>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE! Covering HPE Discover Virtual Experience. Brought to you by HPE. >> Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman, and this is theCUBE's coverage of HPE Discover 2020 the Virtual Experience, really happy to welcome to the program, we have a returning guest. Tarkan Maner is the Chief Commercial Officer at Nutanix, in a new role since the last time we had him on the program, and joining him, we have Herman Brown, who's the CIO for the City of San Francisco's District Attorney. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> So, Tarkan, help set the stage for us. As I mentioned, we know you, our network knows you, but, new to Nutanix in the last year, and talk to us a little bit about this HPE Nutanix partnership. >> Yeah, if you noticed, first of all, thank you for hosting us, great to be here. This is probably, who knows, my fiftieth CUBE I guess, over the past two decades, especially the last twenty years have been crazy for us, obviously in the industry, lots of movement, lots of change. So let me go into the context, that led to Nutanix joining the company, about six months ago in the capacity of Chief Commercial Officer, a hybrid role with some product aspects, business development global market, our cloud infrastructure digitalizes and some of the Corp Dev we're working on. In that context, obviously, HPE is a very, very important strategic partner to us. As you know, the companies, the two companies have been working together for a long time, but especially the last, I would say, six to twelve months, we have this phenomenal relationship around what I call "three focused areas" of our business. Around our digital infrastructure, upward converge infrastructure, a business on top of that, our solutions from data center to DevOps and to this stuff, services, it's three specific segments, we built this really interesting really strong relationship with HPE with some of our philosophies and HPE's platform, now obviously, working through a multicloud channel, who are our own Nutanix cloud, our own hosted cloud, in addition to it, our Telco and SSP partners using their cloud infrastructure as well as some of the hyperscaling work we're doing, with Azure, AWS in addition to our direct SalesForce and private cloud approach, HPE and Nutanix are working hand in hand in this multicloud so to speak operating model. So it's a new relationship in some ways, from a multicloud perspective, but if it has to grow in segments, we had a phenomenal quarter in the last three months, we just released our results, and HPE is growing for us. And we're given definitely a great suite of solutions to our customers with the typical usual, simple to deploy, simple to use mechanics customer delight on the HPE platform. So I'm sure we've got a whole lot more, but glad to be here also with Herman Brown, from the DA's office in San Francisco, my favorite city in the world, so glad to be here. Thank you, Stu, again, for hosting us. >> Great, thanks so much, Tarkan. You know, Herman, we're going to get into a lot of the technology pieces, you with your CIO hat on, you know, want to understand how cloud, how modern infrastructure, your applications are changing, but, give us a little bit about your personal background and really the purview that you cover in the city of San Francisco District Attorney's office. >> Yes, well, you know, I've been with the DA's office for just over 3 years, it'll be 4 years I guess in August of this year, and I come from twenty plus years of private sector experience, some government experience. And, you know, the city and county, the government is really no different than any other organization other than we're known to be a little bit slower to adopt the technologies, which is why I'm here. I want to help government become more efficient, more productive through the use of technology, and so I'm excited to be here and thank you, first and foremost, for having me on the show. I appreciate it. >> I love that you brought that up, because we've been doing theCUBE for just over a decade now, and in the early parts of that, it's like, right, okay, I'm talking to a local government, we understand, your budgets are tight, you're using older technology, you've got duct tape and baling wire to keep things going. The last few years, some of my favorite conversations have been in the public sector, because you talk about some of the tools that are out there, and don't need a huge capital investment to get started, I can modernize, so Herman, digital transformation, is that a term that you've brought from the private sector over to the public sector, or what kind of transformations are you going through and what is it that's I guess driving the need for transformation in your world? >> So yeah, I've been with the city and county of San Francisco for nine years, so I'd love to say that I brought digital transformation or at least the term with me, but I was actually here in the DA's office or in the city and county's employment when that terminology came out. Being the CIO for the San Francisco District Attorney's office, I mean, we're essentially a law firm. And law firms are historically just paper intensive organizations, right, you have court filings and rap sheets, all these physical documents that have to be physically ink signed and transferred from one attorney to another to the courts, and between police departments and sheriffs and so forth and so on. And we just looked at, what are we doing, how can we work more efficient, you know? As a lot of organizations, we're always finding ourselves to be understaffed for the amount of work that we have going on, the city and county of San Francisco, the DA's office, we see roughly 26,000 cases a year, we try about half of those cases per year. And we're a staff of 320 people. That includes everyone, the attorneys, the paralegals, finance folks, IT, investigators. And so it was like, we need to really embrace technology and be able to help transform this paper intensive processes into automated, digital forms and documents that can minimize the physical transferring of data, especially now, during Covid-19. >> Yeah, Herman, that transformation process is often multi-step, there's a lot of people, there's technology, and then there's the applications. It was at a Nutanix show that the comment I made is, well, let's modernize the platform, then you can modernize the applications on top of it. Tarkan, maybe, I'd love to hear just a little commentary from you, you've got a great perspective on this. That modernization effort, where your customers are, some of the levers that Nutanix is helping them along that journey. >> Yeah, so everything Herman said is very interesting, and obviously, a delight to my ears, because as a technologist in the industry for the past three decades, we're dealing with this, what I call, transformational waves, and you know, in the last ten years, the cloud transformation from the server to transition transformation now, increasingly, we're seeing this very fast migrations from the old school legacy data centers with legacy infrastructure and apps, basically are lifting and shifting these applications to a new cloud, so to speak, opened the model. The cloud to us, in a sense, it's not a destination, it's an open model, so if we see the customer's needs at the end of the day, just like Herman outlined, Herman is not trying to do cloud or digitization for the digital cloud's sake, he's trying to lead his team and the DA's office, with the most DAs by the way, in the nation, making sure that they can process data faster. They can achieve their goals, working especially in this post-pandemic world, and the entire change that are happening in our country, in a big way over the past few weeks, the events, and how our