(upbeat electronic music) >> Okay thanks, Adam, and the studio. We're here on the floor in Cloud City, right in the middle of all the action, the keynotes are going on in the background. It's a packed house. I'm John Furrier. Dave Vellante's on assignment, digging in, getting those stories. He'll have the analysis, he'll be back on theCUBE, but I want to welcome Chloe Richardson, who has been holding down the main stage here in Cloud City with amazing content that she's been hosting. Chloe, great to see you. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, and kicking it off day two with me. >> No, not at all. Thank you for having me! It's very exciting! I love what you guys have got over here, very fun! >> We're inside theCUBE. This is where all the action is, and also, Cloud City is really changing the game. If you look at what's going on here in Cloud City, it's pretty spectacular. >> No, I mean, the atmosphere is absolutely palpable. Isn't it? You can just feel it. People walk in and see what the future looks like for the telecoms industry. Very exciting. >> And you've been doing a great job on the main stage, we're really loving your content. Let's get into some of the content here. After the keynotes are going on, we're going to have DR maybe fly by the set later, we're going to check that out. But let's check out this videotape. This is TelcoDR. You got to check out this reel, and we'll be right back, and we'll talk about it. (smooth electronic music) >> TelcoDR burst onto the global telecom scene this year, making headlines for taking over the huge Erickson space at MWC 21, and for building Cloud City in just a hundred days. But why did the company go to such trouble? And what is their unique offering to the telecoms industry? And what drives their dynamic CEO, Danielle Royston, or DR, as everyone calls her? Cloud City Live caught up with DR, away from the hustle and bustle of the city to find out. (upbeat instrumental music) >> Hi, I'm Danielle Royston, coming to you from beautiful Barcelona! I'm here for MWC 21. About a hundred days ago, I decided to take over the iconic Erickson booth to turn it into Cloud City. Cloud City has over 30 vendors, and 70 demos, to introduce telco to what I think is the future for our industry. We're going to have three awesome experiences. We're going to talk about the new subscriber experience. We're going to talk about what's in store for the new network, and the future of work. And I'm really excited to create a community, and invite awesome telco executives to see this new feature. It's been a really tough 18 months, and we didn't know what MWC 21 was going to be like in terms of attendance. And so from the get-go, we planned this amazing experience that we call Cloud City Live. At Cloud City Live, we have two main components. We have the speaker series, where we have over 50 speakers from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, as well as CSPs, and awesome vendors, talking about the public cloud in telco. The second part of Cloud City Live is theCUBE. Think of this as like an ESPN desk of awesome tech interviews focused on telco and the public cloud, hosted by John furrier and Dave Vallente. Dave and John are going to talk to a variety of guests focused on telco in the public cloud. It's a great way for our virtual participants to feel like they're at the show, experiencing what's going on here. So excited to have them as part of the Cloud City booth. There's a ton of innovation going on in telco, and 20 years ago, Elon Musk set on his mission to Mars. I, like Elon Musk, am on a quest to take telco to the public cloud. Every year at MWC, there's always a flurry of announcements, and this year is no different. At this year's MWC, Totogi, a startup that I invested $1,000,000 in, will be launching. Totogi is introducing two products to the market this week at MWC. The first is at planetary scale charger. More than a charger, it's an engagement, coupling your network data with charging information to drive subscriber engagement, and doubling your ARPU. The second product that Totogi is introducing is a planetary scale BSS system, built on top of the TM Forum Open APIs. Both of these products will be available for viewing in the virtual booth, as well as on the show floor. The public cloud is an unstoppable mega trend that's coming to telco! I'm super excited to bring to you the vendors, the products, the demonstrations, and the speakers, both to people here in Barcelona, and virtually around the world! (upbeat instrumental music) Well, that was a fascinating insight into the origins of TelcoDR, why public cloud is going to truly disrupt the telecoms industry, and why DR herself is so passionate about it. If you'd like to find out more, come and see us at Cloud City. (groovy electronic music) >> Okay, thanks. Just rolling that reel. Chloe, I mean, look at that reel, I mean, DR, Danielle Royston, she's a star. And I've seen a lot of power players in the industry. She's got guts and determination, and she's got a vision, and she's not just, you know, making noise about telco and cloud, there's actually a lot of real good vision there! I mean, it's just so impressive. >> No, it really is. And for me, it's almost like the next moonshot. It's the moonshot of the telco world! She's innovative, she's exciting. And if we've learned anything over the last 18 months, it's that we need that in this industry, to grow for the future of the industry. So, so exciting. I think she's a real inspiration! >> And I love the fact that she's so takes the tiger by the tail. Because the telco industry is being disrupted, she's just driving the bus here. And I remember, I did a story on Teresa Carlson, who was with Amazon Web Services, she was running the public sector, and she was doing the same exact thing in that public sector world in DC, and around the world. She opened up regions in Bahrain, which as a woman, that was an amazing accomplishment. And she wasn't just a woman, she was just a power player! And she was an exceptional leader. I see DR doing the same thing, and people aren't going to like that, I'll tell you right now. People are going to be like, "Whoa, what's going on here?" >> Now of course, it's always that way we pioneers though, isn't it? At the time, people thinking what is going on here, we don't like change, why are being shaken up? But actually, afterwards, in retrospect, they think, "Oh, okay. I see why that happened, and we needed it." So, really exciting stuff. >> Making things happen, that's what we're doing here on theCUBE. Obviously, the main stage's doing a great job. Let's go check out this highlight reel. If you're watching and you missed some of the action, this is obviously the physical event back since 2019 in February, but there's also a hybrid event, a lot of virtual action going on. So, you got theCUBE Virtual, you got a lot of content on virtual sites. But in person here, we're going to go show you a highlight reel from what we did yesterday, and what was happening around the show. Enjoy this quick highlight reel from yesterday. (groovy electronic music) (cheerful instrumental music) (groovy electronic music) Okay. We're back here in theCUBE. We're on the main floor out here with Chloe, who is emceeing, hosting, and driving the content on the Cloud City main stage. Chloe, it's been great here. I mean so far, day one, I was watching your presentations and fireside chats you've been hosting. Awesome content. I mean, people are like jazzed up. >> Yeah, no, for sure. We had Scott Brighton on yesterday, who was our opening keynote on the live stage, and his session was all about the future of work, which is so relevant and so pertinent to now. And he talked about the way it's changing. And in 10 years, it's going to be a trillion dollar industry to be in the cloud at work. So, really interesting! I mean, yeah, the atmosphere here is great. Everyone's excited. It's new content everyday. And that's the thing, it's not stale content! It's stuff that people want to hear. People are here for the new hot trends, the new hot topics. It's very exciting. >> Yeah, the next big thing. And also it's a fiscal event, so since 2019, this Mobile World Congress has been a massive event, and hasn't happened since February, 2019. That's a lot of time that's elapsed in the industry because of COVID, and people are glad to be here. But a lot of stuff's changed! >> Yeah. It's a different world, right? I mean, two years in the telco industry is like a hundred years elsewhere. Everything has changed! Digital transformation migration, obviously cloud, which is what we're talking about over here at Cloud City Live. I'm wondering though, John, I'd like to pick your brains on something. >> John: Sure. >> It has changed in the last two years. We know that! But what about the future of Mobile World Congress? How do you see it changing in the next few years. >> Oh, man. That's a great question. I mean, my observation, I've been coming to the show for a very long time, over a decade and a half, and it's been a nerdy show about networks, and telecom, which is basically radios, and wireless, and then mobile. But it's very global, a lot of networks. But now it's evolving! And many people are saying, and we were talking on theCUBE yesterday, Dave Vellante was commenting, that this show is turning into a consumer like show. So CES is the big consumer electronics show in the US, in Las Vegas every year. This show has got a vibe, because of all the technology from the cloud players, and from the chips, getting smaller, faster, cheaper, more capability, lower power. So people look at the chips, the hardware. It's less about the speeds and feeds, it's more about the consumer experience. We got cars. I was talking to a guy yesterday, he said, "Vehicle e-commerce is coming." I went, "What the hell his vehicle e-commerce?" And you could be on your app driving down the freeway and go, "Hey, I want some food." Instead of having it delivered to you, you order it, you pick it up. So that's kind of what can be happening now in real time, you can do all kinds of other things. So, a lot of new things are happening. >> Yeah, I think so. Do you see that as another disruption for the industry? That is, the fact that it's moving to be more consumer focused? Is there anything we should be worried about in that space? >> Well, I think the incumbents are going to lose their positions. So I think in any new shift, new brands come in out of nowhere. And it's the people that you don't think about. It's the the company that you don't see. (audience in background applauding) And we got DR on the main stage right here, look at this! We saw her walk out with the confidence of a pro. >> Chloe: Yeah, for sure. >> She just walked out there, and she's not afraid. >> Well, as she said in her video, she is ready to wake them up! And you can see as soon as she walks out, that is what she intends to do today. >> I love her mojo. She's got a lot of energy. And back to the show, I mean, she's just an example of what I was saying. Like in every market shift, a new brand emerges. >> Chloe: Yep. >> I mean, even when Apple was tainted, they were about to shut down, they were going to run out of cash, when Steve Jobs brought back Apple, he consolidated and rebooted the company, the iPad was a seminal, iPod, a seminal moment. Then the iPhone, and just, the rest is history. That kind of disruption is coming. You're going to see that now. >> Oh, it's exciting though, isn't it? To be future ready, rather than future proof! But actually I wanted to ask you something as well, because we are seeing all these cloud players getting hot under the collar about telco. Why are they so excited? What's the buzz about wire, as you're on AWS and Google Cloud, why do they want to have a slice of the pie? >> Well, I think they're hot and heavy on the fact that telco is a ripe opportunity. And it used to be this boring, slow moving glacier. It's almost like global warming now, the icebergs are melting, and it's going to just change. And because of the edge, 5G is not a consumer wireless thing, it's not like a better phone. It's a commercial app opportunity, because it's high bandwidth. We've all been to concerts, or football games, or sporting events where a stadium is packed. Everyone gets bars on their wifi, but can't get out. Can't upload their picture to Instagram. Why? Because it's choking them on the network. That's where 5G solves a problem. It brings a lot of bandwidth, and that's going to bring the edge to life, and that's money. So when you got money, and greed, and power, changing hands, if it's on the table, and the wheel's spinning, it could be double zero, or it could be lucky seven. You don't know! >> Oh, for sure. And that's certainly enough to get all the big players hot and bothered about getting involved! And I suppose it circles back to the fact that DR is really leading the charge, and they're probably thinking, "Okay, what's going on here? This is different. We want something new." You did notice it, OpenRAN is something that we've been talking about over the last day or so. We've had quite a few of us speakers over here at Cloud City Live mention OpenRAN. What is it all about, Don? Because why all the buzz if 5G is such a hot topic? Why are we get excited about it? >> That's a great thing. The 5G certainly will drive the main trend, for sure. OpenRAN is essentially an answer to the fact that 5G is popular, and they need more infrastructure. So open source, the Linux Foundation, has been the driver for most of the open source software. So, they're trying to make open software, and open architectures, to create more entrepreneurial activity around hardware, and around infrastructure, because we need more infrastructure, we need more antennas, we need more transceivers, we need more devices. That could be open. So in order to do that, you got to open up the technology, and you want to minimize the licensing, and minimize a lot of these, you know, proprietary aspects. >> What did we look at? So on Wednesday, we've got a great keynote from Phillip Langlois, who is CEO and founder of P1 Security. And he's coming to talk to us about cybersecurity within the cloud, and within telco. So you just mentioned that OpenRAN is all about having open source, about having that space where we can share more efficiently and easily more easily. What does that mean for security though? Is it at risk? >> I think it's going to increase the value of security, and minimize the threats. Because open source, even though it's open, the more people that are working on it, the more secure it could be. So yes, it could be more open in a sense that could be explored by hackers, but open can also protect. And I think we've seen open source, and cloud in particular, be more secure. Because everyone said, cloud is not secure, open source is insecure. And as it turns out, when the collective hive minds of developers work on things, it gets secure. >> And