(upbeat music) >> Live from Madrid, Spain, it's theCUBE. Covering HPE Discover Madrid 2017, brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> We're back in Madrid, everybody. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante. I'm here with my co-host Peter Burris. And many-time Cube guest Xavier Poisson is back. He's the vice president of Cloud28+ and service providers worldwide for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And he's joined by Eugene Viskovic, who is the chief business officer at Veon, a Cloud28+ partner. Gentlemen, welcome to theCUBE. Welcome back, Xavier, it's good to see you again. >> Thank you, hi. >> Hi. So give us the update on Cloud 28. It started out as sort of this focused European effort. It has exploded now globally. What's the update? >> So I don't remember, I don't know if you remember it. It was last year, the same event. We were in London, I believe. And we were saying, "Okay, we are 300. "How many will be next year?" I took that back. It will be 700. We are 700. >> Dave: Wow, congratulations. >> 700 members. We have been expanding in the different geographies. So also in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, but we expanded in North America, in A-Pac, Latin America, and Caribbean. So now we are present in 60 countries. We are proposing 24,000 cloud services, so the catalog has been expanding dramatically. We are offering capabilities, data center capabilities from all partners in 33 countries. And we can offer from 400 data centers already. So average we have 40,000 hits per month on the platform, acquiring members and so on. And, yes, it has been a delight to launch that everywhere. It's really taking off very, very quickly. >> And the basic value proposition, you are essentially enabling cloud partners to create cloud-like business capabilities. >> Yeah, so what we do is, first of all, we enable the partners to get known on the market on this side, to publish all their services built and consume also. So it's not only IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, but also integration services as well because it's a comprehensive value chain. Then, what we do, we're not a marketplace where people go and leave. In the center, they can speak everyday. So they publish articles, full leadership articles around security, big data, manufacturing, and so on and so on. This year, only this year, they have published 600 articles. So when you're a customer, you go to this platform. You can see the offering, but you can see how the vendor is positioning himself around the market, his value-add, and what they are doing. So digital marketing a lot, also for them. We have been increasing the value on the market of many of our partners with social media because we are very good activity in this area, and also lead-generation engine because now we have so much offerings that we can target specific campaigns for our partners in specific geographies and generate a lot of leads on the market. Last, but not least, the market is evolving. We have a lot of partners, so we create platform-connected offerings. Example we have done is a specific cloud-in-a-box for manufacturing for plants where, in six clicks, you can provision from Cloud28+ all your information system for a plant. So this is also the kind of things that we do. >> Great, okay, Eugene, tell us about Veon. Why are you in business? What's your story? >> Okay, yes. Just talk a few minutes about Veon because it's not a very well-known name around the world, and don't be ashamed if you don't know Veon because it still is the seventh largest mobile operator in the world. It's significant. We are, today, around 42,000 employees, over 12 different countries. I have to say, very unusual countries. Not the type of countries you may choose to go for holidays, but it would be a shame because, honestly, some of them are good like, you know, all Eurasia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Russia. We have also emerging market, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Algeria, and one, only one European market, which is Italy with WIND, WIND Three. Which means it's a very large region. We are dealing with 10, more than 10% of the total population of the globe, 235 million customers, which is significant. And within this organization, there is an enterprise division, which I'm leading, which is around 4,500 people dedicated for enterprise and wholesales. Full revenue around $3 billion, just to give you a scale on who we are. Again, not very well-known, but definitely within our footprint we are the number one in this particular region of the world. >> It's sizable, substantial business. >> Eugene: Exactly, yes. >> So what's driving your business today? Obviously mobile is exploding. >> Yes, it's clear we came from the mobile business. We are number one mobile operator in the majority of these countries. We are what we call some fixed business. And since the last two, three years when I joined the organization, we completely reorganized our business model and moving more into the what we call value added services, ICT services. And one of the components, definitely, was to try to find a partner for our cloud proposition. You need to understand that we're in a very emerging market for this type of subject. We are sitting in a very traditional way, you know, how enterprise operating. They own the infrastructure, they own data center, they own the servers, the management platform, and their own people. And they have not yet shifted to this new model, which is to try to outsource some of the infrastructure. And this is where we came into the game as a global provider in order to have enterprise really to operate the shift. There is also another interesting situation is every time we bid a cloud proposition, usually we try to centerize it and have different country. In our part of the world is not possible. We have to set up a cloud platform in every single of our countries for regulatory constraints, which is not very economical, but definitely it's an opportunity for us to lead this market especially with HP