country is going to change for the future. So there's going to be a lot of work going to be happening in the government, this transformation or digitization, migration to the cloud, is going to be a big deal, so as a company, it very quickly we've seen this as a huge opportunity for our customers, as we're partnering with them in a multi cloud way. We still believe our server partners are super important in this context with HPE, but the cloud services around HPE Greenlake, the things we are doing with them, at the same time, working with HPE and some of our partners delivering our own Nutanix cloud services as well as some of the things we have been doing with some of Telco's and service providers, to give choice to our customers to consume the services we provide on-prem, through our old cloud services through a third party telephone service provider, or the choice of hyper scale into the U.S. As your Google, unlimited oracle. So in this context this partnership is hugely important, so there's a lot going on with HPE with Antonio, with our CEO, with Tarak, our CFO, with Tom Black, it's Sonali. The entire executive team are working very closely with them, and with Hyko in the fuel organization, our fuel organization, and we really cherish customers like the DA's office who are doing the transformation, who are leading the transformation, during this pandemic and during this massive change in our country and hopefully it's going to make a transformative change to our world in terms of obviously not only technology, but social change, so you see this as a transformative time frame for companies like us and HPE and partners like Herman and DA's office. >> Herman, please! >> Yeah, I was just going to say, and absolutely I agree with Tarkan, and the way that we're able to react so quickly to this pandemic is the fact that we've already have started this digital transformation, that we've already been looking at these cloud services, we've already started down this path, and so it's made the transition with this surging overnight change of the office nine to five, five days a week to you know, everyone is remote every day now, we couldn't do that without having these cloud services such as Nutanix and HPE partnership, to make that possible. >> Yeah, is there something specific you talk, the work from home initiative, did you have to scale something out, did you have to, you know, bring us inside that change that helped enable your workforce that you wouldn't have been able to do without this technology. >> Yeah, we absolutely had to scale out the workforce. I would say that before the beginning of this pandemic, we had roughly 15 people that probably had VPN access from outside the office, now you have to also understand that the DA's office is very unique in the form of the types of data that we handle and deal with, so I have HIPPA data, I have CJIS, which is criminal justice information, that's managed by DOJ, so there are certain systems that we normally would not be able to access from outside the office that we had to be able to access now remotely. And so it's taken some time to get us there to that point, but you know, having this environment that allowed us to scale up easily, start looking at digitizing this process and being able to have the storage and compute and processing power to be able to support that initiative is really what we're talking about, and that's what we've been doing. We've been quickly scaling, adding in additional storage but popping in drives and making this all possible in a very quickly and seamlessly process. >> Excellent. Maybe we've talked a little bit about the results and how you can move faster, you know, digital information all about leveraging your data and be able to react more quickly, so you know, the pandemic definitely has put services to the test and it sounds like they're doing well. Maybe step us back a little bit as to what led you to HPE and Nutanix, how you made that decision. >> Well, you know, we went through a trial, a period, proof of concept, we looked at Dell, we looked at HPE and Nutanix, we looked at a few different solutions, and it really boiled down to cost, and what we were getting, bang for the dollar. I think there are some other great solutions out there or good solutions out there but none of them came to the value that the partnership with HPE and Nutanix actually have to offer to us. You know, one of the things is that with this partnership is when there's a support issue, I call Nutanix, I'm not calling HPE, I'm not calling this, the other third party vendor, I'm not getting the runaround of "oh, that's not our problem, that's someone else's problem, you need to call the software team, you need to call the hardware team," no. It's one person that you know, we call, as I like to say, "one throat to choke." And fortunately, we haven't had to go that route, Nutanix has been an excellent partner for ours and they have been great to work with, and on the ball, and that's what I always talk about, success is not just the success of the organization, but the success of the individuals and the success of the partnership between organizations. And that's what I looked for is a business partner that wants to help me at my role at my organization be successful. >> Great. Herman, we talked about modernizing the environment, bring us inside the applications, if you would, what applications you're using, you know, are there new initiatives that you're doing from an application standpoint? >> Yeah, so we're running the same standard applications that most organizations are running, with DHCPISS, you know, I have some other systems that we run just because of the CIO, CICA hat that I also wear within the organization, I'm very security conscious about talking about those applications. But we run pretty much the same basic applications as most organizations do. Those specialized applications that we also operate on, we do see an improvement in performance, we do see the speediness of the access, the more stability and reliability of the solutions, and so we're very pleased with the performance that we're getting. >> Excellent. You also, you talked about the efficiency of what you're doing. I mentioned earlier that, public sector, you can get started, you know, for smaller chunks using things like Nutanix, but budget, obviously, still a concern, I'm sure, anything you're doing with the verbalization in the infrastructure that is helping you keep budget under control? >> Absolutely, I mean, the Nutanix environment is scalable, it allows us to be able to look at other solutions such as CDI, which we're talking about and looking at, potentially doing for staff members that don't have laptops that may need laptops or need remote access into the system. We also have that ability to scale up with just another leg, more storage, it makes it very easy to go with where you're looking at cost-saving measures, currently running BMWare on the back end, but looking to convert that over AHV, yes, in the future, that can also help us reduce those costs in the future as well. Especially at this point in time, where city and county is looking for department budget savings. >> Excellent. Tarkan, I guess this would be a good point for you to chime in on, you know, generally, AHV and any other commentary you've got regarding-- >> I was just trying to hold my words back, because the things that Herman is doing are so exciting in a way, you know, techies like myself still get really excited. Like Herman talked about we're not doing infrastructure for infrastructure's sake. At the end of the day, Herman and his office like many government offices both in the fed as in state or local, have to do more with less. Obviously in this post-pandemic world, you get even more efficient, more innovative, and get most output