it is interesting, isn't it? Because we have seen that there has been an uptick in cyber security threats, but actually I was speaking to some leaders across various industries, and particularly in tech, and they were saying, actually, there's not been an uptick in attempted threats, there's been an uptick because with this open-source environment, we are able to track them, and measure them, and defend more efficiently. So actually, they're being batted away. But the number is probably the same as it always was, we just didn't know about them before we had this open source environment. >> There's more money in threats, and there's more surface area. So as the tide rises, so to the threats. So on a net basis, it's more, because there's more volume, but it's pretty much the same. And look it, there's money involved, they are organized. There's a business model on attacking and getting the cash out of your bank, or ransomware is at an all time high. >> Yes! >> So this is like a big problem, and it's beyond the government. It's around individual freedom. So, security is huge. And I think open source and cloud are going to be, I think, the answer to that. >> Yeah, for sure. And it's, again, about collaboration, isn't it? Which we talk about all the time, but without collaboration, the industries are going to have to work together to promote this environment. So yeah, it should be good to talk with Phillip on Wednesday. >> I'd just say on security, don't download that PDF, if you don't know who it came from. The phishing is always good. Well, we got some great stuff coming up. We're going to have a great day. We got a video here of Mobile World Live. We're going to show this next segment, and we're going to toss it to a video. And this is really about to give the experience, Chloe, for people who aren't here. To get a feel for what's going on in Barcelona, and all the action. And if you look at the video, enjoy it. >> Hi, I'm Daniel Royston, CEO and founder of TelcoDR. But you can call me DR! Ready for some more straight talk about telco? It's go time! Let's do it. Holy shit! It sure is a great time to be a tech company! I mean, if you're Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Grab, Twilio, Door Dash, or Uber, life's pretty great! Just look at these stock prices over the past five years, with their shareholder value going up and to the right. Totally amazing! But where's telco? Dare I add our stocks to this awesome chart? Let's compare these fabulous tech stocks to AT&T, Vodafone, Telefonica, TIM, America Movil, and Zain Group. Huh. Not so great, right? Yep. I'm talking directly to you, senior telco execs. I'm here to wake you up! Why is it that Wall Street doesn't see you as tech? Why aren't CSPs seen as driving all the tech change? Why is it always Apple, Amazon and Google who get the big buzz? But more importantly, why isn't it you? Before I came to this industry, I always thought of carriers as tech companies. I gave more of my money to AT&T than to Apple, because I really cared about the quality of the network. But I also wondered why on earth the carriers allowed all the other tech companies to take center stage. After spending the last few years in telco, I now understand why. It's because you are network people, you are not customer people! I get it. You have the security blanket. You're a network oligopoly. It's crazy expensive to build a network, and it's expensive to buy spectrum. It takes operational chops to run a killer network, and it takes great skill to convince Wall Street to finance all of it. You telco execs are amazing at all those things. But because you focus on the network, it means you don't focus on the customer. And so far, you haven't had to. Every Telco's KPI is to be less shitty than their next competitor. You don't have to be the best. Just don't be last. Everyone else's NPS is in the thirties too. Their mobile app ratings are just as terrible as yours. Everyone's sucks at customer sat. And it's widely acknowledged and accepted. Let's talk about the cost of that. The cost is not measured on market share against other MNOs. The cost is measured in lost ARPU that the tech guys are getting. Everyone knows about the loss of texting to WeChat, WhatsApp, and the other OTT apps. But it is not just texting. The total adjustable market, or TAM, of the mobile app disruptors is huge! Instead of remaining network focused, you should be leveraging your network into a premier position. And because you're network people, I bet you think I'm talking about coercive network leverage. That is not what I'm talking about! I'm talking about love, customer love. There is one thing the highly valued tech companies all have in common. They all crush it on customer love! They look at every interaction with the customer and say, how do we make the customer love this? Like Netflix has easy monthly cancellation, Amazon does no questions asked returns, Uber gives users a real time view into driver rating and availability. Compare those ideas to the standard telco customer interaction. The highly valued tech companies don't have the network oligopoly to fall back on like you do. To survive, they must make customers love them. So, they focus on it in a big way! And it pays off. Their NPS is close to 70, and they have app ratings of 4.5 or higher. A far cry from your thirties NPS, and app ratings of 3.5. If you want to have those huge tech multiples for yourself, you have to start thinking about these guys as your new competition, not the other telcos in your market. The crazy thing is, if you give up using your network as a crutch, and put all of your focus on the customer, the network becomes an asset worth more than all the super apps. Let's step back and talk about the value of super apps, and becoming customer centered! Retooling around the customer is a huge change, so let's make sure it's worth it. We aren't talking about 25% improvement. I'm going to show you that if you become customer centric, you can double your ARPU, double your valuation multiples, and drive big shareholder value, just like the tech companies on that chart! Now let's talk about the customer focused super apps. There are hundreds of companies in a variety of categories vying for your subscribers' disposable income. Movies, food delivery, financial services. Who are they? And why does Wall Street give them such high valuations and like them so much? Well first, look at what they are telling Wall Street about their TAM. They broadcast ridiculously huge TAMs that are greater than the telco TAMs. You know, who should have a ridiculously huge TAM? You! Hello? What I'm saying is that if you got what's yours, you double in size. And if you take the TAMs they throw around, you'd be five times as big. When I think about the opportunity to double ARPU, without having to double the cap ex to build out the network, I say to myself, hell yeah! We should totally go do it, and do whatever it takes to go get it. For example, let's talk about Grab. Grab is a Southeast Asian super app company with an expected $40 billion valuation. Grab's customer focus started in Rideshare, but then leveraged its customer love into wallet deliveries, hospitality, and investing. Their ARPU is now larger than a Telco's ARPU in countries where they compete, and they have a higher valuation than those telcos too. Imagine if you could combine a great user experience with the valuable services that helped grow your ARPU. That would be huge! So, how do you build a super app? I bet right about now, you're wishing you had a super app. Everyone wants a super app! A lot of money has been unsuccessfully spent by telcos trying to build their own. I bet you're saying to yourself, "DR, your pie in the sky sounds great, but it has no chance of success." Well, I'm betting things are about to change. There is a public cloud startup called to Totogi that is going to help carriers build world-class super apps. To have a successful super app, there is one key metric you need to know. It is the KPI that determines if your super app will be a success or a flop. It's not about the daily active users. It's not the average order value. It's not even gross merchandise value. It's all about the frequency of use per day by the user. That's the metric that matters. How many have you used that metric in your telco apps? Do you have a team driving up user app interactions every day? Most telco apps are used for top-up, or to check a bill. This is a huge missed opportunity. Super app companies excel at building great experiences and driving a huge amount of interactions. They have to, their business depends on it. They have to be customer focused. They have to keep bringing the user back to the app, every day, multiple times a day. And you know what? They do a great job. Customers love their super apps. They have great user experiences. Like Apple credit cards, no information required application process. They have high net promoter scores because of customer friendly policies. Like how Door Dash retroactively credits fees when you move to a better plan. And they have great app store ratings, because they do simple things, like remember your last order, or allow you to use the app, rather than forced you to call customer service. Customers of successful super apps love it when new services are added. And because of the customer love, every time something is added to the app, customers adopt it immediately. New services drive frequent daily user interactions. So our problem in telco is we have an app that is only open once per month, not multiple times per day. And without frequent opens, there is no super app. Hm, what do we have in telco that we could use to help with this problem? I wonder. While you don't currently have a mobile app that subscribers use multiple times a day, you have something that's 10 times better! You have a network. Subscribers already interact with your network. 10 times more frequently than any user with any of the super apps. But telcos don't leverage those interactions into the insanely valuable engagements they could be. Worse, even if you wanted to, your crappy, over customized, on-premise solutions, make it impossible. Thankfully, there's this new tech that's come around, you may have heard of it, the public cloud. When you bring the enabling technology of the public cloud, you can turn your network interactions into valuable super app interactions. And there's a special new startup that's going to help you do it, Totogi! Totogi will leverage all those network interactions, and turn them into valuable customer interactions. Let me repeat that. Totogi will leverage all those network interactions, and turn them into valuable customer interactions. Totogi allows the carrier to leverage its network, and all the network interactions, into customer engagement. This is something that super apps don't have, but will wish they did. But this magic technology is not enough. Telcos also need to move from being network focused to being customer focused. Totogi enables telcos to chase exciting revenue growth without that annoying, massive cap ex investment. Totogi is going to help you transform your sucky mobile apps, with the crappy customer ratings, into something your subscribers want to open multiple times a day, and become a platform for growth. I'm so excited about Totogi, I'm investing $100,000,000 into it. You heard me right. $100,000,000. Is this what it feels like to be SoftBank? I'm investing into Totogi because it's going to enable telcos to leverage their network interactions into super app usage! Which will lead to an improved subscriber experience, and will give you a massive jump in your ARPU. And once you do that, all those telco valuations will go from down here, (buzzes lips) to up here. And so I've been talking to some folks, you know, checking in, feeling them out, getting their thoughts. And I've been asking them, what do you think about telcos building super apps? And the response has been, "Click. Eh." Everyone says, no way. Telcos can't do it. Zero chance. Total goose egg. (egg cracking) One suggested I build a bonfire with a hundred million dollars, because then at least I wouldn't waste years of my life. Well, I think those people are dead wrong! I do believe that telcos can build super apps and make them super successful. The public cloud is changing all parts of telco, and Totogi and super apps are fundamentally changing the customer relationships. In one month at MWC, people will see what Totogi has to offer, and they will understand why I'm making this bold call. Because Totogi takes the value of the network, and the power of the public cloud, to help telcos move from being network centric, to being customer centric. Boom! If you want to make this transformation and reap all the financial benefits, you will have to compete for customers with a whole new set of players. You will no longer compete with the network focused guys, like the other telcos. Instead, you will be competing against the customer focused companies. These players don't have a network to fall back on like your old competitors, they know they have to make customers love them. Their customer loyalty is so off the charts, their customers are called fans. So if you want that big money, you will have to compete on their turf, and make the customers want to choose you. You need Apple level loyalty. That bar is uber high. We'll have to give up the security blanket of the network, and change. Instead of NPS at the thirties, it needs to be in the seventies. Instead of mobile app ratings in the threes, they need to get five stars. I'm betting big that Totogi will make that possible! I'm going to help you every step of the way, starting with my keynote next month at MWC. Join me, and I'll share the secrets to converting your super valuable network interactions to make your super app a massive success. We're going to have an amazing time, and I can't wait to see you there! >> Okay. We're back here in theCUBE here at Mobile World Congress in Cloud City. I'm John Furrier. Chloe Richardson's filling in for Dave Vellante who's out on assignment. He's out getting all the data out there and getting stories. Chloe, what a great keynote by Danielle Royston. We just heard her involving major action, major pump you up, punch in the face, "Wake the heck up cloud people, cloud is here!" She didn't pull any punches. >> No, I mean the thing is, John, there's trillions of dollars on the table, and everyone seems to be fighting for it. >> And you heard her up there, if you're not on the public cloud, you're not going to get access to that money. It's a free for all. And I think the cloud people are like, they might think they're going to walk right in, and the telco industry is going to just give it up. >> No, of course. >> And it's not going to be, it's going to be a fight! Who will win? >> Who will win, but also who will build the next big thing? (John laughing) >> Someone needs to die in the media