Enterprise. >> Well, it allows you to differentiate, as well, from some of the mega-cloud providers that everybody knows, everybody talks about. So is that a primary way in which you compete? >> Oh, completely. It's clear the big players today are not very well-implemented in this part of the world because of this particular constraint, outside of Italy which is a little bit different game. But it's clear in Russia and Eurasia, yes. Today there is a opportunity. We believe that we want to be the single provider within this region operating across different market segments because we're covering from SO up to multinational accounts, even government. And having a set of value propositions we can offer across every single of our countries. >> Xavier, is it common that, amongst the Cloud28+ partners, there's that theme of local presence, of course, but is there also a differential in terms of what the partners will do, the types of work they'll do, customizations? >> Yeah, typically the case of Veon is very specific because they address very specific markets. Some other players will ask different things. But what is very important in the case of Veon is, first of all, to have a ready-to-deploy solution that you can industrialize in different countries. So this is the reason why we played with one of the technology partners of Cloud28+, with Ormuco, who has a cloud-in-a-box solution that can be deployed and managed remotely if needed. But that was fitting the needs of the market. Then, what we need to do is really to engage locally. So, in this particular case, what we're going to do is to engage with the HP organization in order that when we have the needs for our customers to go for cloud computing kind of workloads, we say, "Okay, we have the solution. "We have a partner, a Cloud28+ partner, "who took the decision to go with us, "and we trust each other. "So you, Mr. Customer, you want to do "backup as a service, disaster recovery "as a service, compute, storage as a service, "or security as a service, Veon is there." And the good point is Veon is there on very qualified hardware of HP synergy with a very good solution, which is one of the solution ready for service providers of HPE and operated by a very serious tech operator with the number six on the market, this is Veon. And we go together. So in this particular case, what was interesting was to have a solution that can be deployed everywhere the same with workloads that may fit with the different expectations of the market, engage the HP people to play with and, then, we market and with Cloud28+ we'll amplify their message. We will be able to drive lead generation campaigns. We'll be able to onboard our resellers because one thing I believe is that in this kind of regions, people don't go, as you say, Eugene, directly to the cloud. They continue to go to their resellers and, "What do I need to do?" And here, you know that we have the largest reseller network in the industry. So we will introduce this solution to our resellers in order that when a reseller of HPE is in front of such a case, it can have the mind to say, "Okay, let's engage with Veon." So this is the way we are going to operate. >> So when I think of many of the Akistan countries, I think of natural resources, challenging topography, challenging terrain. How does the physical reality and the industries that typify that region impact the way you're providing cloud services? >> It's clear, we're talking sometime a very, very large geography in terms of country size. When you take only in Russia. >> Mountainous. >> Eleven time zones you have in one single country. And when we operate, yes we have to spread our capability in order to be able to touch every single country, including in some infrastructure. Especially as a carrier, I like to imagine how much we need to pull fiber, cable, across the country and have these different set up of infrastructure, cloud propositions, to make sure we can serve better in term latency especially when we're talking about financial sections and so on, which brings some level of complexity and, as I said earlier, also some level of efficiency in term investment because we are not in a perfect world, especially when we talk about the regulatory constraints, which, yes, we need to find some middle way. How we can have a better, being still competitive, but as sometimes still delivering the expected quality. But you are right. This particular part of the world require a lot of work in term of physical infrastructure and also in our team. Our people are spread across these different countries, and for that reason yes, it's not an easy situation. >> Does it drive, are you likely to see a higher demand? HPE talks about the intelligent edge. Are you likely to see a higher demand for things like the intelligent edge because of the nature of the natural resource industry's petrochemical, et cetera, mountainous regions and a lot of communities that you serve, is that going to be a driver of new services or is it going to be something else? What do you think? >> Well, I think there would be two aspects. The first one, there is, definitely, a requirement driven, very often, by very large, multinational corporations. You'll be surprised how this multinational corporations are covering this part of the world. You have natural resources. All the western industry is present. And because they are present, they need to bring their standard in term of infrastructure they are using within this particular country. That the reason, yes, the demand is coming from there. At the same time, you have the rest of the market in term of large, local businesses where it's clear. They are moving. If you're looking in our part of the world, we are exactly where we were 10 years ago in Europe, in North America, and in Asia. We are really into emerging in face, in adopting this type of infrastructure. It's clear it's going to go much more quicker because, on top of that, enterprises have big pressure to reduce costs, but at the same time not to sacrifice the quality, what they're looking. Which, again, together we're capable and we can demonstrate