from our input. In that context, bringing storage, compute, networking, all integrated in a converged way, it's smart, it's not just adding them up, one plus one plus one equals three, but one plus one plus one equals less than one, in terms of cost, making it make sure it's infrastructures are simplified, easy to deploy, easy to use, that's why we keep an NPS score of 90, by the way, part of the reason, a little bit of shameless plug there for you. I don't know many companies who have an NPS 90 because we make infrastructure simple. So if you settle this, to Herman's point, all those applications he's managing and building and then obviously digitizing, and in some way, lifting a shifting and creating a new cloud digitized model, he want to make sure Herman and companies and organizations like the DA's office under leadership, with innovative CIOs like Herman, making sure they have choice. They can choose the prem model they want, on-prem, off-prem, hybrid, or multicloud, or in a government cloud fashion, and deliver these services. To give you an example, we talked about home as the extended enterprise. Our home office is now part of the office. I have to secure my home the way I secure my Nutanix headquarters because I'm now running my business from home. So in the past, there was a delineation between home and office. Now home is part of the extended office. The way I manage my trash, the way I manage my peer flows, applications, the network, latency, everything has to be dealt with in a very smart way. But even our paper trash in our office, we manage it carefully because of the IP, you know, people steal IP. Guess what, now at home, I have to have the same vigor. Guess what, you know, DA's office, the things that Herman is dealing with, they have to be so careful, not only in the office, but at home. So in that sense, that's the better service, your two desktops, all these new technologies I'm going to deal with in this simple way. Our new solution, all requires a browser, that's it, and no deliver a browser-based application, integration, to home, in a secure way, the things that we've been praying for for a long, long time. So this post-pandemic world is going to make us more agile, is going to make us more efficient, and hopefully we're going to do much more with less. >> Excellent, well, Herman, I have one more question for you, if you can, give us a little bit of a look forward. We always love to hear from a CIO just, number one, what's on your plate, and as you look at this solution, what you'll be using it for and going, and secondly, if you've got anything, if you could have something more that the ecosystem, maybe HPE and Nutanix, or maybe just in general from the ecosystem out there, that would make your life and your staff's easier. >> Well, you know, that's a great question. We have over 30 projects on our project list right now that are active projects that's going on. I have a staff of 9 IT professionals with three open positions, so I should say, 9, I have six, actual staff members with three open positions, currently, and we're on a hiring freeze. So one of the great things about the Nutanix HP solution has been that I've been able to downsize from the two systems engineer to the one system engineer without necessarily losing any bandwidth or knowledge or experience because the environment is so easy to manage, which has been great. We will continue to move forward with the digitization of our records and utilizing the cloud services that are available, through the various channels, and it's just an unprecedented time. I see that this is going to be the new norm. >> Excellent, so Tarkan, we'll let you put the exclamation point on it, give us the final takeaway for HPE and Nutanix. >> So, look, at the end of the day, we are in this new software defined growth and multicloud fashion having a partnership within two companies which covers data center services, DevOps services, as well as end user services, end to end, both in private clouds, also in a multicloud fashion, through telco as well as hyperscalers and Azure, deliver the service, with the open end model the customer chooses. Again, end to end, from data center, to DevOps, to end user, is the perfect marriage that HPE and Nutanix's relationship delivers. So we are really looking forward to working with customers like Herman, to deliver on that dream, on that journey, making sure that cloud migration and cloud consolidation happens efficiently end to end. Again, from the data center, to DevOps, to end user, all the way in a fashion that we do more with less in this post-pandemic world, and we're looking forward to that partnership as we move forward, and thank you Stu and thank you, Herman, for the time today. >> Excellent, well, Tarkan Maner, always a pleasure to catch up with you, really great to get all the update from you and really appreciate HPE and Nutanix bringing us Herman Brown, CIO, Herman, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate you sharing your story, hopefully, you'll be able to open up and hire those three people that you're looking to hire in your future. Thank you both so much for joining us. >> Thank you, thank you very much for having me, Tarkan, it's always a pleasure, thanks Nutanix and HPE for just making a solid, great solution that can help in the success of the DA's office. Really do appreciate it. >> Thank you so much, Herman, again, I really appreciate it. >> We'll be back with more coverage from HPE Discover 2020, the Virtual Experience. I'm Stu Miniman, thank you, as always, for watching theCUBE. (gentle music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE! Covering HPE Discover Virtual Experience. Brought to you by HPE. >> Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman, and this is theCUBE's coverage of HPE Discover 2020 the Virtual Experience, really happy to welcome to the program, we have a returning guest. Tarkan Maner is the Chief Commercial Officer at Nutanix, in a new role since the last time we had him on the program, and joining him, we have Herman Brown, who's the CIO for the City of San Francisco's District Attorney. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> So, Tarkan, help set the stage for us. As I mentioned, we know you, our network knows you, but, new to Nutanix in the last year, and talk to us a little bit about this HPE Nutanix partnership. >> Yeah, if you noticed, first of all, thank you for hosting us, great to be here. This is probably, who knows, my fiftieth CUBE I guess, over the past two decades, especially the last twenty years have been crazy for us, obviously in the industry, lots of movement, lots of change. So let me go into the context, that led to Nutanix joining the company, about six months ago in the capacity of Chief Commercial Officer, a hybrid role with some product aspects, business development global market, our cloud infrastructure digitalizes and some of the Corp Dev we're working on. In that context, obviously, HPE is a very, very important strategic partner to us. As you know, the companies, the two companies have been working together for a long time, but especially the last, I would say, six to twelve months, we have this phenomenal relationship around what I call "three focused areas" of our business. Around our digital infrastructure, upward converge infrastructure, a business on top of that, our solutions from data center to DevOps and to this stuff, services, it's three specific segments, we built this really interesting really strong relationship with HPE with some of our philosophies and HPE's platform, now obviously, working through a multicloud channel, who are our own Nutanix cloud, our own hosted cloud, in addition to it, our Telco and SSP partners using their cloud infrastructure as well as some of the hyperscaling work we're doing, with