech, now, the process. >> Well, the process-- >> That's always the hardest nut to crack and most people won't give it up and they won't fight for it. >> Yeah. >> It's the most important. >> But, that's also the glue between the two. You're not going to have a secure environment if you're just dealing with security and you're not going to have a secure environment just dealing with the people. The process in the middle, the process, yes, the Canadian land of it. That's the glue between it. That's what makes it run and you have to get to that. As you were saying, you have to get to the process, you got to make that run well and then you nail the two together, that's full security. >> The other big thing here, not this conference but a theme that we've talked about for quite some time on theCube, is this notion of big tech. So it's been said that Amazon, Facebook, Google, maybe even Microsoft. Elizabeth Warren saying, break up big tech. Amazon, people have said, split AWS out from core Amazon retail. What do you guys think about that? Is that the right thing to do? >> No, I don't think it's the right thing to do. >> Why not? >> Like I said we had, Jimmy on earlier. They're not breaking any laws. And then, why would you want to take down what could be a competitive advantage for national security. >> Correct. >> AI is going to be, and machine learning, and the role of data is going to be a power source for good and also for safety. >> Of course. >> So why would you want to take the best companies, who are doing the best work, and handicap 'em, over one argument? That Facebook wasn't responsible in dealing with making billions of dollars in free cash flow. >> So the argument is-- >> And , in the election they broke democracy-- >> Okay, too big. That's not a good argument. >> No. >> Maybe, appropriating our data to sell more ads that should be looked at, don't you think? >> I just don't buy the tech for bad argument because, yes, some bad things have happened but the regulators and the law makers, you can't legislate what you don't understand, you can't regulate what you don't understand. So, as it's been coming out from the biggest minds in tech and in government, the law makers aren't smart enough yet. It's like they're in kindergarten, crayon outside the lines, they're tryin' to write. They don't even know what tech is, so. >> You know what, you've been taking about the Chernobyl, push the buttons, I feel like that's what public policy is putting forth. Just push the buttons now and blow it up. Rather, public policy should catch up, understand it and maybe set a framework and put in laws. So that we have a clear understanding. >> Our current government is like that scene in Chernobyl. >> Oh my god. >> That is exactly what's happening, Dave. You can apply that metaphor, just do it. >> The problem is there's no proper regulation yet. >> Right. >> You got to get everyone in the room and everybody has to agree, at least on a initial framework. We've started but we're no where near where we need to be. You have to look at safety of our nation and that's a big factor. I've gone to Congress, as a part of Cybersecurity Women, testifying for Congress and talking about this and they still don't have a handle. There's nobody who's running the ship. >> Describe what it was like there. >> Well, I went down with the executive woman for Women's Forum, which was an amazing group. We went down there, we talked to different people in Congress. They're very open to it and they realize that we really need to do something. The problem is it's very disorganized. Sadly, it's way too disorganized. Nobody knows who's calling the shots. There's a nice bunch of different groups that are working towards it but there's no one at the helm of it saying, all right, let's all fall into place and do it. Little pockets, doing little things, but not everybody banding together. That needs to change, that has to change. I'm hoping it's coming down to where it's going to be something. >> I think there's going to be a revolution in a positive way. Where again, back to my tech for good thing. I don't think people yet know how to articulate what tech for good is. There's plenty more use cases where tech could be used for good, than there are bad. Bad is always an early adopter before good. We've seen that in the web, the underbelly of multiple trends. But, the reality is, I see the bad as bad but I see so much more good going on that could be enabled. That's what I'm afraid of, that they litigate what's happening for bad and they screw the good. >> It's almost like technology, right? You have to be proactive, as well as reactive. Everybody is running to be reactive to a problem but no one was being proactive. Now, technology is understanding we have to be proactive, as well as reactive. Same like your saying, John, it has to happen from the front. >> All right, so, while you're here, I want to get you and Dave to weigh in on this, cause it's been near and dear to my heart for many years, over a decade. Humans and machines, this conversation's been discussed, here again, Dave, some of the smartest people in the industry are reiterating, Brian from, again, Sumo Logic, he's got a great view on this and there's others as well. The role of the human really is important, not just having machines do all this automation. It's not about job replacement, it's more the craft of creating outcomes that are going to be acceptable for defense, or for good, the human's critical. Your guys thoughts. >> Sure, so, we talk automation, right? People are afraid of that, they're saying, robots and machines are going to replace us. Not true. Downright it takes away menial tasks which will be giving jobs and actually creating jobs in a more meaningful way. I talk a lot about the human factors of technology and cybersecurity. Think about it, a human is developing technology to help a human, a human is using technology to hurt a human, what's the common factor? The human. We're dealing with people, they're not being replaced. There's always going to be humans there. So machines are going to help us with automation. It's going to help us with digital transformation, we'll throw the buzz words out there but they're actually meaningful, if you dial back and understand that. I think people are weary of it because they don't understand it. If they're not understanding, how it could actually help an organization, how it can be used right, then there's fear. So, we couple back to education. Education coupled with humans, machines, technology, we're going to have something very strong and really, really good. So, it's not something to be fearful of. It's something to educate yourself and be excited about and move along with technology, as it advances. >> Well, machines have always replaced humans, for various tasks. So, that's sort of natural. For the first time in history, we're replacing cognitive tasks and I think that's scares a lot of people. And, I think you're right on Shira, the answer is not to protect the past from the future, it's education. >> Correct. >> Because, innovation, we've talked about this, innovation comes from now a combination of things, it's not just Moore's law or new products that are coming out at some rapid pace. It's the combination of data, artificial intelligence, the cloud for scale. This combinatorial innovation is going to require new creativity, new thinking, and education is at the heart of that. So, I think the question is, what can public policy be to foster that? Are we teaching the right things? Is public policy and public and private partnerships fostering that type of innovation? And, so, I think there's reasons to be concerned in terms of productivity, impacts on wages, et cetera, et cetera. But, I'm an optimist, I think the future is very, very, bright. >> Okay, so, as we wrap down day one, great to have you on as a guest host, we're going to do a lot more coverage, so, we're going to be collaborating and we're going to initiate coverage of the security sector with theCube. You're going to start seeing us do a lot more events, distracting you from the noise, a lot more community involvement outreach, looking for participation and help from our friends, Cube alumni, the 8000 plus Cube alumni's that are out there, join us if you got some security chops, you know people in security have something to add, we're always open. We're here at re:Inforce. What's your guys thoughts here? I think it's a great event. I think it's going to be one of those moments, where we were present at creation, again, for another big wave, it's coming. Your thoughts about re:Inforce. >> Well, I think re:Inforce has found it's niche. I think it's needed. I think cloud security is being embraced. I think there's a real need for it. And, I think just highlighting those actions, that their taking is very much needed and we're going to see a lot more out of re:Inforce, for sure. >> Yeah, I agree, I mean critical mass here. I guess 8000 or so people that care about security, specifically care about cloud security, it's just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. >> I mean, I was impressed by, first of all, that great cloud security across the board. I was really impressed by the amount of heavy hitters that are here and it's the heavy hitters that aren't the big exec brand names, the CEO of this company. You had the working CEOs of the startups, CEOs of the startups, the key biz dev people, the key marketing