they can get better for less. And this is a big work, and that's the reason when Xavier was mentioning about working together in each of the countries, this was one of the critical element in choosing with HP Enterprise because I'm a mobile operator and fixed. I'm not yet organized as an ICT services or cloud. It was very important for me, if we wanted to go very quickly to associate a brand with a leading organization like HP. And I have to say, I have tested several times. Every time we say, "Okay, we are in "partnership with HP Enterprise. "We are partnered with Cloud28+." This ring immediately the bell of the enterprise we are meeting, and it's easier for us to move quicker. But, definitely, I think we have a big, big opportunity. Large market to address, but definitely something interesting to go after. >> And it's early days, it's only been two years now, what do you want from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and what are you guys going to deliver? Let's talk road map a little bit. First, from the partner/customer. What are you driving HPE and Xavier to deliver? >> For me there would be three axes in term of development. The first one in term of value proposition. We want to be able, over the next 12, 18 months to be able to offer to the market a full set of propositions, as you mentioned earlier. But Xavier, in term of public, private, hybrid cloud, and moving to different solution, we're talking about security. And, also, we're moving into more vertical market approach. We're talking about IUT where will also be some direction. This is the first ax. The second one, it's in term of countries. We're not going to launch a platform in every single, as I said earlier. We need to do it country by country. We are starting with Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan will come behind, Algeria. Very quickly, over the next 12 months, we are going to launch one by one these different countries. And the last element for us, which is also very key, is market segment. We are organized, as I said, by market segment. SO, small-medium enterprise, large key account, multinational corporation, and government. And each of these segments have different requirements. And we need to customize our approach. This is where where working with HP and Ormuco, we want to have a very customized, bi-market segment from highly customized to off-the-shelf type proposition. But, for me, these would be the three key axes in term of development working with HP Enterprise. >> And Xavier, how does that align with your roadmap? >> Well, you know, it's fully alligned in the sense that, first of all, we are expanding a lot the value prop of Cloud28+ with ISV software vendors. And the problems of telcos and service providers moving to the cloud, that's correct there is ICT branding, and there we can help. But this is the content because one day or another, they will face what the others have been facing, even in these countries, meaning yes is not enough. So if you have a portfolio of applications, verticals, horizontal applications, that they can use to continue to satisfy the demand of the market, so it will be great for them, and we are investing a lot in this order. The other thing is today I believe that we have now reached a maturity on digital marketing with Cloud28+, which is impressive. We had a big event yesterday. I will not give to you the number of impression we had only in four hours. It has been massive. If we take that, we put this at the disposal of this partner in every single country, we will speed them on the market. So these are the two big elements. The third element is what I said about this platform connected solutions because the more we go, the more we see that our outside-in approach with Cloud28+, thinking customers first, is excellent. We need to continue on that. But, as you were mentioning, the move to the edge, we see more and more solutions for energy, for manufacturing, oil and gas, environment, that we need pure hybrid because you cannot put everything into a cloud. And where we are lucky with Veon is that they have the network. So you can imagine, they have their big cloud in a country that they could deploy also some private cloud very, very quickly in specific area within an oil and gas land or I don't know where in energy, mining, or where you have not that. And you cannot, because of latency issues you cannot go directly to the cloud, but you need to handle at the edge, send back to the cloud for analytics or AI or so on, and this will be at the disposal for them. And I believe the combination of the two for that will be for the benefit of the customer. So this is my opinion. >> I completely agree. I think they approach, in term of the partnership, as I said, I think when we're going to deal with very large organizations is going to be very infrastructure-type discussion driven. But when we're going to cool down, it's purely, definitely Sowasis, content. I want to be able to address, for example, the marketing department, how we can help them to understand the behavior of a consumer by using data, big data, you know, analytics. In term of delivery for an organization, using fleet management. In term of manufacturing, using more IUT. But when you look at these different solutions, what is below is a type of infrastructure. Is to have a cloud infrastructure where we can rely on a strong partnership, bringing this solution, and offering to our customer definitely a very cost-effective but also agile, very, you know, able to move with the market demand in a very vertical way, but definitely this is a way we want to work together. >> Excellent. All right, we have to leave it there, gentlemen. Cloud is exploding. Cloud is going to be local. We've talked about this a lot. Hybrid IT, intelligence edge with a local flavor. Gentlemen, thanks very much for coming. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> And congratulations for all the success. All right, keep it right there, everybody. We'll be back with our next guest. This is theCUBE. We're live from HPE Discover Madrid 2017. Be right back. (upbeat music)