Azure, in addition to our direct sales floors and private cloud approach, HPE and Nutanix are working hand in hand in this multicloud so to speak operative model. So it's a new relationship in some ways, from a multicloud perspective, but if it has to grow in segments, we had a phenomenal quarter in the last three months, we just released our results, and HPE is growing with us. And we're given definitely a great suite of solutions to our customers with the typical usual, simple to deploy, simple to use mechanics customers like on the HPE platform. So I'm sure we've got a whole lot more, but glad to be here also with Herman Brown, from the DA's office in San Francisco, my favorite city in the world, so glad to be here. Thank you, Stu, again, for hosting us. >> Great, thanks so much, Tarkan. You know, Herman, we're going to get into a lot of the technology pieces, you with your CIO hat on, you know, want to understand how cloud, how modern infrastructure, your applications are changing, but, give us a little bit about your personal background and really the purview that you cover in the city of San Francisco District Attorney's office. >> Yes, well, you know, I've been with the DA's office for just over 3 years, it'll be 4 years I guess in August of this year, and I come from twenty plus years of private sector experience, some government experience. And, you know, the city and county, the government is really no different than any other organization other than we're known to be a little bit slower to adopt the technologies, which is why I'm here. I want to help government become more efficient, more productive through the use of technology, and so I'm excited to be here and thank you, first and foremost, for having me on the show. I appreciate it. >> I love that you brought that up, because we've been doing theCUBE for just over a decade now, and in the early parts of that, it's like, right, okay, I'm talking to a local government, we understand, your budgets are tight, you're using older technology, you've got duct tape and baling wire to keep things going. The last few years, some of my favorite conversations have been in the public sector, because you talk about some of the tools that are out there, and don't need a huge capital investment to get started, I can modernize, so Herman, digital transformation, is that a term that you've brought from the private sector over to the public sector, or what kind of transformations are you going through and what is it that's I guess driving the need for transformation in your world? >> So yeah, I've been with the city and county of San Francisco for nine years, so I'd love to say that I brought digital transformation or at least the term with me, but I was actually here in the DA's office or in the city and county's employment when that terminology came out. Being the CIO for the San Francisco District Attorney's office, I mean, we're essentially a law firm. And law firms are historically just paper intensive organizations, right, you have court filings and rap sheets, all these physical documents that have to be physically ink signed and transferred from one attorney to another to the courts, and between police departments and sheriffs and so forth and so on. And we just looked at, what are we doing, how can we work more efficient, you know? As a lot of organizations, we're always finding ourselves to be understaffed for the amount of work that we have going on, the city and county of San Francisco, the DA's office, we see roughly 26,000 cases a year, we try about half of those cases per year. And we're a staff of 320 people. That includes everyone, the attorneys, the paralegals, finance folks, IT, investigators. And so it was like, we need to really embrace technology and be able to help transform this paper intensive processes into automated, digital forms and documents that can minimize the physical transferring of data, especially now, during Covid-19. >> Yeah, Herman, that transformation process is often multi-step, there's a lot of people, there's technology, and then there's the applications. It was at a Nutanix show that the comment I made is, well, let's modernize the platform, then you can modernize the applications on top of it. Tarkan, maybe, I'd love to hear just a little commentary from you, you've got a great perspective on this. That modernization effort, where your customers are, some of the levers that Nutanix is helping them along that journey. >> Yeah, so everything Herman said is very interesting, and obviously, a delight to my ears, because as a technologist in the industry for the past three decades, we're dealing with this, what I call, transformational waves, and you know, in the last ten years, the cloud transformation from the server to transition transformation now, increasingly, we're seeing this very fast migrations from the old school legacy data centers with legacy infrastructure and apps, basically are lifting and shifting these applications to a new cloud, so to speak, opened the model. The cloud to us, in a sense, it's not a destination, it's an open model, so if we see the customer's needs at the end of the day, just like Herman outlined, Herman is not trying to do cloud or digitization for the digital cloud's sake, he's trying to lead his team and the DA's office, with the most DAs by the way, in the nation, making sure that they can process data faster. They can achieve their goals, working especially in this post-pandemic world, and the entire change that are happening in our country, in a big way over the past few weeks, the events, and how our country is going to change for the future. So there's going to be a lot of work going to be happening in the government, this transformation or digitization, migration to the cloud, is going to be a big deal, so as a company, it very quickly we've seen this as a huge opportunity for our customers, as we're partnering with them in a multi cloud way. We still believe our server partners are super important in this context with HPE, but the cloud services around HPE Greenlake, the things we are doing with them, at the same time, working with HPE and some of our partners delivering our own Nutanix cloud services as well as some of the things we have been doing with some of Telco's and service providers, to give choice to our customers to consume the services we provide on-prem, through our old cloud services through a third party telephone service provider, or the choice of hyper scale into the U.S. As your Google, unlimited oracle. So in this context this partnership is hugely important, so there's a lot going on with HPE with Antonio, with our CEO, with Tarak, our CFO, with Tom Black, it's Sonali. The entire executive team are working very closely with them, and with Hyko in the fuel organization, our fuel organization, and we really cherish customers like the DA's office who are doing the transformation, who are leading the transformation, during this pandemic and during this massive change in our country and hopefully it's going to make a transformative change to our world in terms of obviously not only technology, but social change, so you see this as a transformative time frame for companies like us and HPE and partners like Herman and DA's office. >> Herman, please! >> Yeah, I was just going to say, and absolutely I agree with Tarak, and the way that we're able to react so quickly to this pandemic is the fact that we've already have started this digital transformation, that we've already been looking at these cloud services, we've already started down this path, and so it's made the transition with this surging overnight change of the office nine to five, five days a week to you know, everyone is remote every day now, we couldn't do that without having these cloud services such as Nutanix and HPE partnership, to make that