people-- >> CECOs >> and the CECOs are here, because they're investing. >> That's the pain point, they're feeling like they know. >> They're investing together and they're building out, in real time, it's really fast, a community around cloud security. >> So, it's interesting. So, you know, Andy Jassy's not here. You don't see Theresa. But, what you do see, is the CECO saying, I'm betting my business on the cloud, I can't scale without the cloud. I have to be at this show. And, your seeing, maybe, it's a little bit of Andy and Theresa, let go to grow and then sort of pyramid out. That innovation. >> Well, I saw Jassy at Public Sector Summit. I should of asked him this-- >> They can't be anywhere. >> I inferred from his response, when I did ask him if he's coming, is that in looking at how they're executing, they don't need the big guns here because the team's doing it. It's one of those, when you have organic chemistry coming together. You don't want the big execs being go do it. >> Sure >> You got to let it foster on it's own and that's why I'm impressed by the people here because they're the ones that are putting the sparks of creativity together, they're putting deals together, relationships are forming. That's how organic community is built. >> And, I don't think the people here want to hear, frankly, from Andy. They can hear from Andy at re:Invent. And, so, what they want to hear is the substance that they heard in the key notes today >> Security, call security. >> those are some serious-- >> Well for an inaugural event, this is amazing, right? For the sheer size of it, for a first time event is amazing and having the heavy hitters, like you said, really invested, and time, people don't have time. And to actually invest their time here and want to be here and want to learn and want to share. That speaks volumes. >> And, that's not to say Andy Jassy doesn't have substance. His key notes are among the best and there always-- >> But, you know, he's scripted >> super substantive >> But, here's the thing-- >> But, when it comes to security deep dives, you don't want to hear from him. You want to hear from somebody like Shmidt today. >> Well, some public information that I found out, that's now public is that there are a 100,000 security subscriptions in AWS marketplace. >> Wow. >> One million subscriptions paid for in AWS marketplace, as a whole. 100,000 plus security software buys there. >> Wow. >> Okay. That's huge. >> Yes >> Huge for a little cottage industry going on called Cloud Security. >> Look at the rate the industry's growing. Look at Cisco, we were just at Cisco a couple weeks ago. Cisco's a huge company, 40 billion dollar company. Their security practice is growing 21% a year. I mean, that's huge for a company that's growing basically single digits. >> Well, we'll have Josh on, sorry go ahead. >> Yeah, no, I said, just looking at all these large companies that we're all talking to and that we're dealing with, some that I'm consulting to. People are moving to the cloud and they're saying, that one of the big reasons or the reason, is for extra and more leveled security. So, I think cloud is going to be taking the forefront and I think it's going to be much bigger than people really think. >> And, customers are telling us, they want more innovation from the security vendor community and, again, that comes from cloud. The data comes from cloud, comes from machine intelligence. You put those things together-- >> Shira, great to have you on. Dave, as always profound insight, taking a red eye, you're an all day warrior. Energizer bunny. Cube coverage here, AWS re:Inforce, day one. Day two tomorrow, thanks for watching. >> Thank you. (techno music)

>> Live from San Francisco, California, it's theCUBE covering the IBM Chief Data Officer Summit. Brought to you by IBM. >> Hi everybody, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the IBM Chief Data Officer Event. We're here at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco at the Centric Hyatt Hotel. This is the 10th anniversary of IBM's Chief Data Officer Summits. In the recent years, anyway, they do one in San Francisco and one in Boston each year, and theCUBE has covered a number of them. I think this is our eighth CDO conference. I'm Dave Vellante, and theCUBE, we like to go out, especially to events like this that are intimate, there's about 140 chief data officers here. We've had the chief data officer from AstraZeneca on, even though he doesn't take that title. We've got a panel coming up later on in the day. And I want to talk about the evolution of that role. The chief data officer emerged out of kind of a wonky, back-office role. It was all about 10, 12 years ago, data quality, master data management, governance, compliance. And as the whole big data meme came into focus and people were realizing that data is the new source of competitive advantage, that data was going to be a source of innovation, what happened was that role emerged, that CDO, chief data officer role, emerged out of the back office and came right to the front and center. And the chief data officer really started to better understand and help companies understand how to monetize the data. Now monetization of data could mean more revenue. It could mean cutting costs. It could mean lowering risk. It could mean, in a hospital situation, saving lives, sort of broad definition of monetization. But it was really understanding how data contributed to value, and then finding ways to operationalize that to speed up time to value, to lower cost, to lower risk. And that required a lot of things. It required new skill sets, new training. It required a partnership with the lines of business. It required new technologies like artificial intelligence, which have just only recently come into a point where it's gone mainstream. Of course, when I started in the business several years ago, AI was the hot topic, but you didn't have the compute power. You didn't have the data, you didn't have the cloud. So we see the new innovation engine, not as Moore's Law, the doubling of transistors every 18 months, doubling of performance. Really no, we see the new innovation cocktail as data as the substrate, applying machine intelligence to that data, and then scaling it with the cloud. And through that cloud model, being able to attract startups and innovation. I come back to the chief data officer here, and IBM Chief Data Officer Summit, that's really where the chief data officer comes in. Now, the role in the organization is fuzzy. If you ask people what's a chief data officer, you'll get 20 different answers. Many answers are focused on compliance, particularly in what emerged, again, in those regulated industries: financial service, healthcare, and government. Those are the first to have chief data officers. But now CDOs have gone mainstream. So what we're seeing here from IBM is the broadening of that role and that definition and those responsibilities. Confusing things is the chief digital officer or the chief analytics officer. Those are roles that have also emerged, so there's a lot of overlap and a lot of fuzziness. To whom should the chief data officer report? Many say it should not be the CIO. Many say they should be peers. Many say the CIO's responsibility is similar to the chief data officer, getting value out of data, although I would argue that's never really been the case. The role of the CIO has largely been to make sure that the technology infrastructure works and that applications are delivered with high availability, with great performance, and are able to be developed in an agile manner. That's sort of a more recent sort of phenomenon that's come forth. And the chief digital officer is really around the company's face. What does that company's brand look like? What does that company's go-to-market look like? What does the customer see? Whereas the chief data officer's really been around the data strategy, what the sort of framework should be around compliance and governance, and, again, monetization. Not that they're responsible for the monetization, but they responsible for setting that framework and then communicating it across the company, accelerating the skill sets and the training of existing staff and complementing with new staff and really driving that framework throughout the organization in partnership with the chief digital officer, the chief analytics officer, and the chief information officer. That's how I see it anyway. Martin Schroeder, the senior vice president of IBM, came on today with Inderpal Bhandari, who is the chief data officer of IBM, the global chief data officer. Martin Schroeder used to be the CFO at IBM. He talked a lot, kind of borrowing from Ginni Rometty's themes in previous conferences, chapter one of digital which he called random acts of digital, and chapter two is how to take this mainstream. IBM makes a big deal out of the fact that it doesn't appropriate your data, particularly your personal data, to sell ads. IBM's obviously in the B2B business, so that's IBM's little back-ended shot at Google and Facebook and Amazon who obviously appropriate our data to sell ads or sell goods. IBM doesn't do that. I'm interested in IBM's opinion on big tech. There's a lot of conversations now. Elizabeth Warren wants to break up big tech. IBM was under the watchful eye of the DOJ 25 years ago, 30 years ago. IBM essentially had a monopoly in the business, and the DOJ wanted to make sure that IBM wasn't using