conversations. It's always a fight. Something's dead. Something's dead but keeps the living. All that kidding aside, this is really about partnering. Think what's happened is Telco's already acknowledged that they need to change. And the 5G edge conversation, the chip acceleration. Look at Apple. They've got their own processors, Nvidia, Amazon makes their own chips, Intel's pumping stuff out, you've got Qualcomm. You've got all these new things. So, the chips are getting faster, and the software's more open source. And I'm telling you, the cloud is just going to drive that bus right down Cloud Street, and it's going to be in Cloud City everywhere. >> And it's going to be peepin' on the board as it drives down. (John laughing) John, I'm not a stalker, but I have read some of the things that you've written, and one of the things you mentioned that was really interesting was the difference between building and operating. Break it down for me, what does that mean? >> That means basically in mature markets, and growing markets, things behave differently, and certainly economics, and the people, and the makeup, and the mindset. So the telco has been kind of this mature market, it's been changing and growing, but not like radically. Cost optimization, make profit. You know, to install a lot of cable, you got to get the rents out of that infrastructure. And that's kind of gone on for too long. Cloud is a growth market. And it's about building, not just operating. And you've got operators, carriers are operating networks. So you're going to see the convergence of operators and builders coming together. Builders being software developers, new technology, and executives that think about building. And you want people on your team that are going to be, I won't say war time, you know, lieutenants or generals, but people who can handle the pace of change. Because the change and the nature is different. And some people want slow and steady, keep the boat from rocking. But in a growth market, it's turbulent, and the ride might not be quiet, first-class ticket to paradise. It's bumpy, but it's thrilling. >> No, of course. Is it similar to the old sales adage of hunter versus farmer? Are there parallels there? >> Yeah. I mean, there's a mindset. If you have a team of people that aren't knocking down new opportunities and building the next big thing, fixing your house, get your house in order, you know, refactor, reset, reboot, replatform with the cloud, and then refactor your business! If you don't have the people thinking like that, you're probably either going to be taken over, or go out of business. And that's what the telcos with all these assets, they're going to get bought, rolled into a SPAC, Special Purpose Acquisition Company, which is super hot in the United States. A lot of roll-ups going on with private equity. So a lot of these telcos, if they don't refactor, or replatform then refactor, they're going to be toast, and they're going to get rolled up, and eaten up by somebody else. >> Yeah, sure. It's interesting though, isn't it? Because when we think of telco in tech, we often think of, obviously we've got the triad, people, process, technology, and we think, process and technology really to the forefront here. But like you said there, people are also so important because if you don't have this right balance, you're not going to be able to drive that change. We had, obviously, Scott Brighton on the stage yesterday, and after his session, somebody came up to me and just said, "I'm interested to hear what that means for education." So how can we establish this new generation of tech and telco leaders from the grassroots with educational associations, establishments. How can we encourage that? I wonder, is this something that you talk about? >> Yeah. I mean, education's huge, and this highlights the change that telco's now part of. Telco used to be a boring industry that ran the networks, or moving packets around, and mobile was there. But once the iPhone came out in 2007, the life has changed, society has changed, education's changed, how people interact has changed. So, you start to see people now aware of the value. And if you look at during COVID, the internet didn't crash, the telcos actually saved our asses, and everyone survived because the network didn't break. Yeah, we had some bad Zoom meetings here and there, and some teleconferences that didn't go well, but for the most part we survived, and they really saved everybody. So, they should get kudos for that. But now they're dependent upon healthcare, education. People care about that stuff, so now you're going to start to see an elevated focus on what telecom is doing. That's why the edge has got trillions of dollars up for grabs. But education, there's negative unemployment in cybersecurity and in cloud. So for the people who say, "Oh, there's no jobs." Or, "I can't work." That's a bunch of BS, because you can just get online, get on YouTube, and just get a degree. You can get a degree. You can get an Amazon job. It pays a hundred thousand dollars a year! American. You can make a hundred thousand pounds, and be unemployed six months, and then be employed. So negative unemployment means, there's more jobs than people to fill them all, in fact. >> Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that, because I was talking to a cyber security leader who was saying in something, I think there were now 3 million vacancies in cybersecurity. And there's such a skill shortage. There is nobody around to fill it! So it's an interesting problem to have, isn't it? Because it's reversed to what we've been used to for the last few decades! And obviously, telco is in the same space. But what can we do about it do you think, to actually -- >> I think it's going to take leadership, and I'm a big proponent of kids not going to university if they don't have to. Why spend the dough, money, if you don't have to? You can get online. I mean, the data's there. But to me, it's the relationships, the mentorship. You're starting to see a women in tech, and underrepresented minorities in the tech field, where mentorship is more important than curriculum. Community is more important than just going through a linear courseware. Nobody wants to sit online and go through linear courseware. Now, if they have to get a certificate, or degree, and accreditation, no problem. But the communities are out there, so that's a big change over, I'm a big fan of that. And I think people should, you know, get some specialized skills. You can get that online, so why even go to school? So, people are figuring that out. >> For sure. And also, even transferring. I mean, so many skills are transferable nowadays, aren't they, so we could easily be talking to people from other industries, and bringing them into telco, and saying, "Look, bring what you know from your retail background, or your healthcare background, and help us at telco to, again, drive forwards." Just like DR was saying, it's all about the next big thing. >> Well, Danielle is always also driving a lot of change. And if you think about the jobs, and the pedigree of going to a university, oh, Harvard, all the big Ivy Leagues, Oxford in your area. So it's like, if you go to the school like that, and you get a pedigree, you instantly get a job. Now the jobs that are available weren't around five years ago, so there's no like pedigree or track record. There's no like, everyone's equal. >> Yeah. >> So you could, the democratization of the internet now, from a job standpoint, is people are leveling up faster. So it's not about the Ivy League, or the big degree, or silver spoon in your mouth, you've got the entitlement. So you start to see people emerging and making things happen. Entrepreneurship in America, immigrant entrepreneurship. People are billionaires that have no high school diplomas! >> It's interesting you mention that, John, because we can't have more than five years experience in this space, we know that. But in telco, there is a problem. And maybe it's, again, it's a flipped problem where telco recruiters, or talent acquisition leaders, are now asking for kind of 10, 20 years experience when they're sending out job descriptions. So does that mean that we are at fault for not being able to fill all these vacancies? >> I think that's just, I mean I think there's a transition of the new skill set happening, one. But two, I think, you know, to be like a chip engineer, (laughs) you can't learn that online. But if you want to run a cloud infrastructure, you can. But I think embedded systems is an area that I was talking to an engineer, there's a huge shortage of engineers who code on the microprocessors, on the chips. So, embedded systems is a big career. So there's definitely paths you can specialize. Space is another area you've seen a lot of activity on. You see Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is going to be here on a virtual keynote, trying to go to Mars. And you know, Danielle Royston always says, "What's going to happen first, Mars colony, or telco adopting public cloud?" And some people think Mars will happen first, but. >> What do you think, John? >> I think Telco's going to get cloud. I mean first of all, public cloud is now hybrid cloud, and the edge, this whole internet edge, 5G, is so symbolic and so important, because it's an architectural beachhead. And that's where the trillion dollar baby is. So, the inside baseball, and the inside money, and all the investors are focusing on the edge, because whoever can command the edge, wins all the dollars. So everyone kind of knows, it's a public secret, and it's fun to watch everyone jockey for the positions. >> Yeah no, it really is. But it's also quite funny, isn't it? Because the edge is almost where we were decades ago, but we're putting the control back in the hands of consumers. So, it's an interesting flip. And I wonder if, with the edge, we can really enhance this acceleration of product development, this efficiency, this frictionless system in which we live in. And also, I've heard you say hybrid a few times, John. >> John: Yeah. >> Is hybrid going to be the future of the world no matter what industry you're in? >> Hybrid is everything now. So, we're the hybrid CUBE, we've got hybrid cloud. >> Exactly. >> You got hybrid telco, because now you've got the confluence of online and offline coming together. That is critical dynamic! And you're seeing it. Like virtual reality, for instance, now you're seeing things, I know you guys are doing some great work at your company around creating experiences that are virtual. You got, companies like Roblox went public recently. Metaverse. It's a good time to be in that business, because experiential human relations are coming. So, I think that's going to be powered by 5G. You know, gamers. So, all good stuff. Chloe, great to be with you here on theCUBE, and we're looking forward to seeing your main stage. >> Great. >> And then we're going to send it back to the studio, Adam, and the team. We're waiting for DR to arrive here in Cloud City. And this is theCUBE, from Cloud City, back to you, Adam, and the studio.

(upbeat music) >> Okay, thanks Adam in the studio. We're here on the floor in Cloud City, right in the middle of all the action. The keynotes are going on in the background, it's a packed house. I'm John Furrier. Dave Vellante is on assignment, digging in, getting those stories. He'll have the analysis, he'll be back on theCUBE but I want to welcome Chloe Richardson, who has been holding down the main stage here in Cloud City, with amazing content that she's been hosting. Chloe, great to see you. Thanks for coming on theCUBE and kicking it up day two with me. >> No, not at all. Thank you for having me. It's very exciting. I love what you guys have got over here, very fun. >> We're inside theCUBE. This is where all the action is. And also the Cloud City is really changing the game. If you look at what's going on here in Cloud City, it's pretty spectacular. >> Know, I mean the atmosphere is absolutely palpable, isn't it? You can just feel as people walk in and see what the future looks like to the Telecoms industry, it's very exciting. >> And you've been doing a great job on the main stage. We've been really loving your content. Let's get into some of the content here. Actually the keynote is going on, we're going to have DR, maybe fly by the set later, we're going to check that up. But let's check out this videotape of, this is TelcoDR. You got to check out this reel and we'll be right back, we'll talk about it. (upbeat music) >> TelcoDR burst onto the global telecom scene this year, making headlines for taking over the huge Erickson's space at MWC21. And for building Cloud City in just a hundred days. But why did the company go to such trouble? And what is the unique offering to the telecoms industry? And what drives their dynamic CEO, Danielle Royston or DR as everyone calls her? Cloud City Live caught up with DR, away from the hustle and bustle of the city to find out. (upbeat music) >> Hi, I'm Danielle Royston, coming to you from beautiful Barcelona. I'm here for MWC21. About a hundred days ago, I decided to take over the iconic Erickson booth to turn it into Cloud City. Cloud City has over 30 vendors and 70 demos to introduce telco to what I think is the future for our industry. We're going to have three awesome experiences. We're going to talk about the new subscriber experience, we're going to talk about what's in store for the new network and the future of work. I'm really excited to create a community and invite awesome telco executives to see this new future. It's been a really tough 18 months, and we didn't know what MWC21 was going to be like in terms of attendance. And so from the get go we plan this amazing experience that we call, Cloud City Live. At Cloud City Live, we have two main components. We have the speaker series where we have over 50 speakers from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, as well as CSPs and awesome vendors talking about the public cloud in telco. The second part of Cloud City Live, is theCUBE. Think of this as like an ESPN desk of awesome tech interviews focused on telco and the public cloud hosted by John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Dave and John are going to talk to a variety of guests, focused on telco and the public cloud. It's a great way for our virtual participants to feel like they're at the show, experiencing what's going on here. So excited to have them as part of the Cloud City booth. There's a ton of innovation going on in telco. And 20 years ago, Elon Musk set on his mission to Mars. I, like Elon Musk, I'm on a quest to take telco to the public cloud. Every year at MWC, there's always a flurry of announcements and this year is no different. At this year's MWC, Totogi, a startup that I invested a hundred million dollars in, will be launching. Totogi is introducing two products to the market, this week at MWC. The first is a planetary