possible. >> Yeah, is there something specific you talk, the work from home initiative, did you have to scale something out, did you have to, you know, bring us inside that change that helped enable your workforce that you wouldn't have been able to do without this technology. >> Yeah, we absolutely had to scale out the workforce. I would say that before the beginning of this pandemic, we had roughly 15 people that probably had VPN access from outside the office, now you have to also understand that the DA's office is very unique in the form of the types of data that we handle and deal with, so I have HIPPA data, I have CJIS, which is criminal justice information, that's managed by DOJ, so there are certain systems that we normally would not be able to access from outside the office that we had to be able to access now remotely. And so it's taken some time to get us there to that point, but you know, having this environment that allowed us to scale up easily, start looking at digitizing this process and being able to have the storage and compute and processing power to be able to support that initiative is really what we're talking about, and that's what we've been doing. We've been quickly scaling, adding in additional storage but popping in drives and making this all possible in a very quickly and seamlessly process. >> Excellent. Maybe we've talked a little bit about the results and how you can move faster, you know, digital information all about leveraging your data and be able to react more quickly, so you know, the pandemic definitely has put services to the test and it sounds like they're doing well. Maybe step us back a little bit as to what led you to HPE and Nutanix, how you made that decision. >> Well, you know, we went through a trial, a period, proof of concept, we looked at Dell, we looked at HPE and Nutanix, we looked at a few different solutions, and it really boiled down to cost, and what we were getting, bang for the dollar. I think there are some other great solutions out there or good solutions out there but none of them came to the value that the partnership with HPE and Nutanix actually have to offer to us. You know, one of the things is that with this partnership is when there's a support issue, I call Nutanix, I'm not calling HPE, I'm not calling this, the other third party vendor, I'm not getting the runaround of "oh, that's not our problem, that's someone else's problem, you need to call the software team, you need to call the hardware team," no. It's one person that you know, we call, as I like to say, "one throat to choke." And fortunately, we haven't had to go that route, Nutanix has been an excellent partner for ours and they have been great to work with, and on the ball, and that's what I always talk about, success is not just the success of the organization, but the success of the individuals and the success of the partnership between organizations. And that's what I looked for is a business partner that wants to help me at my role at my organization be successful. >> Great. Herman, we talked about modernizing the environment, bring us inside the applications, if you would, what applications you're using, you know, are there new initiatives that you're doing from an application standpoint? >> Yeah, so we're running the same standard applications that most organizations are running, with DHCPISS, you know, I have some other systems that we run just because of the CIO, CICA hat that I also wear within the organization, I'm very security conscious about talking about those applications. But we run pretty much the same basic applications as most organizations do. Those specialized applications that we also operate on, we do see an improvement in performance, we do see the speediness of the access, the more stability and reliability of the solutions, and so we're very pleased with the performance that we're getting. >> Excellent. You also, you talked about the efficiency of what you're doing. I mentioned earlier that, public sector, you can get started, you know, for smaller chunks using things like Nutanix, but budget, obviously, still a concern, I'm sure, anything you're doing with the verbalization in the infrastructure that is helping you keep budget under control? >> Absolutely, I mean, the Nutanix environment is scalable, it allows us to be able to look at other solutions such as CDI, which we're talking about and looking at, potentially doing for staff members that don't have laptops that may need laptops or need remote access into the system. We also have that ability to scale up with just another leg, more storage, it makes it very easy to go with where you're looking at cost-saving measures, currently running BMWare on the back end, but looking to convert that over AHV, yes, in the future, that can also help us reduce those costs in the future as well. Especially at this point in time, where city and county is looking for department budget savings. >> Excellent. Tarkan, I guess this would be a good point for you to chime in on, you know, generally, AHV and any other commentary you've got regarding-- >> I was just trying to hold my words back, because the things that Herman is doing are so exciting in a way, you know, techies like myself still get really excited. Like Herman talked about we're not doing infrastructure for infrastructure's sake. At the end of the day, Herman and his office like many government offices both in the fed as in state or local, have to do more with less. Obviously in this post-pandemic world, you get even more efficient, more innovative, and get most output from our input. In that context, bringing storage, compute, networking, all integrated in a converged way, it's smart, it's not just adding them up, one plus one plus one equals three, but one plus one plus one equals less than one, in terms of cost, making it make sure it's infrastructures are simplified, easy to deploy, easy to use, that's why we keep an NPS score of 90, by the way, part of the reason, a little bit of shameless plug there for you. I don't know many companies who have an NPS 90 because we make infrastructure simple. So if you settle this, to Herman's point, all those applications he's managing and building and then obviously digitizing, and in some way, lifting a shifting and creating a new cloud digitized model, he want to make sure Herman and companies and organizations like the DA's office under leadership, with innovative CIOs like Herman, making sure they have choice. They can choose the prem model they want, on-prem, off-prem, hybrid, or multicloud, or in a government cloud fashion, and deliver these services. To give you an example, we talked about home as the extended enterprise. Our home office is now part of the office. I have to secure my home the way I secure my Nutanix headquarters because I'm now running my business from home. So in the past, there was a delineation between home and office. Now home is part of the extended office. The way I manage my trash, the way I manage my peer flows, applications, the network, latency, everything has to be dealt with in a very smart way. But even our paper trash in our office, we manage it carefully because of the IP, you know, people steal IP. Guess what, now at home, I have to have the same vigor. Guess what, you know, DA's office, the things that Herman is dealing with, they have to be so careful, not only in the office, but at home. So in that sense, that's the better service, your two desktops, all these new technologies I'm going to deal with in this simple way. Our new solution, all requires a browser, that's it, and no deliver a browser-based application, integration, to home, in a secure way, the things that we've been praying for for a long, long time. So this post-pandemic world is going to make us more agile, is going to make us more efficient, and