that monopoly to hurt consumers and competitors. Now what IBM did, the DOJ ruled that IBM had to separate its applications business, actually couldn't be in the applications business. Another ruling was that they had to publish the interfaces to IBM mainframes so that competitors could actually build plug-compatible products. That was the world back then. It was all about peripherals plugging into mainframes and sort of applications being developed. So the DOJ took away IBM's power. Fast forward 30 years, now we're hearing Google, Amazon, and Facebook coming under fire from politicians. Should they break up those companies? Now those companies are probably the three leaders in AI. IBM might debate that. I think generally, at theCUBE and SiliconANGLE, we believe that those three companies are leading the charge in AI, along with China Inc: Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, et cetera, and the Chinese government. So here's the question. What would happen if you broke up big tech? I would surmise that if you break up big tech, those little techs that you break up, Amazon Web Services, WhatsApp, Instagram, those little techs would get bigger. Now, however, the government is implying that it wants to break those up because those entities have access to our data. Google's got access to all the search data. If you start splitting them up, that'll make it harder for them to leverage that data. I would argue those small techs would get bigger, number one. Number two, I would argue if you're worried about China, which clearly you're seeing President Trump is worried about China, placing tariffs on China, playing hardball with China, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a good thing because China has been accused, and we all know, of taking IP, stealing IP essentially, and really not putting in those IP protections. So, okay, playing hardball to try to get a quid pro quo on IP protections is a good thing. Not good for trade long term. I'd like to see those trade barriers go away, but if it's a negotiation tactic, okay. I can live with it. However, going after the three AI leaders, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, and trying to take them down or break them up, actually, if you're a nationalist, could be a bad thing. Why would you want to handcuff the AI leaders? Third point is unless they're breaking the law. So I think that should be the decision point. Are those three companies, and others, using monopoly power to thwart competition? I would argue that Microsoft actually did use its monopoly power back in the '80s and '90s, in particular in the '90s, when it put Netscape out of business, it put Lotus out of business, it put WordPerfect out of business, it put Novell out of the business. Now, maybe those are strong words, but in fact, Microsoft's bundling, its pricing practices, caught those companies off guard. Remember, Jim Barksdale, the CEO of Netscape, said we don't need the browser. He was wrong. Microsoft killed Netscape by bundling Internet Explorer into its operating system. So the DOJ stepped in, some would argue too late, and put handcuffs on Microsoft so they couldn't use that monopoly power. And I would argue that you saw from that two things. One, granted, Microsoft was overly focused on Windows. That was kind of their raison d'etre, and they missed a lot of other opportunities. But the DOJ definitely slowed them down, and I think appropriately. And if out of that myopic focus on Windows, and to a certain extent, the Department of Justice and the government, the FTC as well, you saw the emergence of internet companies. Now, Microsoft did a major pivot to the internet. They didn't do a major pivot to the cloud until Satya Nadella came in, and now Microsoft is one of those other big tech companies that is under the watchful eye. But I think Microsoft went through that and perhaps learned its lesson. We'll see what happens with Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Facebook, in particular, seems to be conflicted right now. Should we take down a video that has somewhat fake news implications or is a deep hack? Or should we just dial down? We saw this recently with Facebook. They dialed down the promotion. So you almost see Facebook trying to have its cake and eat it too, which personally, I don't think that's the right approach. I think Facebook either has to say damn the torpedoes. It's open content, we're going to promote it. Or do the right thing and take those videos down, those fake news videos. It can't have it both ways. So Facebook seems to be somewhat conflicted. They are probably under the most scrutiny now, as well as Google, who's being accused, anyway, certainly we've seen this in the EU, of promoting its own ads over its competitors' ads. So people are going to be watching that. And, of course, Amazon just having too much power. Having too much power is not necessarily an indication of abusing monopoly power, but you know the government is watching. So that bears watching. theCUBE is going to be covering that. We'll be here all day, covering the IBM CDO event. I'm Dave Vallente, you're watching theCUBE. #IBMCDO, DM us or Tweet us @theCUBE. I'm @Dvallente, keep it right there. We'll be right back right after this short break. (upbeat music)

>> From Boston, Massachusetts. It's theCUBE. Covering Actifio 2019 Data Driven. (upbeat techno music) Brought to you by Actifio. >> Hello everyone and welcome to Boston and theCUBE's special coverage of Actifio Data Driven 19. I'm Dave Vellante. Stu Miniman is here. We've got a special guest, John Furrier is in the house from from Palo Alto. Guys, theCUBE we love to go out on the ground, you know, we go deep. We're here at this data theme, right? We were there in the early days, John, you called me up and say, "Get your butt here, we're going to cover the first of Doop World". And since then things have moved quite fast. Everybody thought, you know, Hadoop Big Data was going to take over the world. Nobody even uses that term anymore, right? It's kind of, now it's AI, and machine intelligence, and block chain, and everything else. So what do you think is happening? Did the early Big Data days fail? You know, Frank Genus this morning called it The experimentation phase. >> I mean, I don't really think Frank has a good handle on what's going on in my opinion, cause I think it's not an experimentation, it's real. That was a wave that was essentially the beginning of, not an experimentation, of realization and reality that data, unstructured data in particular was real and relevant. Hadoop looked good off the tee, mill the fairway as we say, but the thing about the Hadoop ecosystem is that validated big data. Every financial institution jumped on it. Everyone who knew anything about data or had data issues or had a lot of data, knew the value. It's just that the apparatus to build via Hadoop was too expensive. In comes Cloud computing at scale, so, as Cloud was accelerating, you look at the Amazon Web Services Revenue Chart you can almost see the D mark where the inflection point is on the hockey stick of Amazon's revenue numbers. And that is the point in time where Hadoop was on the declining of failure. Hortonworks sold the Cloudera. Cloudera's earnings are at an all-time low. A lot of speculation of their entire strategy, and their venture back company went public, but bet the ranch to be the next data warehouse. That wasn't the business model. The data business was a completely new industry, completely being re-transformed, and, far from experimentation, it is real and definitely growing like a weed, but changing because of the underpinning infrastructure dynamics of Cloud Native, Microservices, and that's only going to get highly accelerated and the people who talk about context of industry like Frank, are going to be off. Their predictions will be off because they don't really see the new picture clear enough, in my opinion, >> So, >> I think he's off. >> So it's not so much of a structural change like it was when we went from, you know, mainframes to PCs, it's more of a sort of flow, evolution into this new area which is being driven, powered by new technologies, we talk about block chain machine intelligence and other things. >> Well, I mean, the make up of companies that were building quote, "Big Data Solutions", were trying to build an apparatus or mechanisms to solve big data problems, but none of them actually had the big data problem. None of them were full of data. None of them had a lot of data. The ones that had problems were the financial institutions, the credit card companies, the people who were doing a lot of large scale, um, with Google, Facebook, and some of the hyperscalers. They were actually dealing with the data tsunami themselves, so the practitioners ended up driving it. You guys at Wikibomb, we pointed this out on theCUBE many times, that the value was going to come from the practitioners not the suppliers of so called technology. So, you know, the Clouderas of the world who thought Hadoop would be relevant and growing as a technology were right on one side, on the other side of the coin was the Cloud decimation of that sector. The Cloud computer just completely blew away that Hadoop market because you didn't have to hire a PhD, you didn't have to hire specialty skills to stand up Hadoop clusters. You could actually throw it in the Cloud and get agile quickly, and get value out of data very very quickly. That has been