scale charger. More than a charger, it's an engagement coupling dual network data with charging information to drive subscriber engagement and doubling your ARPU. The second product that Totogi is introducing, is a planetary scale BSS system built on top of the TM forum, open APIs. Both of these products will be available for viewing in the virtual booth, as well as on the show for. The public cloud is an unstoppable mega trend that's coming to telco. I'm super excited to bring to you, the vendors, the products, the demonstrations, and the speakers, both to people here in Barcelona and virtually around the world. (upbeat music) >> Well, that was a fascinating insight into the origins of TelcoDR, why public cloud is going to truly disrupt the telecoms industry and why DR herself is so passionate about it. If you'd like to find out more, come and see us at Cloud City. (upbeat music) >> Okay, thanks. Just roll on that reel. Chloe, I mean, look at that reel. I mean, DR, Danielle Royston, she's a star and I've seen a lot of power players in the industry. She's got guts and determination, and she's got a vision and she's not just, you know, making noise about telco and cloud, there's actually a lot of real good vision there. I mean, it's just so impressive. >> No, really isn't. And for me, it's almost like the next moonshot. It's the moonshot of the telco world. She's innovative, she's exciting and if we've learned anything over the last 18 months is that we need to in this industry to grow and for the future of the industry. So, it's so exciting. I think she's a real inspiration. >> And I love the fact that she's so, takes a tiger by the tail, because the telco industry is being disrupted. She's just driving the bus here and I remember I did a story on Teresa Carlson, who was with Amazon web services, she was running the public sector and she was doing the same exact thing in that public sector world in DC and around the world. She opened up regions in Bahrain, which as a woman, that was an amazing accomplishment. And she wasn't just a woman, she was just a power player. And she was exceptional leader. I see DR doing the same thing and people aren't going to like that, I'll tell you right now. People are going to be like, whoa, what's going on here? >> And of course, it's always the way we pioneers though, isn't it? At the time people thinking what's going, we don't like change, why are we being shaken up. But actually afterwards, in retrospect, they think, oh, okay, I see why that happened and we needed it. So really exciting stuff. >> Making things happen, that's what we're doing here in theCUBE. Obviously the main stage's doing a great job. Let's go check out this highlight reel. If you're watching and you miss some of the action, this is, I'll see the physical event back since 2019 in February, but there's also a Hybrid event. A lot of virtual action going on. So you got theCUBE virtual, you got a lot of content on virtual sites, but in person here, we're going to go show you a highlight reel from what we did yesterday, what was happening around the show? Enjoy this quick highlight reel from yesterday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Okay. We're back here in theCUBE. We're the main floor out here with Chloe Richardson, who is emceeing, hosting and driving the content on the Cloud City main stage. Chloe, it's been great here. I mean, so far day one, I was watching your presentations and inspire site chats you've been hosting. Awesome content. I mean, people are like jazzed up. >> Yeah, I know for sure. We had Scott Brighton on yesterday, who was our opening keynote on the live stage. And his session was all about the future of work, which is so relevant and so pertinent to now. And he talked about the way it's changing and in 10 years it's going to be a trillion dollar industry to be in the cloud at work. So really interesting. I mean, yeah, the atmosphere here is great, everyone's excited, there's new content everyday. And that's the thing, it's not stale content. It's stuff that people want to hear. People are here for the new hot trends, the new hot topics. Really exciting. >> Yeah, the next big thing. And also it's a fiscal event. So since 2019, this Mobile World Congress has been a massive event and hasn't happened since February, 2019. That's a lot of time that's elapsed in the industry cause of COVID and people are glad to be here, but a lot of stuff's changed. >> Yeah, it's a different world, right? I mean, two years in the telco industry is like a hundred years elsewhere. Everything has changed, digital transformation migration, obviously cloud, which is what we're talking about over here at Cloud City Live. I'm wondering though John, I'd like to pick your brains on something. >> Sure. >> It has changed in the last two years, we know that, but what about the future of Mobile World Congress? How do you see it changing in the next few years? >> Oh man, that's a great question. I mean, my observation, I've been coming to the show for a very long time, over a decade and a half, and it's been a nerdy show about networks and telecom, which is basically radios and wireless and then mobile. It's very global, a lot of networks, but now it's evolving and many people are saying, and we were talking on theCUBE yesterday, Dave Vellante was commenting that this show is turning into a consumer like show. So CES is the big consumer electronics show in the US, in Las Vegas every year. This show has got a vibe because what's all the technology from the cloud players and from the chips, are getting smaller, faster, cheaper, more capability, lower power. So if you look at the chips, the hardware, it's less about the speeds and feeds. It's more about the consumer experience. You got cars. I was talking to a guy yesterday, he said, "Vehicle e-commerce is coming." I'm like, "What the hell his vehicle e-commerce?" And you could be on your app, driving down the freeway and go, "Hey, I want some food." Instead of having it delivered to you, if you order it you pick it up. So that's kind of can be happening now in real time, you can do all kinds of other things. so a lot of new things are happening. >> Yeah, I think so. Do you see that as another disruption for the industry that is the fact that it's moving to be more consumer focused? Is that anything we should be worried about in that space? >> Well I think the incumbents are going to lose their position. So I think in any new shift, new brands come in out of nowhere. >> For sure. >> And it's the people that you don't think about. It's the company that's not, that you don't see. And we got DR on the main stage right here, look at this. You saw her walk out with the confidence of a pro. She just walked out there and she's not afraid. >> No. Well, as she said in her video, she is ready to wake them up and you can see as soon as she worked out. That is what she intends to do. >> I love her mojo, she's got a lot of energy. And back to the show, I mean, she's just an example of what I was saying. Like in every market shift, a new brand emerges. >> Yep. >> I mean, even when apple was tainted, they were about to shut down, they were going to run out of cash. When Steve Jobs brought back apple, he consolidated and rebooted the company. The iPad was a similar moment, then the iPhone and just the rest is history. That kind of disruption's coming. You're going to see that here. >> Yeah. Oh, it's exciting though isn't it? To be future ready rather than future proof but actually I wanted to ask you something as well, because we are seeing all these cloud players getting hot under the collar about telco. Why are they so excited? What's the buzz about why, as you're in MWS and Google Cloud? Why do they want to have a slice of the pie? >> Well, I think they're hot, hot and heavy on the fact that telco is a ripe opportunity and it used to be this boring, slow moving glacier. >> Okay. >> It's almost like global warming now. The icebergs are melting and it's going to just change and because of the edge, 5G is not a consumer wireless thing. It's not like a better phone, it's a commercial app opportunity cause it's high bandwidth. We've all been to concerts or football games or sporting events where a stadium is packed. Everyone gets bars on their wifi, but can't get out, can't upload their pictures on Instagram. Why? Because it's choking them in the network. That's where 5G solves the problem. It brings a lot of bandwidth and that's going to bring the edge to life and that's money. So when you got money and greed and power changing hands, it's every, it's on the table and the wheel's spinning, and it could be double zero, or it could be lucky seven. You don't know. >> Yeah, for sure. And that's certainly enough to get all the big players hot and bothered about getting involved. And I suppose it circles back to the fact that, DR is really leading the charge and they're probably thinking, okay, what's going on here? This is different, we want something new. You didn't know it's an open run or something that we've been talking about over the last day or so. We've had quite a few of us speakers over here constantly. I've mentioned open run. What is it all about John? Because why all the bars, if 5G is such a hot topic? Why are we getting excited about it? >> That's a great thing. 5G certainly is Google Drive the main trend for sure. OpenRent is essentially an answer to the fact that 5G is popular and they need more infrastructure. So open source, the Linux Foundation has been the driver for most of the open source software. So they're trying to bring software and open architectures to create more entrepreneurial activity around hardware and around infrastructure because we need more infrastructure. We need more antennas, we need more transceivers, we need more devices that could be open. So in order to do that, you got to open up the technology and you want to minimize the licensing and minimize a lot of these, you know, proprietary aspects. >> What if we look at, so on Wednesday, we've got a great keynote from Philippe Langlois, who is CEO and founder of P1 Security. And he's coming to talk to us about cybersecurity within the cloud and within telco. So you just mentioned that. Open mind, it's all about having open source, about having that space where we can share more efficiently and easy, more easily. What does that mean for security though? Is it a risk? >> I think that's going to increase the value of security and minimize the threats. Because open source, even though it's open, the more people that are working on it, the more secure it could be. So yes, it could be more open in sense that could be explored by hackers, but it can be open to also protect. And I think we've seen open source and cloud in particular be more secure because everyone said, "Cloud is not secure, open source is not secure." And as it turns out when the collective hive minds of developers work on things, it gets secure. >> And it is interesting, isn't it? Because we have seen that there has been an uptick in cyber security and threats. But actually I was speaking to some leaders in across various industries and particularly in tech. And they were saying, "Actually there's not been an uptick in attempted threats, there's been an uptick because with this open source environment. We are able to track them and measure them and defend more efficiently. So actually they're being battered away, but the number is probably the same as it always was. We just didn't know about them before we had this open source environment. >> There's more money in threats and there's more surface area. So as the tide rises, so do the threats. So on a net basis it's more because there's more volume, but it's pretty much the same. And look at it, there's money involved, they're organized, there's a business model on attacking and getting the cash out of your bank or ransomwares at an all time high. So this is like a big problem and it's beyond the government, it's our individual freedom. So security its huge and I think open source and cloud are going to be, I think the answer to that. >> Yeah, for sure. And it's again about collaboration, isn't it? Which we talk about all the time but without collaboration that the industries aren't going to have to work together to promote this environment. So yeah, it should be good to talk with Phillip on Wednesday. >> I just say in security, don't download that PDF if you don't know who came from. The fishing is always good. Well, we got some great stuff coming up. We're going to have a great day. We got a video here on Mobile World Live, we're going to show this next segment and we're going to toss it to a video. And this is really about to give the experience Chloe, for people who aren't here, right? >> Yeah. >> To get a feel for what's going on in Barcelona and all the actions. And if you look at the video, enjoy it. >> Hi, I'm Danielle Royston, CEO and founder of TelcoDr, but you can call me DR. Ready for some more straight talk about telco? It's go time, let's do it. Holy shit. It sure is a great time to be a tech company. I mean, if you're Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Grab, Twilio, DoorDash or Uber, life's pretty great. Just look at these stock prices over the past five years with their shareholder value going up into the right. Totally amazing. But where's telco? There I add our stocks to this awesome chart. Let's compare these fabulous tech stocks to AT&T, Vodafone, Telefonica, Tim, America Movil and Zain group. Huh, not so great, right? Yep. I'm talking directly to you senior telco execs. I'm here to wake you up. Why is it that Wall Street doesn't see you as tech? Why aren't CSPs seen as driving all the tech change? Why is it always Apple, Amazon and Google who get the big buzz? But more importantly, why isn't it you? Before I came to this industry, I always thought of carriers as tech companies. I gave more of my money to AT&T and to Apple because I really cared about the quality of the network. But I also wondered why on earth, the carriers allowed all the other tech companies to take center stage. After spending the last few years in telco, I now understand why. It's because you are network people, you are not customer people. I get it, you have the security blanket, you're a network oligopoly. It's crazy expensive to build a network and it's expensive to buy spectrum. It takes operational chops to run a killer network and it takes great skill to convince Wall Street, to finance all of it. You telco execs are amazing at all those things, but because you focus on the network, it means you don't focus on the customer. And so far you haven't had to. Every telco's KPI is to be less shitty than their next competitor. You don't have to be the best, just don't be last. Everyone else's NPS, is in the thirties too. Their mobile app ratings are just as terrible as yours. Everyone's sucks at customer sat and it's widely acknowledged and accepted. Let's talk about the cost of that. The cost is not measured on market share against other MNOs. The cost is measured in lost ARPU that the tech guys are getting. Everyone knows about the loss of texting, to WeChat, WhatsApp and the other OTT apps, but it is not just texting. The total adjustable market or term of the mobile app disruptors is huge. Instead of remaining network focused, you should be leveraging your network into a premier position. And because you're a network people, I bet you think I'm talking about coercive network leverage. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about love, customer love. There is one thing the highly valued tech companies all have in common. They all crush it on customer love. They look at every interaction with the customer and say, "How do we make the customer love this?" Like Netflix has easy monthly cancellation, Amazon does no questions asked returns, Uber gives users a real time view into driver rating and availability. Compare those ideas to the standard telco customer interaction. The highly valued tech companies, don't have the network oligopoly to fall back on like you do. To survive they must make customers love them. So they focus on it in a big way and it pays off. Their NPS is close to 70 and they have app ratings of 4.5 or higher. A far cry from your thirties NPS and app ratings of 3.5. If you want to have those huge tech multiples for yourself, you have to start thinking about these guys as your new competition, not the other telcos in your market. The crazy thing is, if you give up using your network as a crutch and put all of your focus on the customer, the network becomes an asset worth more than all the super apps. Let's step back and talk about the value of super apps and becoming customer centric. Retooling around the customer is a huge change. So let's make sure it's worth it. We aren't talking about 25% improvement. I'm going to show you that if you become customer centric, you can double your ARPU, double your valuation multiples and drive big shareholder value just like the tech companies on that chart. Now let's talk about the customer focused super apps. There are hundreds of companies and a variety of categories vying for your subscriber's disposable income. Movies, food delivery, financial services, who are they? And why does Wall Street give them such high evaluations and like them so much? Well first, look at what they are telling Wall Street about their TAM. They broadcast ridiculously huge TAMs that are greater than the telco TAMs. You know, who should have a ridiculously huge TAM? You. Hello. What I'm saying is that if you got what's yours, you double in size. And if you take the TAAMs they throw around, you'll be five times as big. When I think about the opportunity to double ARPU, without having to double the CapEx, to build out the network, I say to myself, "Hell yeah, we should totally go do it and do whatever it takes to go get." For example, let's talk about Grab. Grab is a southeast Asian super app company with an expected $40 billion valuation. Grab's customer focused started in rideshare, but then leverage its customer love into wallet deliveries, hospitality, and investing. Their ARPU is now larger than a telco's ARPU in countries where they compete, and they have a higher valuation than those telcos too. Imagine if you could combine a great user experience with a valuable services that helped grow your ARPU, that would be huge. So how do you build a super app? I bet right about now, you're wishing you had a super app. Everyone wants a super app. A lot of money has been unsuccessfully spent by telcos trying to build their own. I bet you're saying to yourself, "DR, your pie in the sky sounds great but it has no chance of success." Well, I'm betting things are about to change. There is a public cloud startup called Totogi that is going to help carriers build world class super apps. To have a successful super app, there is one key metric you need to know. It is the KPI that determines if your super app will be a success or a flop. It's not about the daily active users, it's not the average order value, it's not even gross merchandise value. It's all about the frequency of use per day by the user, that's the metric that matters. How many of you use that metric in your telco apps? Do you have a team driving up user app interactions every day? Most telco apps are used for top up or to check a bill. This is a huge missed opportunity. Super app companies excel at building great experiences and driving a huge amount of interactions. They have to, their business depends on it. They have to be customer focused. They have to keep bringing the user back to the app, every day, multiple times a day. And you know what? They do a great job. Customers love their super apps. They have great user experiences like Apple credit cards, no information required, application process. They have high net promoter scores because of customer friendly policies, like how DoorDash retroactively credits fees when you move to a better plan. And they have great app store ratings because they do simple things like remember your last order, or allow you to use the app rather than force you to call customer service. Customers of successful super apps love it when new services are added. And because of the customer love, every time something is added to the app, customers adopt it immediately. New services drive frequent daily user interactions. So our problem in telco is we have an app that is only open once per month, not multiple times per day. And without frequent opens, there is no super app. What do we do we have in telco that we could use to help with this problem? I wonder, why you don't currently have a mobile app that subscribers use multiple times a day. You have something that's 10 times better. You have a network. Subscribers already interact with your network 10 times more frequently than any user with any of the super apps. But telcos don't leverage those interactions into the insanely valuable engagements they could be. Worse, even if you wanted to your crappy over customized on premise solutions, make it impossible. Thankfully, there's this new tech that's come around, you may have heard of it. The public cloud. When you bring the enabling technology of the public cloud, you can turn your network interactions into valuable super app interactions. And there's a special new startup that's going to help you do it, Totogi. Totogi will leverage all those network interactions and turn them into valuable customer interactions. Let me repeat that. Totogi will leverage all those network interactions and turn them into valuable customer interactions. Totogi allows the carrier to leverage its network and all the network interactions into customer engagement. This is something the super apps don't have but will wish they did. But this magic technology is not enough. Telcos also need to move from being network focus to being customer focused. Totogi enables telcos to chase exciting revenue growth without that annoying massive CapEx investment. Totogi is going to help you transform your sucky mobile apps with the crappy customer ratings, into something your subscribers want to open multiple times a day and become a platform for growth. I'm so excited about Totogi, I'm investing $100 million into it. You heard me right, $100 million. Is this what it feels like to be soft bank? I'm investing in Totogi because it's going to enable telcos to leverage the network interactions into super app usage. Which will lead to an improved subscriber experience and will give you a massive jump in your ARPU. And once you do that, all those Telco valuations will go from down here to up here. And so I've been talking to some folks, you know, checking in, feeling them out, getting their thoughts, and I've been asking them, what do you think about telcos building super apps? And the response has been, click, everyone says, "No way, telcos can't do it." Zero chance, total goose egg. One suggested I build a bonfire with 100 million dollars, because then at least I wouldn't waste years of my life. Well I think those people are dead wrong. I do believe that telcos can build super apps and make them super successful. The public cloud is changing all parts of telco and Totogi and super apps are fundamentally changing, the customer relationships. In one month at MWC, people will see what Totogi has to offer, and they will understand why I'm making this bold call. Because the Totogi takes the value of the network and the power of the public cloud to help telcos move from being network centric, to being customer centric. Boom! If you want to make this transformation and reap all the financial benefits, you will have to compete for customers with a whole new set of players. You will no longer compete with the network focus guys like the other telcos, instead you will be competing against the customer focused companies. These players don't have a network to fall back on like your old competitors. They know they have to make customers love them. Their customer loyalty is so off the charts, their customers are called fans. So if you want that big money, you will have to compete on their turf and make the customers want to choose you, you need Apple level loyalty. That bar is uber high. We will have to give up the security blanket of the network and change. Instead of NPS of the thirties, it needs to be in the 70s. Instead of mobile app ratings in the threes, they need to get five stars. I'm betting big that Totogi will make that possible. I'm going to help you every step of the way, starting with my keynote next month at MWC. Join me and I'll share the secrets to converting your super valuable network interactions to make your super app a massive success. We're going to have an amazing time and I can't wait to see you there. >> Okay. We're back here in theCUBE here at Mobile World Congress in Cloud City. I'm John Furrier, Chloe Richardson filling it for Dave Vellante who's out on assignment. He's out getting all the data out there and getting stories. Chloe, what a great keynote by Danielle Royston. We just heard her and while with major action, major pump me up, punch in the face, wake the heck up cloud people, cloud is here. She didn't pull any punches. >> No, I mean the thing is John, there's trillions of dollars on the table and everyone seems to be fighting for it. >> And you heard her up there, if you're not on the public cloud, you're not going to get access to that money. It's a free for all. And I think the cloud people are like, they might think they're going to walk right in and the telco industry is going to just give it up. >> No, of course. >> There's not going to be, it's going to be a fight, who will win. >> Who will win but also who will build the next big thing? >> Someone needs to die in the media conversation, it's always a fight, something's dead, something's dead but keeps the living. All that kidding aside, this is really about partnering. I think what's happened is, telco's already acknowledged that they need to change in the 5G edge conversation, the chip acceleration. Look at Apple, they've got their own processors, Nvidia, Amazon makes their own chips, Intel's pumping stuff out, you've got Qualcomm, you've got all these new things. So the chips are getting faster and the software's more open source and I'm telling you, cloud is just going to drive that bus right down clouds street and it's going to be in Cloud City everywhere. >> And it's going to be peeping on the board as it drives down. John, I'm not a stalker, but I have read some of the things that you've written. And one of the things you mentioned that was really interesting was the difference between building and operating. Break it down for me. What does that mean? >> That means basically in mature markets and growing markets things behave differently and certainly economics and the people and the makeup and the mindset. >> Okay. >> So the telco has been kind of this mature market. It's been changing and growing but not like radically. Cost optimization, make profit, you know, install a lot of cable. You got to get the rents out of that infrastructure and that's kind of gone on for too long. Cloud is a growth market, and it's about building, not just operating and you've got operators, carriers are operating networks. So you're going to see the convergence of operators and builders coming together, builders being software developers, new technology and executives that think about building. And you want people on your team that are going to be, I won't say war time, you know, lieutenants or generals, but people who can handle the pace of change. >> Okay. >> Because the change and the nature is different. And some people want slow and steady, keep the boat from rocking, but in a growth market, it's turbulent and ride might not be quiet, first class ticket to paradise, but it's bumpy, but it's thrilling. >> No, of course. Is it similar to the old sales adage of hunter versus farmer and the parallels? >> Yeah. I mean, the mindset. If you have a team of people that aren't knocking down new opportunities and building the next big thing, fixing your house, get your house in order, you know, refactor, reset, reboot, re platform with the cloud and then refactor your business. If you don't have the people thinking like that, you're probably either going to be taken over or go out of business. And that's what the telco with all these assets, they're going to get bought roll into a SPAC, special purpose acquisition company was a super hot in the United States. A lot of roll ups going on with Private equity. So a lot of these telcos, if they don't refactor or re platform, then refactor, they're going to be toast and they're going to get rolled up and eaten up by somebody else. >> Yeah, sure. It's interesting though, isn't it? Because when we think of telco in tech, we often think of, obviously we've got the triad. People process technology, and we think process and technology really take the forefront here but like you said there, people are also so important because if you don't have this right balance, you're not going to be able to drive that change. We had, obviously Scott Brighton on the stage yesterday and after his session, somebody came up to me and just said, "I'm interested to hear what that means for education." So how can we establish this new generation of tech and telco leaders from the grassroots with educational associations establishments? How can we encourage that? I wonder, is this something that you talk about often? >> Yeah. I mean, education is huge and this highlights the change that telcos now part of. Telco used to be a boring industry that ran the networks, or moving packets around and mobile was there, but once the iPhone came out in 2007, the life has changed, society has changed, education's changed, how people interact has changed. So you start to see people now aware of the value and if you look at the, during