hopefully we're going to do much more with less. >> Excellent, well, Herman, I have one more question for you, if you can, give us a little bit of a look forward. We always love to hear from a CIO just, number one, what's on your plate, and as you look at this solution, what you'll be using it for and going, and secondly, if you've got anything, if you could have something more that the ecosystem, maybe HPE and Nutanix, or maybe just in general from the ecosystem out there, that would make your life and your staff's easier. >> Well, you know, that's a great question. We have over 30 projects on our project list right now that are active projects that's going on. I have a staff of 9 IT professionals with three open positions, so I should say, 9, I have six, actual staff members with three open positions, currently, and we're on a hiring freeze. So one of the great things about the Nutanix HP solution has been that I've been able to downsize from the two systems engineer to the one system engineer without necessarily losing any bandwidth or knowledge or experience because the environment is so easy to manage, which has been great. We will continue to move forward with the digitization of our records and utilizing the cloud services that are available, through the various channels, and it's just an unprecedented time. I see that this is going to be the new norm. >> Excellent, so Tarkan, we'll let you put the exclamation point on it, give us the final takeaway for HPE and Nutanix. >> So, look, at the end of the day, we are in this new software defined growth and multicloud fashion having a partnership within two companies which covers data center services, DevOps services, as well as end user services, end to end, both in private clouds, also in a multicloud fashion, through telco as well as hyperscalers and Azure, deliver the service, with the open end model the customer chooses. Again, end to end, from data center, to DevOps, to end user, is the perfect marriage that HPE and Nutanix's relationship delivers. So we are really looking forward to working with customers like Herman, to deliver on that dream, on that journey, making sure that cloud migration and cloud consolidation happens efficiently end to end. Again, from the data center, to DevOps, to end user, all the way in a fashion that we do more with less in this post-pandemic world, and we're looking forward to that partnership as we move forward, and thank you Stu and thank you, Herman, for the time today. >> Excellent, well, Tarkan Maner, always a pleasure to catch up with you, really great to get all the update from you and really appreciate HPE and Nutanix bringing us Herman Brown, CIO, Herman, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate you sharing your story, hopefully, you'll be able to open up and hire those three people that you're looking to hire in your future. Thank you both so much for joining us. >> Thank you, thank you very much for having me, Tarkan, it's always a pleasure, thanks Nutanix and HPE for just making a solid, great solution that can help in the success of the DA's office. Really do appreciate it. >> Thank you so much, Herman, again, I really appreciate it. >> We'll be back with more coverage from HPE Discover 2020, the Virtual Experience. I'm Stu Miniman, thank you, as always, for watching theCUBE. (gentle music)

>>from the Cube Studios in Palo Alto and Boston. It's the Cube covering empowering the autonomous enterprise brought to you by >>Oracle Consulting. Everybody, this is Dave Vellante. We've been covering the transformation of Oracle consulting and really, it's rebirth. And I'm here with Chris Fox, who's the group vice president for Enterprise Cloud Architects and chief technologist for the North America Tech Cloud at Oracle. Chris, thanks so much for coming on the Cube. >>Thanks too great to be here, >>So I love this title. You know, years ago, this thing is a cloud architect. Certainly there were chief technologist, but so you really that's those are your peeps, Is that right? >>That's right. That's right. That's really in my team. And I That's all we dio. So our focus is really helping our customers take this journey from when they were on premise. You really transforming with cloud? And when we think about Cloud, really, for us, it's a combination. It's it's our hybrid cloud, which happens to be on premise. And then, of course, the true public cloud, like most people, are familiar with so very exciting journey and frankly, of seeing just a lot of success for our customers. You know what I think we're seeing at Oracle, though? Because we're so connected with SAS. And then we're also connected with the traditional applications that have run the business for years. The legacy applications that have been, you know, servicing us for 20 years and then the cloud native developers. So with my team and I are constantly focused on now is things like digital transformation and really wiring up all three of these across. So if we think of, like a customer outcome like I want to have a package delivered to me from a retailer that actual process flow could touch a brand new cognitive site of e commerce it could touch essentially maybe a traditional application that used to be on Prem that's now in the cloud. And then it might even use new SAS application, maybe for maybe Herman process or delivery vehicle and scheduling. So when my team does, we actually connect all three. So what? I was mentioned, too. In my team and all of our customers, we have field service, all three of those constituents. And if you think about process flows, so I take a cloud. Native developer we help them become efficient. We take the person use to run in a traditional application, and we help them become more efficient. And then we have the SAS applications, which are now rolling out new features on a quarterly basis and the whole new delivery model. But the real key is connecting all three of these into your business process flow. That makes the customers life much more vision. >>So I want to get into this cloud conversations that you guys are using this term last mover advantage. I asked you last I was being last, You know, an advantage. But let me start there. >>People always say, You know, of course, we want to get out of the data center. We're going zero data center and how we say, Well, how are you going to handle that back office stuff, right? The stuff that's really big Frankie, um, doesn't handle just, you know, instances dying or things going away too easily. It needs predictable performance in the scale. It absolutely needs security. And ultimately, you know, a lot of these applications truly have relied on Oracle database. The Oracle database has its own specific characteristics that it means to run really well. So we actually looked at the cloud and we said, Let's take the first generation clouds but you're doing great But let's add the features that specifically a lot of times the Oracle workload needed in order to run very well and in a cost effective manner. So that's what we mean when we say last mover advantage, We said, Let's take the best of the clouds that are out there today. Let's look at the workloads that, frankly, Oracle runs and has been running for years. What are customers needed? And then let's build those features right into this, uh, this next version of the cloud we service the Enterprise. So our goal, honestly, which is interesting is even that first discussion we had about cloud, native and legacy applications and also the new SAS applications. We built a cloud that handles all three use cases at scale resiliently in very secure manner, and I don't know of any other cloud that's handling those three use cases all in. We'll call it the same pendency process. Oracle >>Mike witnesses. Why was it important for Oracle? And is it important for