real, it has not been an experiment. There's been new case studies, new companies born, new brands, so it's not an experiment, it is reality, and it's only going to get more real every day. >> And I add of course now you've got, you mentioned Cloudera and Hortenworks, you also got Matt Bar reeling Stu. Let's talk about Actifio. So they coined the term Copy Data Management, they created the category, of course they do a lot of backup, I mean, everybody in this space does a lot of backup. And then you saw the Silicon Valley companies come in. Particularly Cohesity and Rubric, you know, to a lesser extent he got some other guys like Zerto and Durva, but it was really those two companies, Cohesity and Rubric, they raised more money in their D round than Actifio has since inception. But yet Actifio keeps, you know, plodding along, growing, you know, word is they're profitable, you know, they're not like this really sectioned very East Coast versus kind of West Coast mentality. What's your take on what's going on? >> Yeah, so, Dave right, you look at the early days of Actifio and you say great, Copy Data Management, I have all these copies of data, how do I reduce my cost, get greater utilization than I have and leverage the data? I love the title of the show here, Data Driven. You know, we know at the center of digital transformation if you can't become data driven, like the CMO Brian Regan got up on stage talk about that industrialization of data. How am I going along that journey being this, I collected data versus now, you know, data, you know, is the reason that I make decisions, how I make decisions, I get smarter. The Cloud of course is a huge enabler of this, there's all these services that I can instantly access to be able to get greater insight, and move along with that environment, and if you look underneath all of these backup companies, it's really how I can change that data into business value and drive my business, the metadata underneath and all those pieces, not just the wonky storage and technical solutions that make things better, and I get a faster ROI. It's that data at the core of what we do and how do I get that as a business to accelerate. Because we know IT needs to be able to respond back to the business and data needs to be that rocket fuel. >> Is it the case of data haves and data have-nots? I mean, Amazon has data >> I mean, you're right-- >> and Facebook has data. >> We're talking about Actifio, you brought that up, okay, on this segment, on the inside segment, which is cool, they're here at the event, but they have a good opportunity but they also, they got some challenges. I mean, the thing about Actifio is, to my earlier point, which side of the wave are they on? Are they out too much out front with virtualization and Amazon, the Cloud will take them away, or are they riding the Cloud wave, making that an enabler? And I think what really I like about Actifio is because they have a lot of virtualization capabilities, the question is can they scale that Stu, to containers and microservices, because, the real opportunity in this market, in my opinion, is going to build on the virtualization trend, and make container aware, microservices capabilities because if they don't, then that would be a tell sign. Now either way it's a hot M&A market right now, so I think being in the market, horse on the track as you say. You look at the tableau sales force deal monster numbers we are in clearly a hot IPO market and a major roll up market on the M&A side. I think clearly there's two types of companies, old and new, and that is really what people are looking at, are they part of the old guard, are they the new guard. So, you know, this to me is going to be a tell sign of what they do next, can they make the data driven value proposition, you articulated Stu, actually a reality It's going to come from the technology underneath. >> Well I think it's a really interesting point you're making because, Stu as you probably know, that Amazon announced the Amazon backup service right, and you talked about the backup guys and they're like, "Ah yeah it's backup, but it really doesn't do recovery, it's really not that robust". It's part of me says, "Uh oh"... >> Watch out. >> You better move fast", because Amazon has stated, "Hey if you don't move fast we're going to just keep gobbling", and you've seen Amazon do this. What are your thoughts on that? Can these specialists, can they survive, John's talking about M&A. Can the market support all these guys along with the big, you know, traditional guys like Veritas, and Dell EMC, and IBM and Combol? >> Right, well so Actifio started very much in the data center. They were before this Could wave really took off. It's really only in the last year that they've been sassifying their product. So the question is, does that underlying IP, which wasn't tied to hardware, but, you know, sat at really more of, you know, reminded us of that storage virtualization battles that we talked about for years, Dave, but now they are going in the Cloud. They've got all the partnerships in the Cloud, but they are competing against those new vendors that you talked about like Cohesity and Rubric out there, and there's big money chasing this environment. So, you know, I want to talk to the customers here and find out, you know, where they are using them, and especially some of those first customers using this--. >> Well they clearly need a Cloud play cause that's clearly where the action is. But if you look at what's going on with Amazon, Azure, and Google you see a lot of on premises, Stu, because that's where the customers are. So just because the customers are currently not migrating their existing workloads to the Cloud doesn't mean it's not going to happen. So I think there's an opportunity for any company like Actifio, who may or may not be on the curve on the tech side, one little misfire on a tech bet could cripple the company and also make the company. There's a lot of high risk, reward ratio. How they handle containers. How they build on virtualizations. Virtualization going to to be part of the future with Cloud. These are the kind of the dynamics that are going to be in play, and they got some time on their hands because the on premises growth is because the clients are trying to figure out what to do and they're not going to be migrating, lifting, and shifting workloads all off to the Cloud. New will be Cloud based, but enterprises have proven why we are in multi-Cloud and hybrid-Cloud conversation, that... The enterprise on premises is not going away anytime soon. >> I want to ask you guys, John you specifically, about this sort of new Silicon Valley growth model and how companies are achieving escape velocity. When you and I made our first trip to Barcelona, I was having dinner with David Scott who was the CEO of 3PAR and he said to me, When I came to 3PAR the board said, "Hey we're willing to invest 30 million dollars in this company". And David Scott said to them, "I need way more, I need 80 million dollars". Today 80 million dollars is nothing. You saw, you know, Pure Storage hit escape velocity, was just throwing money, and growing at the problem. You're seeing Cohesity-- >> Well you can debate that. I mean, If you have to build a rocket ship, hit critical mass and you want to fund that, you're going to to need an enterprise. However, there's arguments on the south side that you can actually get fly wheel effect going early with less capital. So again, that's 3PAR-- >> But so that's my point. >> Well so that's 3PAR, that was 2009. >> So, yeah that was early days so that's ancient history. But software is generally supposed to be a capital efficient market, yet these companies are raising many hundreds and hundreds of millions, you know, half a billion dollar raises and they are putting it largely in promotion. Is that the new model, is that sustainable, in your view? >> Well I think you're conflating capital market dynamics with viable companies to invest in. I think there's a robust seed in series A market but the series A market and Silicon Valley is you know, 15 to 25 million, it used to be 3 to 5. So the dynamics are changing on funding. There's just not enough companies, horses on the track, to deploy capital at tranches of 30, 50, 80 million. So the capital markets are clearly going to have the money available so it's a market for the startups and the broke companies. That's separate from actually winning. So you've got slacks going public this weeks, you have other companies who have built business on a sass fly wheel, and then everything else is gravy in terms of the go to market, they got a couple hundred million. I think slack got close to a billion dollars in cash that they've raised. So they're flooded with cash, they'll never spend it all. So there are some companies that can achieve success like that. Others have to buy market share, they got to push and build out a sales force, and it's going to be a function of the role of customer, customization, specialism, and whatnot. But with AI machine leaning there's more efficiencies coming in so I think the modern company can do more with less. >> What do you think of the ride sharing on IPOs, Uber and Lift, do you abol? Do you like 'em or do you think it's just, they're losing too money and can't sustain it? >> I was thinking about that this morning after looking at the article in the Wall Street Journal in our coverage on Silicon angle. You look at Zoom