the COVID, the internet didn't crash, the telcos actually saved our asses and everyone was, survive because the network didn't break. Yeah, we had some bad zoom meetings here and there and some teleconferences that didn't go well but for the most part we survived and they really saved everybody, my goodness. So they should get kudos for that. But now they're dependent upon healthcare, education, people care about that stuff. So now you're going to start to see an elevated focus on what telecom is doing. That's why The Edge has checked trillions of dollars up for grabs. But education, there's negative unemployment in cybersecurity and in cloud. So for the people who say, oh, there's no jobs or I can't work, that's a bunch of BS because you can just get online, get on YouTube and just get a degree. You can get a degree, you can get an Amazon job, it pays a hundred thousand dollars a year, American. You can make a hundred thousand pounds and be unemployed six months and then be employed. So negative unemployment means there's more jobs than people to fill them qualify. >> Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that because I was talking to a cyber security leader who was saying in some of the things there were now 3 million vacancies in cybersecurity and there's such a skill shortage, there is nobody around to fill it. So it's an interesting problem to have isn't it? Cause it's reversed to what we've been used to for the last few decades and obviously telco is in the same space. What can we do about it? Do you think it will actually bring people in? >> I think it's going to take leadership and I'm a big proponent of kids not going to university, they don't have to. Why spend the dough, money if you don't have to? You can get online. I mean, the data's there, but to me it's the relationships, the mentorship. You starting to see women in tech and underrepresented minorities in the tech field, where mentorship is more important than curriculum. Community is more important than just going through a linear course where nobody wants to sit online and go through linear courseware. Now, if they have to get a certificate or degree and accreditation no problem, but communities are out there. So that's a big change over, I'm a big fan of that and I think people should, you know, get some specialized skills, you can get that online. So why even go to school? So people are figuring that out. >> For sure. And also even transferring, I mean, so many skills are transferable nowadays, aren't there? So we could easily be talking to people from other industries and bringing them into telco and saying, look, bring what you know from your retail background or your healthcare background and help us at telco to again, drive forward, just like DR is saying it's all about the next big thing. >> Danielle, I was also driving a lot of change and if you think about the jobs and a pedigree of going to a university, oh, Harvard, all the big Ivy leagues, Oxford in your area. So it's like, if you go to a school like that and you get a pedigree, you instantly get a job. Now, the jobs that are available, weren't around five years ago. So there's no like pedigree or track record, there's no like, everyone's equal. >> Yeah. >> So you could, the democratization of the internet now is, from a job standpoint is, people are leveling up faster. So it's not about the Ivy league or the big degree or silver spoon in your mouth, you've got the entitlement. So you start to see people emergent and make things happen, entrepreneurship in America, immigrant entrepreneurship. People are billionaires that have no high school diplomas. >> It's interesting you mentioned that John, because we can have more than five years experience in this space, we know that but in telco there is a problem and maybe it's, again it's a flipped problem where, telco recruiters or talent acquisition leaders, are now asking for kind of 10, 20 years experience when they're sending out job descriptions. So does that mean that we are at fault for not being able to fill all these vacancies? >> Well, I mean, I think that's just, I mean, I think there's a transition of the new skill set happening one, but two, I think, you know, you've got to be like a chip engineer, you can't learn that online, but if you want to run a cloud infrastructure, you can. But I think embedded systems is an area that I was talking to an engineer, there's a huge shortage of engineers who code on the microprocessors, on the chips. So embedded systems is a big career. So there's definitely parts, you can specialize, space is another area you've seen a lot of activity on, obviously Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is going to be here on virtual keynote, trying to go to Mars. And, you know, Danielle Royston always says, who's going to happen first, Mars, colony, or telco adopting public cloud? Some people think Mars will happen first but. >> What do you think John? >> I think telco's going to get cloud. I mean, first of all, public cloud is now hybrid cloud and the edge, this whole internet edge, 5G, is so symbolic and so important because it's an architectural beachhead. >> Yeah. >> And that's where the trillion dollar baby is. >> Of course. >> So the inside baseball and the inside money and all the investors are focusing on the edge because whoever can command the edge, wins all the dollars. So everyone kind of knows it's a public secret and it's fun to watch, everyone jockey for the positions. >> Yeah, know, it really is. But it's also quite funny, isn't it? Because the edge is almost where we were decades ago, but we're putting the control back in the hands of consumers. So it's an interesting flip and I wonder if with the edge, we can really enhance this acceleration of product development its efficiency, this frictionless system in which we live in. And also, I've heard you say hybrid a few times John. >> Yeah. >> Is hybrid going to be the future of the world no matter what industry you're in? >> Hybrid is everything now. So it's, we're the hybrid cube, we've got hybrid cloud. >> Exactly. >> You got hybrid telco, because now you've got the confluence of online and offline coming together. >> Yeah. >> That is critical dynamic, and you seeing it. Like virtual reality for instance, now you seeing things, I know you guys are doing some great work at your company around creating experiences that are virtual. >> Exactly. >> You got, like Roblox went public recently. >> Yeah. >> Metaverse is a good time to be in that business because experiential human relations are coming. So I think that's going to be powered by 5G, you know, gamers. So all good stuff, Chloe, great to be with you here in theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> And we're looking forward to seeing your main stage. >> Great. >> And then we're going to send it back to the studio, Adam and the team, we're waiting for DR to arrive here in Cloud City and this is theCUBE, from Cloud City back to you, Adam in the studio.

>> Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE! Covering IBM Think 2019, brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back to intermittently sunny San Francisco, this is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We're here at day four at IBM Think. My name is Dave Vellante. I am here with Stu Miniman. John Furrier is also here. Wall to wall coverage Stu. The second Think, first big show really of the year at Moscone. The new Moscone, Armando Ortiz is here. He is the vice president and partner from Mobile & Extended Reality Leader at IBM iX. An interesting part of IBM that you may not know about. Armando, welcome to theCUBE, thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having me. >> So tell us a little bit about iX. >> So IBM iX is a part of IBM services. We focus on user experiences, whether it's a consumer experience or an employee experience. And the we look at user experience it really kind of sticks together and allow you to unlock the value of all the technology investments that companies are making. >> So, you guys are not making headsets, or are you? >> No we don't make hardware, we just put hardware to work. >> So talk a little bit about the sort of state of whether its augmented reality or extended reality. Lay out the terminology for us if you would. >> Sure, sure. As part of the role I have I lead our mobile practice as well as the extended reality practice and this kind of all related together. We use the term extended reality to kind of encompass all of the different technologies along that spectrum from augmented reality to mixed reality to virtual reality. Of course there are a lot of technologies whether it's the glasses on your face like the wearables or it's in your hand as a lot of mobile platforms today like Apple's ARKit and Google's ARCore allow you to have AR experienced within your mobile apps. >> Yeah, I wonder if you can expand a little bit on that? We're all ready for the role out of 5G and that's going, holds the promise at least for a lot more band width and a lot more applications and that's one of the lynch pins we understand kind of make your world more of a reality. When do we see that role out? What devices are going to happen? You got a preview of the next iPhone for us? >> I certainly don't have a preview of the next iPhone, even though I do lead the Apple partnership for us in North America, the Apple IBM partnership. When you look at 5G, obviously some of the use cases for extended reality in enterprise are around field services and 5G will have an amazing impact on the ability. Not only because of the band width but also the low latency that you have for 5G. So we're excited to see that role out in the different markets around the world and you know the pilots and things that are starting this year. There are going to be a lot of great devices and I think for handsets all the way to the wearables. It'll really allow us to put more use cases on these devices. >> Can you walk us through some of those use cases? Any specific customer examples you have that may make our audience understand a little bit more what's really available today. Sure, I mean in the XR space or in the extended reality space there's a lot that we learned through what we've done in mobile for years. I mean, even our Apple partnership for the past five years and things we've done across the 16 industries we work on. But the initial sort of wave one use cases that we're really seeing today kind of follow along these categories of work related use cases that are like in field services, training related use cases that go all the way from virtual reality immersive training like teaching someone how to do something in a dangerous situation where you want to simulate that. All the way to on the job sort of training and step-by-step guidance that you can get with AR. Step one attach the cable here. Step two, check this over here. Those kind of use cases and then into use cases related to shopping and retail. If you look at what augmented reality is going to do for shopping and retail allow people to assess sort of fit and purpose of something they want to buy. Does it fit in my home? Does it fit in my life? And then also even in the stores as people in retail sort of navigate a store they can use AR to help understand. Add all that metadata to the in store experience that we're gotten used to in our online experiences. And the last broad category we sort of call it share ideas or sharing of ideas, which kind of expands the game from collaboration to even having AR brochures and augmented realty tools to help people understand a product or a service that you're offering. Imagine that we can just kind of expand a piece of equipment here on the table, walk through it and help understand how that piece of equipment is going to help your business. >> You're giving me flashbacks. I remember IBM had a huge initiative in like Second Life and it was like come build an island and we're going to do recruiting and things like that. So, tell us why this generation is, going to be better for business and not have everyone put some money in and have it stolen by you know. >> Not as goofy. >> It's funny you should ask that, the Second Life topic actually came up with someone I was speaking to yesterday. It's come up before. I think there is a significant difference between what Second Life was trying to be and what extended reality is going to be and it already is. I mean when you look at extended reality today, I think one important thing to think about this is not future tech, this is not some sort of dream of sort of Ready Player One type of situation. But more, it's looking at real enterprise use cases that are already driving a value; time savings on inspections, productivity enhancements for people assembling, consistency and increase safety. All the key performance indicators and value drivers we have for mobile. So there's a real path to business value and the uses are much clearer than it might have been in the days of Second Life. >> Less mistakes, less rework. Armando, what kind of infrastructure would a consumer need? You gave the example of retail for instance, what kind of infrastructure would I need? Am I just, is it just my mobile home? Am I going to wear headsets, what does that look like? >> So when we talk about extended reality, we tend to keep one foot in today and one foot in the future cause its changing so fast. When you talk about retail there is a sale associate side of things that might be helping you decide an automotive. Maybe you're looking at configuring a car right in front of you or in a retail store maybe you're looking to look at a piece of furniture or something that's not on the show room floor. Now those experiences can start today with tablets and iPhones and other devices. But we see also as well devices that people be wearing wearables that are available today and that trend moving that glass kind of from your hand to your face is going to be something that is really going to be accelerated. >> So, this is maybe how a piece of clothing will fit or what a couch might look like in a particular room, is that right? >> Yeah. >> And you would envision that people will purchase this infrastructure for a variety of uses. Not only to see how things look but maybe there's gaming. So it's a multi-use kind of environment or not necessarily? Is it more specialized to use it? >> No absolutely, it's important, it's a good thing that you brought up sort of gaming as well. Because, obviously we all know that gaming has been kind of at the fore front for virtual reality but when you look at gaming and entertainment those are also going to include many use cases. When we look at the enterprise side we're kind of focused on those other wave one use cases. But I also expect in the sort of share ideas category I spoke of marketing and sales activities will also include AR experienced to help people understand the product or service that you're