Oracle on its customers that have to participate in IAS and Pass and SAS. Why not just the last two layers of that? Um What does that mean from a strategic advantage standpoint? What does that do for >>you? Yeah, great question. So the number one reason why we needed to have all three was that we have so many customers to today are in a data center. They're running a lot of our workloads on premise, and they absolutely are trying to find a better way to deliver lower cost services to their customers. And so we couldn't just say, Let's just everyone needs to just become net new. Everyone just needs to ditch the old and go just a brand new alone. Too hard, too expensive at times. So we said, You know, let's kill us customers the ultimate amount of choice. So let's even go back against that developer conversation and SAS Um, if you didn't have eyes, we couldn't help customers achieve a zero data center strategy with their traditional applications will call it PeopleSoft or JD Edwards, Revisit Suite or even. There's some massive applications that are running on the Oracle cloud right now that are custom applications built on the Oracle database. What they want is, they said, Give me the lowest. Possibly a predictable performance. I as I'll run my app steer on this number two. Give me a platform service for database because, frankly, I don't really want to run your database. Like with all the manual effort. I want someone automate, patching scale up and down and all these types of features like should have given us. And then number three. You know, I do want SAS over time. So we spend a lot of time with our customers really saying, How do I take this traditional application, Run it on eyes and has and the number two Let's modernize it at scale. Maybe I want to start peeling off functionality and running in the cloud Native services right alongside, right? That's something again that we're doing at scale. And other people are having a hard time running these traditional workloads on Prem in the cloud. The second part is they say, you know, I've got this legacy traditional your api been servicing we well, or maybe a supply chain system ultimately want to get out of this. How do I get to SAS? You say Okay, here's the way to do this. First bring into the cloud running on IAS and pass and then selectively, I call it cloud slicing. Take a piece of functionality and put it into SAS. We're helping customers move to the cloud at scale. We're helping them do it at their rate, with whatever level of change they want. And when they're ready for SAS, we're ready for them. >>How does autonomous fit into this whole architecture Wait for that? That that description? I mean, it's a it's nuanced, but it's important. I'm sure you haven't discussed this conversation with a lot of cloud architects and chief technologist. They want to know this stuff. They want to know how it works. Um, you know, we will talk about what the business impact is, but but yeah, it's not about autonomous and where that fits. >>So the autonomous database, what we've done is really big. And look at all the runtime operations of an Oracle database. So tuning, patching, sparing all these different features and what we've done is taken the best of the Oracle database the best of something called Exit Data right, which we run in the cloud which really helps a lot of our customers. And then we wrapped it with a set of automation and security tools to help it. Really, uh, managing self tune itself. Patch itself scale up and down, independent between compute and storage. So why that's important, though, is that it? Really? Our goal is to help people run the Oracle databases they have for years, but with far less effort and then even not letting far less effort. Hopefully, you know a machine. Last man out of the equation we always talk about is your man plus machine is greater than man alone, so being assisted by, um, artificial intelligence and machine learning to perform those database operations, we should provide a better service to our customers. Far less paths are hoping goal is that people have been running Oracle databases, you know, How can we help them do it with far less effort and maybe spend more time on what the data can do for the organization? Right? Improve customer experience at Centra versus maybe like Hana Way. How do I spin up the table? It >>so talk about the business impact. So you go into customers, you talk to the the cloud Architects, the chief technologist. You pass that test now, you got to deliver the business impact. We're is Oracle Consulting fit with regard to that? And maybe you could talk about that where you were You guys want to take this thing? >>Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so you know, the cloud is a great set of technologies, but where Oracle Consulting is really helping us deliver is in, um, you know, one of the things I think that's been fantastic working with the Oracle consulting team is that, you know, Cloud is new for a lot of customers who've been running these environments for a number of years. There's always some fear and a little bit of trepidation saying, How do I learn this new cloud of the workloads? We're talking about David, like tier zero, tier one, tier two and all the way up to Dev and Test and, er, um, Oracle consulting. This really couple things in particular, Number one, they start with the end in mind, and number two that they start to do is they really help implement these systems. And, you know, there's a lot of different assurances that we have that we're going to get it done on time and better be under budget because ultimately, you know, again, that's a something is really paramount for us and then the third part of it. But sometimes a run book, right? We actually don't want to just live in our customer's environments. We want to help them understand how to run this new system. So training and change management. A lot of times, Oracle Consulting is helping with run books. We usually well, after doing it the first time. We'll sit back and say, Let the customer do in the next few times and essentially help them through the process. And our goal at that point is to leave only if the customer wants us to. But ultimately our goal is to implemented, get it to go live on time and then help the customer learn this journey to the cloud and without them. Frankly, uh, you know, I think these systems were sometimes too complex and difficult to do on your own. Maybe the first time, especially cause I could say they're closing the books. They might be running your entire supply chain. They run your entire HR system, whatever they might be, uh, too important, leading a chance. So they really help us with helping a customer become live and become very confident. Skilled. They could do themselves >>of the conversation. We have to leave it right there. But thanks so much for coming on the Cube and sharing your insights. Great stuff. >>Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. >>All right. You're welcome. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Volante for the Cube. We are covering the oracle of North American Consulting. Transformation. And it's rebirth in this digital event. Keep it right there. We'll be right back.