communications, I like models that actually can take a simple concept and an existing mature market and disrupt it by being Cloud efficient and completely sass and data driven. That is an example of success. That to me, Zoom Communications and Zscaler, another company that we talk to, these are companies that were built with a specific value proposition that made the product and they were targeting mature markets with leaders in it. Video conferencing, Webex, Citrix, Zoom came out of nowhere, optimized on simple value proposition, used Cloud scale and data, and crushed it. Uber, Lift, little bit different issue. They're losing money but I would bet on the long term that that is going to be the used case for how people will have transportation. I think that's the long game and I think that without regulatory kind of pressure, without, there's regulatory issues that's really the big risk. But I believe that Uber and Lift absolutely will be long brands and just like Facebook was early on, although they threw off a lot of cash, those guys are building for penetration, and that's where the funding matters. Penetration is critical. Now they're the standard, and people really don't take taxis anymore, but they're really using the ride sharing. And you get the scooters, you get the bikes, they're all sequencing into these adjacent markets which drains more cash but builds the brand, builds the footprint. >> Well that's what I want to ask you. So people compare the early Uber, Lift, Taxi, Ride sharing to Amazon selling books, but there's all these other adjacencies. You have a thought on this? >> Well, just, you know, right, Uber Eats is a huge opportunity for that environment and autonomous vehicles everybody talks about, but it's still quite a ways out. So there are a lot of different- >> Scooters are the same, we're in San Diego, there are 8 gazillion scooters. >> San Diego had fun, you know, going around on their electronic scooters, boy, talk about the gig economy, they pay people at the night, to like go pay by the recharge you do on that, what is the future of work, >> Yeah, that's a great point. >> and how can we have that-- >> Uber going to look a lot like Amazon. You subsidize the front end retail side of the business, but look at the data that they throw up. Uber's data that they're gathering on, not only customer behavior, but just mapping services, 3-D mapping is going to be huge, so you've got these cars that are essentially bots on the road, providing massive mapping and traffic analysis. So you're going to start to see data driven, like Actifio slogan here, be a big part of all design decisions and value proposition from any company out there. And if they're not data driven I think they're going to be toast. >> Probably could because there's that data and that machine learning underneath, that can optimize, you know, where the people are, how I use the system, such a huge wave that we're watching. >> How about one last topic which is heavily data driven, it's Facebook. Facebook is obviously a data driven company, the Facebook crypto play, I love it, I love Facebook. I'm a bull on Facebook, I think it's been beat up. I think, two billion users is hard to replicate, but what's your thoughts on their crypto play? >> Well it's kind of a middle finger to the United States of America but it's a great catalyst for the international market because crypto needed a whale to come in and bring all those users in. Bad timing, in my mind, for Facebook, because given all the anti-trust and regulatory conversations, what better way to show your threat to the world order when you say we're going to run a banking system with a collection of international companies. I think the US is going to look at this and say, "Oh my God! They can't even be trusted to handle personal information and we're going to now let them run a banking system? Run monetary, basically World Bank equivalent infrastructure?" No frickin way! I think this is going to to be a major road to home. I think Facebook has to really make this an ecosystem play if they want to make it work, that's their telegraphic move they're saying, "Hey we want to do for the community but we got our own wallet and we got our own network". But they bring a lot to the table so it's going to be a really interesting dynamic to see the coalescing around Facebook because they could make the market. Look what Instagram did to Snapchat. They literally killed the company, took all their users. That is what's going to happen in the digital money economy when Facebook brings billions of users user experience with money. What happened with Snapchat with Instagram is going to happen to the World Bank if this continues. >> Where do you stand on the government breaking up big tech? >> So Dave, you know, you look in these companies, it's not easy to pull those apart. I don't think our government understands how most of big tech works. You know, take Amazon and AWS, that's one company underneath it. You know, Facebook, Microsoft. You know, Microsoft went through all these issues. Question Dave, we've had lots of debates on Twitter you know, are they breaking the law, are they not doing trust? I have some trust issues with Facebook myself, but most of the big companies up there I don't think the anti-trust kicks in, I don't think it makes sense to pull them apart. >> Stu, the Facebook story and the YouTube story are simply this, they have been hiding under the platform rules, of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and they are an editing platform so you can't sue them. Okay, once they become a publisher they could be sued. Just like CNN, Fox News, and everybody else. And we're publishers. So they've been hiding behind the platform. That gig is up. They're going to have to address are you a platform or are you a publisher? You're making editing decisions around what users can see with software, you are essentially editing the feed, that is a publisher role, with that becomes responsibility, and then obviously regulartory. >> Well Facebook is conflicted right now. They're trying to figure out which side of the fence to go on. >> No no no! They want one side! The platform side! They're make billions of dollars! >> Yeah but so they're making decisions about you know, which content to show and whether they monetize it. And when it's controversial content, they'll turn down the ads a little bit but they won't completely eliminate it sometimes. >> So, Dave, the only thing that the partisans in politics seem to agree on though is that big tech has too much power. You know, What's your take on that? >> Well so I think that if they are breaking the law then they should be moderated. But I don't think the answer is to go hard after Elizabeth Warren. Hard after them and break them up. I think you got to start with okay, because you break these companies up what's going to happen is they're going to be worth more, it's going to be AT&T all over again. >> While you guys were at Sysco Live, we covered this at Amazon Web Service and Public Sector Summit. The real issue in government, Stu, is there's too much tech for bad on the PR side, and there's not enough tech for good. Tech is not bad, tech is good. There's not enough promotion around the apps around there. There's real venture funds being created to promote tech for good. That's going to where the tide will turn. When does the tech industry start doing good stuff, not bad stuff. >> All right we've got to wrap. John, thanks for sitting in. Thank you for watching. Be right back, we're here at Actifio Data Driven 2019. From Boston this is theCUBE, be right back. (upbeat techno music)

(upbeat music) >> From our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a CUBE conversation. >> Hello everyone, welcome to Palo Altos Cube Studios for CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, co-host of theCUBE. We're with Kevin Ackroyd, CEO of Cision, CUBE Alumni. He's been on before. Building one of the most compelling companies that's disrupting and changing the game in Comms, advertising, PR, with Cloud technologies. Kevin, great to see you again, thanks for coming in. >> Likewise John, It's really good to be back. >> So, we haven't chatted in two years. You've been busy. Our last conversation was the beginning of 2017. Cision's done a lot of interesting things. You've got a lot of M and A under your belt. You're putting this portfolio together with Cloud technologies. Really been interesting. I really got to say I think you cracked the code on I think a new reality, a new economic reality. Also new capabilities for comms folks. Congratulations. >> Thank you, it's been a fun ride. >> So give us the update. So two years since we talked, how many deals, companies have you bought? What's the headcount, what's the revenue? Give us an update. >> In the four years, 12 acquisitions, seven of which have happened since I've been here. Up to 4,500 employees in over 40 countries. Customer count has grown to over 50,000 customers globally. Revenue's kind of gone from 500s to just shy of 800 million. A lot of leadership changes, and as you just mentioned, pretty seismic change, finally. We've certainly been the catalyst and the cattle prod for that seismic change around tech, data, measurement and analytics finally becoming mature and adopted inside this line of business like the Chief Communication Officer, the earn media folks. To say that they were not tech savvy a few years ago would be an understatement. So, a lot's been going on. >> Yeah, and certainly the trend is your friend, in my opinion, for you. But I think the reality is not yet upon people's general mindset. It's coming quickly, so if you look at some of the big trends out there. Look at fake news, look at Facebook, look at the Google effect. Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Big Tech, Amazon. Cloud computing, in that time period that you were, prior to just going to Cision, you had Oracle Cloud, done a lot of great things on the Marketing Cloud side. But the timing of Cloud computing, the timing of how media has changed. There's not many journalists anymore. We had Andy Cunningham, a legendary industry veteran, formerly of Cunningham Communications. He did the PR for Steve Jobs. You said, there's no more journalists, a few left, but you got to tell your story direct to the consumer. >> You do. >> This is now a new marketing phenomenon. This is a tailwind for you at Cision because you guys, although put these cubbies together, have a unique vision around bringing brand value advertising at PR economics. >> Yeah, that's a good way to put it. >> Tell us the vision of Cision and specifically the shift that's happening. Why are you guys important? What wave are you riding? >> So, there's a couple shifts, John. You and I have talked about this in previous programs There's this shift of the line of business, having to work in a whole bunch of non-integrated point solutions. The CFO used to live in 17 different applications from 17 vendors. That's all squished together. Now I buy from one Cloud platform, right, from Oracle or SAP. Same thing happened in Human Capital Management. 22 things squished into the Cloud, one from Workday, right. Same thing happened, you had 25 different things for sales and service. That all squished together, into one CRM in the Cloud, I buy from Salesforce, right. And our last rodeo, the early part of this stack, it was me and Adobe battling it out for the right to go squish the entire the LUMAscape into a marketing cloud, right, so there could be one ring to rule them all for the CMO. So, it happens in every single category. It just hasn't had over here, happened on the earned media side and the Chief Communications Officer. So, bringing the tech stack so that now we are for the CCO what Adobe is for the CMO what Salesforce is for the CRO, Workday is for the CHRO. That has to happen. You can't do, you can't manage it this way without sophisticated tech, without automation, without integration, you can't do it. The second thing that had to happen, especially in marketing and advertising, they all figured out how to get revenue credit. Advertising was a slow single-digit CAGR industry for 50 years. And then something happened. After 5% CAGR for 50 years, and then something happened over the next 10 years. Digital paid went from like 15 billion to 150 billion. And what happened is that old, I know half my advertising is wasted on this one half. That went bye-bye. Now I know immediately, down to the page, down the ad unit, down to this, exactly what worked, right. When I was able to put Pixels on ads, John, you'd go to that page, Pixel would go on you, It would follow you around If you ended up putting something in the e-commerce shop that ad got credit. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying that's how the entire-- >> But that's how the infrastructure would let you, allowed you, it enabled you to do that. Then again, paid advertising, paid search, paid advertising, that thing has created massive value in here. >> Massive value. But my buyer, right, so the person that does the little ad on the most regional tech page got credit. My buyer that got Bob Evans, the Cloud King, to write an article about why Microsoft is going to beat AWS, he's a credible third party influencer, writing objectively. That article's worth triple platinum and has more credibility than 20,000 Microsoft sales reps. We've never, until Cision, well let's Pixel that, let's go figure out how many of those are the target audience. Let's ride that all the way down to the lead form that's right. Basically it's super simple. Nobody's ever tracked the press releases, the articles or any of the earned media content, the way people have tracked banner ads or e-commerce emails. Therefore this line of business never get revenue credit. It stayed over here in the OpEx pile where things like commerce and advertising got dumped onto the revenue pile. Well, you saw the crazy investment shift. So, that's really the more important one, is Comms is finally getting quantified ROI and business's attribution like their commerce and advertising peers for the first time ever in 2018 via what Cision's rolled out. That's the exciting piece. >> I think, I mean, I guess what I hear you saying is that for the first time, the PR actually can be measured, similar to how advertising >> You got it. >> Couldn't be measured then be measured. Now PR or communications can be measured. >> They get measured the same way. And then one other thing. That ad, that press release, down to the business event. This one had $2 million dollars of ad spend, this one had no ad spend. When it goes to convert, in CRM or it goes to convert on a website, this one came from banner ad, this one came from credible third party content. Guess which one, not only had zero ad spend instead of $2 million in ad spend. Guess which one from which source actually converts better. It's the guy that chose to read credible third-party article. He's going to convert in the marketing system way better that somebody who just clicked on the ad. >> Well certainly, I'm biased-- >> So all the way down the funnel, we're talking about real financial impact based on capturing earned media ID, which is pretty exciting. >> Well, I think the more exciting thing is that you're basically taking a value that is unfunded quote by the advertising firm, has no budget basically, or thin budgets, trying to hit an organic, credible outlet which is converting in progression to a buyer, an outcome. That progression is now tracked. But let's just talk about the economics because you're talking about $2 million in spend, it could be $20 million. The ratio between ad spend and conversion to this new element you mentioned is different. You're essentially talking about the big mega trend, which is organic content. Meaning connecting to sources. >> That's right. >> That flow. Of course, we believe and we, at the Cube, everyone's been seeing that with our business. Let's talk about that dynamic because this is not a funded operationalized piece yet, so we've been seeing, in the industry, PR and comms becoming more powerful. So, the Chief Communication Officer isn't just rolling out press releases, although they have to do that to communicate. You've got medium posts now, you've got multiple channels. A lot of places to put the story. So the Chief Communication Officer really is the Chief Storyteller Officer, Not necessarily the CMO. >> Emphatically. >> The Martech Stack kind of tracking. So talk about that dynamic. How is the Chief Communication Officer role change or changing? Why is that important and what should people be thinking about, if they are a Chief Communication Officer? >> You know, it's interesting. There's a, I'm just going to call it an actual contradiction on this front. When you and I were getting out of our undergrad, 7 out of 10 times that CCO, the Chief Communication Officer, worked for the CEO and 30% of time other. Yet the role was materially narrow. The role has exploded. You just said it pretty eloquently. This role has really exploded and widened its aperture. Right now though 7 out of 10 of them actually do work for the CMO, which is a pretty interesting contradiction. And only 30% of them work for the CEO. Despite the fact that from an organizational stand point, that kind of counter intuitive org move has been made. It doesn't really matter because, so much of what you just said too, you was in marketing's purview or around brand or around reputation or around telling the story or around even owning the key assets. Key assets isn't that beautiful Budweiser frog commercial they played on Super Bowl anymore. The key assets are what's getting done over in the communications, in part. So, from a storytelling standpoint, from an ownership of the narrative, from a, not just a product or a service or promotion, but the whole company, the whole brand reputation, the goodwill, all of that is comms. Therefore you're seeing comms take the widest amount of real estate around the boardroom table than they've ever had. Despite the fact that they don't sit in the chair as much. I mentioned that just because I find it very interesting. Comms has never been more empowered, never had a wider aperture. >> But budget wise, they're not really that loaded up with funding. >> And to my earlier point, it's because they couldn't show. Super strategic. Showing ROI. >> So, showing ROI is critical. >> Not the quality of clippings. >> It was the Maslow of Hierarchy of Needs if you can just show me that I put a quarter in and I got a dollar out. Like the ads and the e-commerce folks do. It simply drives the drives me. >> So take us through some of those analytics because people who know about comms, the old school comms people who are doing this, they should really be thinking about what their operation is because, can I get an article in the Wall Street Journal? Can