positioning. >> What's the state of adoption? We always joke about google glass. Remember the movie The Jerk with the Opti-Grab and the guy was cross-eyed? So that didn't take off but what's the state of hardware and hardware adoption today? >> So I think what's unique about this technology and what's happening now, the technology we already all have in our hands on our mobile phones is already there and that's where you're going to see it happen first. I think the numbers by next year are like 3.4 billion phones will have an AR capability so the technology is already with us. The next sort of technology set that we're talking about is getting to the wearables and of course we see things today in the VR space that's much more available in the consumer side, things like the oculus go. In the enterprise space you also have headsets from many manufacturers that maybe grew up doing things in the military that are now more commercially available. Things like someone trying to repair something that needs to be hand free. We're seeing those technologies readily available in the enterprise. >> Tell about how AI fits into this new world? >> That's a great question. If you think about it its really kind of a really great combination. You take XR, extended reality, so whether its AR or VR and you add AI to it you can kind of give AI the ability to kind of enter the 3D space. So as you think about AI solutions that we had in the mobile world where you might be using AI to solve a problem, diagnose a problem, visual diagnostics, acoustic detection AI can kind of give sort of super powers to an employee. At the same time we see that the experiences that we have in the extended reality space get really enhanced because you now have the ability to democratize expertize with AI. You take all of the expertize of your organization and that one technician whose only been there for 10 days now has the power of your entire collective knowledge. >> What about privacy? Anytime you hear some of these and I think about you can have wearables out there, there is concern about you know with facial recognition is going to be everywhere my privacy is going to be invaded. What's IBM positioning? Where does that fit in this whole environment? >> Of course we take privacy very seriously. When we talk about our AI and Watson you know your data is your data. If you look at some of the things, I mean, you'll make decisions, enterprises will make decisions on the same way they do with mobile devices. Is it okay to have a camera in this environment? And if I do have a camera in this environment, what's my cloud strategy and where am I going to host this data to make sure that I have not just privacy but also IP concerns, considered? All of the same things we've learned in the mobile world are going to apply to this and it'll get even a little more important as you think of the different types of sensors that are required to make these experiences happen. >> I wonder if you could help us understand about the pre-requisites to do things like technician actually trouble shooting a problem. Many of us have seen, we put on the glasses you walk around a show floor and you look at a new system or something and its really very cool. You can look inside and inspect the different layers. What has to be done, I'm inferring from what you're saying that a technician would be able to inspect live, real time a device and identify problems on that device. So what has be done? It has to be instrumented? It has to have cameras installed? What does the infrastructure build out look like? >> Sure, when you look at. Lets take the technician scenario for a moment and unpack that. When you look at that there are a couple of things that are already happening like a lot of major pieces of equipment are instrumented. So you have the internet of things data, sort of the data streams coming off of that. How do you make that available to that technician in the moment, sort of the vital signs of that piece of equipment that you might be operating on? So, having all that information like temperature and all the things from an IOT perspective, that's one angle of it. The other side of it really is when you think of failure of equipment usually at some point there's a situation that technician may not have encountered before but maybe someone else has. Maybe you've already had a bunch of closed tickets on that three years ago. So having all that information available and using cognitive processing to kind of navigate that unstructured data, that will let you navigate that. Voice will be part of this interface as well. I think voice is an important part because you're going to be hands free and you're going to be having a dialogue with Watson, let's say to help diagnose a problem. >> How about healthcare? It's not something we've really talked about a lot. Just in terms of applications, whether its for the operating room of the future, remote guidance from doctor, training. Do you see those kind of use cases emerging? >> Yeah absolutely, all the way from training through execution of surgery and other things. This is where the 5G topic really comes into play because low latency is really required if you're talking about surgery and things like that. >> Give me a few minutes. >> You get that round trip of that signal going back and forth. I think when you think about the VR side of things for training is immensely powerful. The AR side for during execution of procedures will also be powerful as well and it comes back to that general theme od democratizing expertize. One expert that's physically on this part of the world can serve many people that need their services around the world. >> It sounds like there are a lot of uncertainties in terms of how this is going to evolve. First of all od the a fair statement? Given that, not withstanding that can you give us a sense of expectations for how it will evolve and the adoption levels that you expect over the next two to five years. >> Five years is a long horizon for this technology. >> Too long, too long perhaps so what's more fair, 18 months? >> Lets talk more immediate. I think when you look at, there may be some uncertainty in terms of which use cases will drive the most value but there are already many use cases that companies are probably sharing information out. Like some companies, especially inspection use cases, you know there is a company that published 96% savings on time because really you are using AR to document. Okay inspect this point, this point, this point, this point. Assembly use cases, diagnostics with AI and AR are working together. All of these are already happening, so what I think is going to happen is enterprises are going to be able to more and more easily justify the spend to make these investments because the RY is rapid. Just like the RY in mobile was rapid for enterprise, the RY in XR will be extremely rapid. >> Armando for people who didn't come to IBM Think, give them a little taste of what they missed from an iX stand point. Some of the conversations that you've been having. >> Yeah, when we look at, I mean iX across the IBM Think we've had a lot of conversations and a lot of sessions around how experience is really driving the business value and also around marketing technologies and marketing services and all of the things that relate to experience on the consumer side and the employee side. We're really enjoyed some great show casing of our client stories and the works we've done. Everything from mobile to commerce to marketing platforms to sales floors across everything we do in the IBM services part that we're in. >> How long has this been around? >> IBM iX? >> Yeah. >> IBM iX has been a part of IBM originally since the 96 Olympics in Atlanta. I've been with IBM about 25 years and this space is kind of like really evolved in terms of the position of user experience and design. IBM has become really a design focused company and you look at enterprise design thinking in everything we do so this is really a part of our business that's really become focal point as companies start thinking more about design. >> Wow, it's been a long time but it's certainly not mature but it's a revenue generating business obviously. >> Yeah and a very high growth part of the company. >> Awesome, well Armando thanks so much for sharing this part of IBM that's not well known. Really exciting futures and I really appreciate you coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you very much, I appreciate being here. >> Alright, keep it right there everyone. Stu and I will be back. Day four, IBM Think, we're at Moscone. Stop by, we're at Moscone North. I'm Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman and John Furrier is here. We'll be right back, you're watching theCUBE. (techno music)

>> Announcer: Live from midtown Manhattan, it's theCUBE, covering BigData New York City 2017, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media and its ecosystem sponsors. >> Okay, welcome back everyone, we're live in New York City, this is theCUBE's coverage of BigData NYC, this is our own event for five years now we've been running it, been at Hadoop World since 2010, it's our eighth year covering the Hadoop World which has evolved into Strata Conference, Strata Hadoop, now called Strata Data, and of course it's bigger than just Strata, it's about big data in NYC, a lot of big players here inside theCUBE, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and great guests. I'm John Furrier, the cohost this week with Jim Kobielus, who's the lead analyst on our BigData and our Wikibon team. Our next guest is Yaron Haviv, who's with iguazio, he's the founder and CTO, hot startup here at the show, making a lot of waves on their new platform. Welcome to theCUBE, good to see you again, congratulations. >> Yes, thanks, thanks very much. We're happy to be here again. >> You're known in the theCUBE community as the guy on Twitter who's always pinging me and Dave and team, saying, "Hey, you know, you guys got to "get that right." You really are one of the smartest guys on the network in our community, you're super-smart, your team has got great tech chops, and in the middle of all that is the hottest market which is cloud native, cloud native as it relates to the integration of how apps are being built, and essentially new ways of engineering around these solutions, not just repackaging old stuff, it's really about putting things in a true cloud environment, with an application development, with data at the center of it, you got a whole complex platform you've introduced. So really, really want to dig into this. So before we get into some of my pointed questions I know Jim's got a ton of questions, is give us an update on what's going on so you guys got some news here at the show, let's get to that first. >> So since the last time we spoke, we had tons of news. We're making revenues, we have customers, we've just recently GA'ed, we recently got significant investment from major investors, we raised about $33 million recently from companies like Verizon Ventures, Bosch, you know for IoT, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is Dow Jones and other properties, Dell EMC. So pretty broad. >> John: So customers, pretty much. >> Yeah, so that's the interesting thing. Usually you know investors are sort of strategic investors or partners or potential buyers, but here it's essentially our customers that it's so strategic to the business, we want to... >> Let's go with GA of the projects, just get into what's shipping, what's available, what's the general availability, what are you now offering? >> So iguazio is trying to, you know, you alluded to cloud native and all that. Usually when you go to events like Strata and BigData it's nothing to do with cloud native, a lot of hard labor, not really continuous development and integration, it's like continuous hard work, it's continuous hard work. And essentially what we did, we created a data platform which is extremely fast and integrated, you know has all the different forms of states, streaming and events and documents and tables and all that, into a very unique architecture, won't dive into that today. And on top of it we've integrated cloud services like Kubernetes and serverless functionality and others, so we can essentially create a hybrid cloud. So some of our customers they even deploy portions as an Opix-based settings in the cloud, and some portions in the edge or in the enterprise deployed the software, or even a prepackaged appliance. So we're the only ones that provide a full hybrid experience. >> John: Is this a SAS product? >> So it's a software stack, and it could be delivered in three different options. One, if you don't want to mess with the hardware, you can just rent it, and it's deployed in Equanix facility, we have very strong partnerships with them globally. If you want to have something on-prem, you can get a software reference architecture, you go and deploy it. If you're a telco or an IoT player that wants a manufacturing facility, we have a very small 2U box, four servers, four GPUs, all the analytics tech you could think of. You just put it in the factory instead of like two racks of Hadoop. >> So you're not general purpose, you're just whatever the customer wants to deploy the stack, their flexibility is on them. >> Yeah. Now it is an appliance >> You have a hosting solution? >> It is an appliance even when you deploy it on-prem, it's a bunch of Docker containers inside that you don't even touch them, you don't SSH to the machine. You have APIs and you have UIs, and just like the cloud experience when you go to Amazon, you don't open the Kimono, you know, you just use it. So our experience that's what we're telling customers. No root access problems, no security problems. It's a hardened system. Give us servers, we'll deploy it, and you go through consoles and UIs, >> You don't host anything for anyone? >> We host for some customers, including >> So you do whatever the customer was interested in doing? >> Yes. (laughs) >> So you're flexible, okay. >> We just want to make money. >> You're pretty good, sticking to the product. So on the GA, so here essentially the big data world you mentioned that there's data layers, like data piece. So I got to ask you the question, so pretend I'm an idiot for a second, right. >> Yaron: Okay. >> Okay, yeah. >> No, you're a smart guy. >> What problem are you solving. So we'll just go to the simple. I love what you're doing, I assume you guys are super-smart, which I can say you are, but what's the problem you're solving, what's in it for me? >> Okay, so there are two problems. One is the challenge everyone wants to transform. You know there is this digital transformation mantra. And it means essentially two things. One is, I want to automate my operation environment so I can cut costs and be more competitive. The other one is I want to improve my customer engagement. You know, I want to do mobile apps which are smarter, you know get more direct content to the user, get more targeted functionality, et cetera. These are the two key challenges for every business, any industry, okay? So they go and they deploy Hadoop and Hive and all that stuff, and it takes them two years to productize it. And then they get to the data science bit. And by the time they finished they understand that this Hadoop thing can only do one thing. It's queries, and reporting and BI, and data warehousing. How do you do actionable insights from that stuff, okay? 'Cause actionable insights means I get information from the mobile app, and then I translate it into some action. I have to enrich the vectors, the machine learning, all that details. And then I need to respond. Hadoop doesn't know how to do it. So the first generation is people that pulled a lot of stuff into data lake, and started querying it and generating reports. And the boss said >> Low cost data link basically, was what you say. >> Yes, and the boss said, "Okay, what are we going to do with this report? "Is it generating any revenue to the business?" No. The only revenue generation if you take this data >> You're fired, exactly. >> No, not all fired, but now >> John: Look at the budget >> Now they're starting to buy our stuff. So now the point is okay, how can I put all this data, and in the same time generate actions, and also deal with the production aspects of, I want to develop in a beta phase, I want to promote it into production. That's cloud native architectures, okay? Hadoop is not cloud, How do I take a Spark, Zeppelin, you know, a notebook and I turn it into production? There's no way to do that. >> By the way, depending on which cloud you go to, they have a different mechanism and elements for each cloud. >> Yeah, so the cloud providers do address that because they are selling the package, >> Expands all the clouds, yeah. >> Yeah, so cloud providers are starting to have their own offerings which are all proprietary around this is how you would, you know, forget about HDFS, we'll have S3, and we'll have Redshift for you, and we'll have Athena, and again you're starting to consume that into a service. Still doesn't address the continuous analytics challenge that people have. And if you're looking at what we've done with Grab, which is amazing, they started with using Amazon services, S3, Redshift, you know, Kinesis, all that stuff, and it took them about two hours to generate the insights. Now the problem is they want to do driver incentives in real time. So they want to incent the driver to go and make more rides or other things, so they have to analyze the event of the location of the driver, the event of the location of the customers, and just throwing messages back based on analytics. So that's real time analytics, and that's not something that you can do >> They got to build that from scratch right away. I mean they can't do that with the existing. >> No, and Uber invested tons of energy around that and they don't get the same functionality. Another unique feature that we talk about in our PR >> This is for the use case you're talking about, this is the Grab, which is the car >> Grab is the number one ride-sharing in Asia, which is bigger than Uber in Asia, and they're using our platform. By the way, even Uber doesn't really use Hadoop, they use MemSQL for that stuff, so it's not really using open source and all that. But the point is for example, with Uber, when you have a, when they monetize the rides, they do it just based on demand, okay. And with Grab, now what they do, because of the capability that we can intersect tons of data in real time, they can also look at the weather, was there a terror attack or something like that. They don't want to raise the price >> A lot of other data points, could be traffic >> They don't want to raise the price if there was a problem, you know, and all the customers get aggravated. This is actually intersecting data in real time, and no one today can do that in real time beyond what we can do. >> A lot of people have semantic problems with real time, they don't even know what they mean by real time. >> Yaron: Yes. >> The data could be a week old, but they can get it to them in real time. >> But every decision, if you think if you generalize round the problem, okay, and we have slides on that that I explain to customers. Every time I run analytics, I need to look at four types of data. The context, the event, okay, what happened, okay. The second type of data is the previous state. Like I have a car, was it up or down or what's the previous state of that element? The third element is the time aggregation, like, what happened in the last hour, the average temperature, the average, you know, ticker price for the stock, et cetera, okay? And the fourth thing is enriched data, like I have a car ID, but what's the make, what's the model, who's driving it right now. That's secondary data. So every time I run a machine learning task or any decision I have to collect all those four types of data into one vector, it's called feature vector, and take a decision on that. You take Kafka, it's only the event part, okay, you take MemSQL, it's only the state part, you take Hadoop it's only like historical stuff. How do you assemble and stitch a feature vector. >> Well you talked about complex machine learning pipeline, so clearly, you're talking about a hybrid >> It's a prediction. And actions based on just dumb things, like the car broke and I need to send a garage, I don't need machine learning for that. >> So within your environment then, do you enable the machine learning models to execute across the different data platforms, of which this hybrid environment is composed, and then do you aggregate the results of those models, runs into some larger model that drives the real time decision? >> In our solution, everything is a document, so even a picture is a document, a lot of things. So you can essentially throw in a picture, run tensor flow, embed more features into the document, and then query those features on another platform. So that's really what makes this continuous analytics extremely flexible, so that's what we give customers. The first thing is simplicity. They can now build applications, you know we have tier one now, automotive customer, CIO coming, meeting us. So you know when I have a project, one year, I need to have hired dozens of people, it's hugely complex, you know. Tell us what's the use case, and we'll build a prototype. >> John: All right, well I'm going to >> One week, we gave them a prototype, and he was amazed how in one week we created an application that analyzed all the streams from the data from the cars, did enrichment, did machine learning, and provided predictions. >> Well we're going to have to come in and test you on this, because I'm skeptical, but here's why. >> Everyone is. >> We'll get to that, I mean I'm probably not skeptical but I kind of am because the history is pretty clear. If you look at some of the big ideas out there, like OpenStack. I mean that thing just morphed into a beast. Hadoop was a cost of ownership nightmare as you mentioned early on. So people have been conceptually correct on what they were trying to do, but trying to get it done was always hard, and then it took a long time to kind of figure out the operational model. So how are you different, if I'm going to play the skeptic here? You know, I've heard this before. How are you different than say OpenStack or Hadoop Clusters, 'cause that was a nightmare, cost of ownership, I couldn't get the type of value I needed, lost my budget. Why aren't you the same? >> Okay, that's interesting. I don't know if you know but I ran a lot of development for OpenStack when I was in Matinox and Hadoop, so I patched a lot of those >> So do you agree with what I said? That that was a problem? >> They are extremely complex, yes. And I think one of the things that first OpenStack tried to bite on too much, and it's sort of a huge tent, everyone tries to push his agenda. OpenStack is still an infrastructure layer, okay. And also Hadoop is sort of a something in between an infrastructure and an application layer, but it was designed 10 years ago, where the problem that Hadoop tried to solve is how do you do web ranking, okay, on tons of batch data. And then the ecosystem evolved into real time, and streaming and machine learning. >> A data warehousing alternative or whatever. >> So it doesn't fit the original model of batch processing, 'cause if an event comes from the car or an IoT device, and you have to do something with it, you need a table with an index. You can't just go and build a huge Parquet file. >> You know, you're talking about complexity >> John: That's why he's different. >> Go ahead. >> So what we've done with our team, after knowing OpenStack and all those >> John: All the scar tissue. >> And all the scar tissues, and my role was also working with all the cloud service providers, so I know their internal architecture, and I worked on SAP HANA and Exodata and all those things, so we learned from the bad experiences, said let's forget about the lower layers, which is what OpenStack is trying to provide, provide you infrastructure as a service. Let's focus on the application, and build from the application all the way to the flash, and the CPU instruction set, and the adapters and the networking, okay. That's what's different. So what we provide is an application and service experience. We don't provide infrastructure. If you go buy VMware and Nutanix, all those offerings, you get infrastructure. Now you go and build with the dozen of dev ops guys all the stack above. You go to Amazon, you get services. Just they're not the most optimized in terms of the implementation because they also have dozens of independent projects that each one takes a VM and starts writing some >> But they're still a good service, but you got to put it together. >> Yeah right. But also the way they implement, because in order for them to scale is that they have a common layer, they found VMs, and then they're starting to build up applications so it's inefficient. And also a lot of it is built on 10-year-old baseline architecture. We've designed it for a very modern architecture, it's all parallel CPUs with 30 cores, you know, flash and NVMe. And so we've avoided a lot of the hardware challenges, and serialization, and just provide and abstraction layer pretty much like a cloud on top. >> Now in terms of abstraction layers in the cloud, they're efficient, and provide a simplification experience for developers. Serverless computing is up and coming, it's an important approach, of course we have the public clouds from AWS and Google and IBM and Microsoft. There are a growing range of serverless computing frameworks for prem-based deployment. I believe you are behind one. Can you talk about what you're doing at iguazio on serverless frameworks for on-prem or public? >> Yes, it's the first time I'm very active in CNC after Cloud Native Foundation. I'm one of the authors of the serverless white paper, which tries to normalize the definitions of all the vendors and come with a proposal for interoperable standard. So I spent a lot of energy on that, 'cause we don't want to lock customers to an API. What's unique, by the way, about our solution, we don't have a single proprietary API. We just emulate all the other guys' stuff. We have all the Amazon APIs for data services, like Kinesis, Dynamo, S3, et cetera. We have the open source APIs, like Kafka. So also on the serverless, my agenda is trying to promote that if I'm writing to Azure or AWS or iguazio, I don't need to change my app. I can use any developer tools. So that's my effort there. And we recently, a few weeks ago, we launched our open source project, which is a sort of second generation of something we had before called Nuclio. It's designed for real time >> John: How do you spell that? >> N-U-C-L-I-O. I even have the logo >> He's got a nice slick here. >> It's really fast because it's >> John: Nuclio, so that's open source that you guys just sponsor and it's all code out in the open? >> All the code is in the open, pretty cool, has a lot of innovative ideas on how to do stream processing and best, 'cause the original serverless functionality was designed around web hooks and HTTP, and even many of the open source projects are really designed around HTTP serving. >> I have a question. I'm doing research for Wikibon on the area of serverless, in fact we've recently published a report on serverless, and in terms of hybrid cloud environments, I'm not seeing yet any hybrid serverless clouds that involve public, you know, serverless like AWS Lambda, and private on-prem deployment of serverless. Do you have any customers who are doing that or interested in hybridizing serverless across public and private? >> Of course, and we have some patents I don't want to go into, but the general idea is, what we've done in Nuclio is also the decoupling of the data from the computation, which means that things can sort of be disjoined. You can run a function in Raspberry Pi, and the data will be in a different place, and those things can sort of move, okay. >> So the persistence has to happen outside the serverless environment, like in the application itself? >> Outside of the function, the function acts as the persistent layer through APIs, okay. And how this data persistence is materialized, that server separate thing. So you can actually write the same function that will run against Kafka or Kinesis or Private MQ, or HTTP without modifying the function, and ad hoc, through what we call function bindings, you define what's going to be the thing driving the data, or storing the data. So that can actually write the same function that does ETL drop from table one to table two. You don't need to put the table information in the function, which is not the thing that Lambda does. And it's about a hundred times faster than Lambda, we do 400,000 events per second in Nuclio. So if you write your serverless code in Nuclio, it's faster than writing it yourself, because of all those low-level optimizations. >> Yaron, thanks for coming on theCUBE. We want to do a deeper dive, love to have you out in Palo Alto next time you're in town. Let us know when you're in Silicon Valley for sure, we'll make sure we get you on camera for multiple sessions. >> And more information re:Invent. >> Go to re:Invent. We're looking forward to seeing you there. Love the continuous analytics message, I think continuous integration is going through a massive renaissance right now, you're starting to see new approaches, and I think things that you're doing is exactly along the lines of what the world wants, which is alternatives, innovation, and thanks for sharing on theCUBE. >> Great. >> That's very great. >> This is theCUBE coverage of the hot startups here at BigData NYC, live coverage from New York, after this short break. I'm John Furrier, Jim Kobielus, after this short break.