Silicon Angle write about us? I've got to get more clippings. That tend to be the thing. Did we get the press release out on time? They're not really tied into some of the key marketing mix pieces. They tend to be kind of a narrow scope. Those metrics were pretty clear. What are the new metrics? What's the new operational playbook.? >> Yeah, we call those Vanity Metrics. I cared about theoretical reach. Hey, Yahoo tells me I reached 222 billion people, so I plug in 222 billion people. I reached more people than there are on the planet with this PR campaign. I needed to get to the basic stuff like how many people did I actually reach, number one. But they don't, they do theoretical reach. They work in things like sentiment. Well, I'm going to come up with, 100 reporters wrote about me. I'm going to come up with, how many of them I thought were positive, negative, neutral. Sentiment analysis, they measure number of reporters or hits versus their competitors and say, Proctor and Gamble rolled out this diaper product, how did I do this five days? How much did Proctor and Gamble diapers get written about versus Craft diapers versus Unilever's. Share a voice. Not irrelevant metrics. But not metrics the CEO and the CFO are going to invest in. >> Conversion to brand or sales, those kind of things? >> They never just never existed. Those never existed. Now when we can introduce the same exact metrics that the commerce and the ad folks do and say, I can tell you exactly how many people. I can tell you exactly who they were, demographic, firmographic, lifestyle, you name it. I can tell you who the audience is you're reaching. I can tell you exactly what they do. When those kind of people read those kind of articles or those kind of people read those kind of press releases, they go to these destinations, they take these behaviors. And because I can track that all the way down to whatever that success metric is, which could be a lead form if I'm B2B for pipe. It could be a e-commerce store from B2C. It could be a rating or review or a user generation content gourd. It could be a sign up and register, if I'm trying to get database names. Whatever the business metric is. That's what the commerce and the ad people do all day every day. That's why they are more funded than ever. The fact that press releases, articles, tweets, blogs, the fact that the earned media stuff has never been able to do those things is why they just continue to suffer and have had a real lack of investment prices going on for the last 20 year. >> Talk about the trend around-- >> It's simple stuff. >> I know, if you improve the ROI, you get more budget. >> It really is that simple. >> That's been the challenge. I think PR is certainly becoming, comms is becoming more powerful. People know I talk about it all the time. I think comms is the new CMO I think command and control and organic content work together in the organic. We've seen it first hand in our business. But, it's an issue of tech savviness and also vision. A lot of people just are uncomfortable shifting to the new realities. >> That's for sure. >> What are some of the people tech savvy look at when they look at say revamping comms platform or strategy versus say old school? >> I'll give you two answers on that, John. Here is one thing that is good for us, that 7 out of 10 to the CCOs work for the CMO. Because when I was in this seat starting to light that fire under the CMO for the first time, which was not that long ago, and they were not tech savvy, and they were not sophisticated. They didn't know how to do this stuff either. That was a good 10 year journey to get the CMO from not sophisticated to very sophisticated. Now they're one of the more sophisticated lines of business in the world. But that was a slog. >> So are we going to see a Comms Stack? Like Martech, ComTech. >> ComTech is the decision communication Cloud, is ComTech. So we did it. We've built the Cloud stack. Again like I said, just like Adobe has the tech stack for marketing, Cision has the tech stack for comms, and we've replicated that. But because the CCO works for the CMO and the CMO's already been through this. Been through this with Ad Techs, been through this with MarTech, been through this with eCommerce, been through this with Web. You know, I've got a three or four year sophistication path this time just because >> The learnings are there >> The company's already done it everywhere else. The boss has already done it everywhere else. >> So the learnings are there from the MarTech so it's a pretty easy leap to take? >> That's exactly right. >> It's just-- >> How CommTech works is shocking. Incredibly similar to how MarTech and AdTech work. A lot of it is the same technology, just being applied different. >> That's good news >> So, the adoption curve for us is a fantastic thing. It's a really good thing for us that 70% of them work for CMOs because the CMO is the most impatient person on the planet, to get this over because the CMO is sick of doing customer journeys or omni channel across just paid and owned. They recognize that the most influential thing to influence you, it's not their emails, it's not their push notifications, It's not their ads. It's recognizing which credible third-party content you read, getting them into that, so that they're influencing you. >> It's kind of like Google PageRank in the old days. This source is more relevant than that one, give it more weight. >> And now all of a sudden if I have my Cision ID, I can plug in the more weight stuff under your profile. I want to let him go across paid and owned too, I materially improve the performance of the paid and owned because I'm putting in the really important signal versus what's sitting over there in the DMP or the CDP, which is kind of garbage. That's really important. >> I really think. >> I thinks you've got a home run here. I think you've really cracked the code on this. I think you are absolutely right on the money with comms and CommsTech. I see it all the time. In my years of experiences, it's so obvious. Then again, the tailwind is that they've been through the MarTech. The question I have for you is cultural shift. That's a big one. So, I'm out evangelizing all the time about the CUBE Cloud and some of the things we're doing. I run into the deer in the headlights on one side, what do you mean? And then people like, I believe, I totally understand. The believers and the non believers. What's the cultural shift? Because some chief comms op, they're very savvy, progressive, we've got to make the shift. How do they get the ship to turn? What are some of the cultural challenges? >> And boy is that right. I felt the same thing, getting more doing it with the CMO. A lot of people kept their head in the sand until they got obsoleted. They didn't know. Could they not see the train coming? They didn't want to see the train coming. Now you go look at the top 100 CMOs in the world today. Pretty different bunch than who those top 100 CMOs were 10 years ago. Really different bunch. History's repeating itself over here too. You've got the extremely innovative CCOs that are driving that change and transformation. You've got the deer in the headlight, okay, I know I need to do this, but I'm not sure how, and you do have your typical, you know, nope, I've got my do not disturb sign and police tape over my office. I won't even let you in my door. I don't want to hear about it. You've got all flavors. The good news is we are well past the half point where the innovators are starting actually to deploy and show results, the deer in the headlights are starting to innovate, and these folks are at least opening up the door and taking down some tape. >> Is there pressure on the agency side now? A lot of agencies charge a lot of monthly billings for these clients, the old school thing. Some are trying to be progressive and do more services. Have you seen, with the Cision Cloud and things that you're doing, that you're enabling, those agencies seem to be more productive? >> Yes. >> Are the client's putting pressure on those agencies so they see more value? Talk about the agency dynamic. >> That's also a virtuous cycle too, right? That cycle goes from, it's a Bell Curve. At the beginning of the bell curve, customers have no clue about the communications. They go to their agencies for advice. So, you have to educate the agencies on how to say nice things about you. By the time you're at the Bell Curve, the client's know about the tech or they've adopted the tech, and the agencies realize, oh, I can monetize the hell out of this. They need strategy and services and content and creative and campaign. This is yet another good old fashioned >> High gross profit. >> A buck for the tech means six bucks for me as the service agency. At the bottom, over here, I'll never forget this when we did our modern marketing experiences, Erik, the CMO of Clorox said, hey, to all you agencies out there, now that we're mature, you know, we choose our our agency based on their fluency around our tech stack. So it goes that violently and therefore, the agencies really do need to try to get fluent. The ones that do, really reap rewards because there is a blatant amount of need as the line of business customer tries to get from here to here. And the agency is the is the very first place that that customer is going to go to. >> So, basically the agency-- >> The customer has first right of refusal to go provide these services and monetize them. >> So, the agency has to keep up. >> They certainly do. >> Because, if the game gets changed by speed, it's accelerated >> If they keep up, yup. >> Value is created. If they don't have their running shoes on, they're out. >> If they keep up and they stay fluent, then they're going to be great. The last thing back in the things. We've kind of hit this. This is one of those magic points I've been talking about for 20 years. When the CFO or the CEO or the CMO walk down to the CCOs office and say, where are we on this, 'cause it's out in the wild now, there are over 1200 big brands doing this measurement, Cision ID, CommsTech stuff. It's getting written about by good old fashioned media. Customer says, wow, I couldn't do this for 50 years, now I am, and look what I just did to my Comms program. That gets read. The world's the same place as it always has been. You and I read that. We go down to our comms department and say, wow, I didn't know that was possible, where are we on this? So the Where Are We On This wave is coming to communications, which is an accelerant. >> It's an accountability-- >> Now it's accountability, and therefore, the urgency to get fluent and changed. So now they're hiring up quantums and operations and statisticians and database people just like the marketers did. The anatomy of a communications department is starting to like half science half art, just like happened in marketing. Whereas before that, it was 95% art and 5% science. But it's getting to be 50/50. >> Do you have any competition? >> We have, just like always. >> You guys pretty much have PR Newswire, a lot of big elements there. >> We do. >> You've got a good foothold. >> This is just an example. Even though Marketo is part of Adobe, giant. And Eloqua is part of Oracle, giant and Pardot is part of Salesforce. You've got three goliaths in marketing automation. Hubspot's still sticking around. PeerPlay, marketing Automation. You can just picture it. CRM giants, Microsoft and Salesforce have eaten the world Zendesk's still kicking around. It's a little PeerPlay. That equivalent exists. I have nobody that's even one fifth as big as I am, or as global or complete. But I do have some small, point specific solution providers. They're still hanging out there. >> The thing is, one, first you're a great leader. You've seen the moving on the marking tech side. You've got waves of experience under your belt. But I think what's interesting is that like the Web 1.0, having websites and webpages, Web 2.0 and social networks. That was about the first generation. Serve information, create Affiliate programs, all kind of coded tracking. You mentioned all that. I over-simplified it, but you get the idea. Now, every company needs a new capability. They need to stand up media infra structure. What does that mean? They're going to throw a podcast, they're going to take their content, put them into multiple channels. That's a comms function. Now comms is becoming the new CMO-like capability in this earned channel. So, your Cloud becomes that provisioning entity for companies to stand up capabilities without waiting. Is that the vision? >> You've nailed it. And that is one of the key reasons why you have to have a tech stack. That's a spot on one, another one. Early in my career, the 20 influences that mattered, they were all newspaper reporters or TV folks. There was only 20 of them. I had a Rolodex. so I could take each one of them out for a three Martini lunch, they'd write something good about me. >> Wish is was that easy now. >> Now, you have thousands of influencers across 52 channels, and they change in real time, and they're global in nature. It's another example of where, well, if you don't automate that with tech and by the way. >> You're left behind. >> If you send out digital content they talk back to you in real time. You have to actually not only do influencer identification, outreach and curation, you've got to do real time engagement. >> There's no agility. >> There's none. >> Zero agility. >> None, exactly. >> There's no like Dev Ops mindset in there at all. >> Then the speed with which, it's no longer okay for comms to call the agency and say, give me a ClipBook, I've got to get it to my CEO by Friday. That whole start the ClipBook on Tuesday, I've got to have the ClipBook, the physical ClipBook on the CEO as an example. Nope, if I'm not basically streaming my senior executives in real time, curated and analyzed as to what's important and what it means, I can't do that without a tech stack. >> Well, Andy Cunningham was on the Cube. >> This whole thing has been forced to get modernized by cloud technology and transformation >> Andy Cunningham, a legend in the comms business who did all Steve Jobs comms, legend. She basically said on The Cube, it's not about waiting for the clips to create the ClipBook, create your own ClipBook and get it out there. Then evaluate and engage. This is the new command and control with digital assets. >> Now, it's become the real-time, curated feed that never stops. It sure as hell better not. Because comms is in trouble if it does. >> Well this is a great topic. But let's have you in this, I can go deep on this. I think this is a really important shift, and you guys are the only ones that are on it at this level. I don't think the Salesforce and the Adobe yet, I don't think they're nimble enough to go after this wave. I think they're stuck on their wave and they're making a lot of money. >> You know John, paid media and owned media. The Google Marketing Cloud, that SAP Marketing Cloud, Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce Marketing Clouds. They don't do anything in earned. Nothing. This is one of the reasons I jumped because I knew this needed to happen. But, you know, they're also chasing much bigger pots of money. Marketing and Advertising is still a lot more money. We're working on it to grow the pie for comms. But, bottom line is, they're chasing the big markets as I was at Oracle. And they're still pretty much in a violent arms race against each other. Salesforce is still way more focused on what Adobe's doing. >> You're just on a different wave. >> So, we're just over here doing this, building a billion dollar cloud leader, that is mission critical to everyone of their customers. They're going to end up being some pretty import partners to us, because they've been too focused on the big arms race against each other, in paid and owned and have not had the luxury to even go here. >> Well I think this wave that you're on is going to be really big. I think they don't see it, in my opinion, or can't get there. With the right surfboard, to use a surfing analogy, there's going to be a big wave. Thanks for sharing your insights. >> Absolutely. >> While you're here, get the plug in for Cision. What's going on, what's next? What's the big momentum? Get the plug in for the company. What are you guys still going to do? >> Plugin for the company. The company has acquired a couple of companies in January. You might see, one of which is Falcon. Basically Falcon is one of the big four in the land of Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Spredfast. Cloud companies do this. Adobe has Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Parking Cloud. Salesforce has Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud. Cision has just become a multi cloud company. We now have the Cision Social Cloud and the Cision Communications Cloud. And we're going to go grab a couple hundred million dollars of stuff away from Sprinklr, Hootsuite and collapse social into this. Most of social is earned as well. So, look for a wing spread, into another adjacent market. I think that's number one. Then look for publishing of the data. That's probably going to be the most exciting thing because we just talked about, again our metrics and capabilities you can buy But, little teaser. If we can say, in two months here's the average click through on a Google ad, YouTube ad, a banner ad, I'll show it to you on a Blog, a press release, an article. Apples to apples. Here is the conversion rate. If I can start becoming almost like an eMarketer or publisher on what happens when people read earned, there's going to be some unbelievable stats and they're going to be incredibly telling, and it's going to drive where are we on that. So this is going to be the year. >> It's a new digital advertising format. It's a new format. >> That's exactly right. >> It's a new digital advertising format. >> And its one when the CEO understands that he or she can have it for earned now, the way he's had it for marketing and advertising, that little conversation walking down the hall. In thousands of companies where the CCO or the VP of PR looks up and the CEO is going where are we on that? That's the year that that can flip switches, which I'm excited about. >> Every silo function is now horizontally connected with data, now measured, fully instrumented. The value will be there and whoever can bring the value gets the budget. That's the new model. Kevin Ackroyd, CEO of Cision, changing the game in the shift around the Chief Communications Officer and how that is becoming more tech savvy. Really disrupting the business by measuring earned media. A big wave that's coming. Of course, it's early, but it's going to be a big one. Kevin, thanks for coming on. >> My pleasure, John, thank you. >> So, CUBE conversation here in Palo Alto Thanks for watching. >> Thanks John. (upbeat music)