>> Host: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2018, brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. We are live, day three of Dell Technologies World. I'm Lisa Martin, back hosting with Dave Velante and we're very excited to welcome back to theCUBE Karen Quintos, Chief Customer Officer at Dell EMC. Hey, welcome back. >> Thank you, thank you. It's great to be here with you both. >> Dave: Good to see you again. >> So, we saw you on stage on Monday, recognizing innovators and trailblazers. I always love, as a marketer, when customers are recognized for their achievements because the voice of the customer is the best brand validation that you can get. Talk to us about the customer awards program and highlight a few of the winners that were on stage. >> Well, first of all, I agree with you, Lisa, that the best way to talk about your products and your solutions is to do it through the eyes of the customer, so being able to honor eight of our super most inspiring customers on stage was great. We had hundreds of submissions from our sales teams working with our customers. We really wanted to bring the transformation stories to life. The stories that we were able to tell and the evolution that these customers have done in their industry and their business, was remarkable, so, you think about Ford and the autonomous car. You think about J and J and the work they're doing around securing their customer data. You think about Volvo and Zenuity, and the opportunities that they have had with technology and then some of my favorite, Arrowfarms, >> Love that. >> Teleconnected farm, and they're using technology in Newark, New Jersey, to transform the way that farming is done, conserving our natural resources, using 95% less water, and being able to do it, and, this, the IOT of farming, they're just all super rich and really really great stories. >> And then, you got, I have to ask you to say it, to pronounce, I loved your pronunciation of, Unidad, come on, help me. >> I know it was the first one, right? >> Dave: Unidad de Conocimiento. (laughing) >> Yes, yeah, you got it right, you got it right. >> Okay. >> They're a great story, too, right, I mean, here's an organization in Colombia that is a consolidation of different industries that are providing these services across Colombia and Latin America. They've absolutely figured out how to take a country like Columbia out of the perils of what has happened there with the drug cartel, really thrive on economic prosperity and they're absolutely kicking butt when it comes to the services that they're providing to all of their, their customers, so it's... >> And the state bank of India, was that the other one? >> State bank of India. >> They really had a global representation, it's awesome. >> Well, we looked hard for that. We looked hard for the global representation. We also looked really really hard and gave extra points to companies that had a purpose and a soul, so what they were doing, either with the technology or with the services that they're providing to their end customers, what's that, that purpose side? And, you know, you saw that in a number of these really awesome organizations. >> I'm going to ask you, so I'm going to ask a leadership question. When we first met, I think it was at Dell World. It might have been 2012, I think you were CMO of Dell at the time, so you, like a lot of leaders, you chair hop, that's kind of what you do. So you've now, playing it up. >> But 18 years at Dell, so, you know. >> Right, but, right, so, you take your best leaders and you say, alright, go fix this problem, go fix this problem, go, go inspire some people to do that, so, you've been, and also it's the, is it the chief customer office that you started? >> I did. Well, actually, Michael started it. >> A year and a half ago? >> Right. >> Well, what's that all about? How's the progress going? Give us the update there. >> Well, you know, I have to tell you, I give a ton of credit to Michael because he saw an opportunity in something that was quite new and quite novel, and now you look a year and a half later at what some of our competitors and others are doing. You know, Microsoft just named somebody that sits at their executive leadership team meeting, recognizing that customer relationships are the ultimate prize. Our ability to deliver a great customer experience is going to be the, is the next battleground, and, we've been leading in that area now for a year and a half, so, I'm the first chief customer officer ever at Dell Technologies, and our mission is really to make sure that we continue to push the needle, and drive an even better end to end customer experience. We're doing a lot around taking our top, most important customers, and there's a couple of thousand of them at Dell. I'm not talking about five or six, I'm talking about like thousands of customers that have consistently honored us with their business over the years so how do we put high touch, high loyalty kind of programs in place? The customer awards were a great way to recognize some of those top customers and put them on the stage and tell their story, and the piece that gets me even more excited is what we're doing around our customer data, so, how do we unleash the power of our customer data? How do we integrate it? How do we automate it? How do we put real time predictive analytics? By looking at a customer end to end and being able to figure out if that account is going to go red, because they've had a combination of things, go figure out what are the sources of value for them and unleash those, so, we're living in this AI big data world and living it realtime with, under the remit of the chief customer office. >> And if I heard you correctly, at the leadership team, you're kind of the voice of the customer? >> I am, I am. There's a lot of voices for the customer. >> Well, yeah, because the head, the head of sales are going to be doing that and. >> But they all come with their own bias, right? Or their own lens, right, so, we're actually, my team is a very very strong partner to our heads of sales, because sometimes heads of sales, I mean, they see these things clearly the same way that we do, but sometimes the voice around, well, this isn't working, we need to get better at this, our customers want us to go faster here, tends to get lost in, you know, business performance and close rates and all of that, and we have this unique ability to look at this end to end, and help to really advocate on behalf of customers and really do the right thing for them at the end of the day. >> Independent of the transaction metrics, is what you're saying. >> Yes. >> And it's different perspective, right? We talked about the voice of the customer being an objective brand validation, and you come from a different perspective. One of the things that, we had your CIO on earlier today, Bask, and he said, "We drink our own champagne." And then we had Ravi Pentaconti and he says, we eat our own dog food, we're right next to the therapy dogs. So I like that, but from what you're saying, you're using customer data to help make Dell Technologies differentiated, be able to revolutionize the customer experience, listening to those customers is key. Can you tell us a little bit more about how some of that data is being applied to revolutionize that experience? >> Sure, so, some of it's basic, some of it can be pretty transformational, so, and by the way Baz Guyer has been a significant partner with me on this journey, because he understands it. Listen, Dell's the only technology company out there today that has the rich, direct data that we have, combined with rich channel partner data. So, we have all of it, right? And some of our competitors do everything through the channel, a few of them do everything all direct, we do both. So, we have a huge advantage when it comes to that. We can look at the amalgamation of all of the listening posts that we have for our customers. We have a booth here, where we've brought in hundreds, thousands of customers, and we've asked them a series of questions. We have voice of the field surveys that we do with our sales team, we do NPS surveys, this survey, all of that. We can bring all of that together using big data and insights and we can prioritize the big things that matter. So one of the things that I see a lot of my peers at other companies get caught up in, is they're chasing 15 or 20 things. You know, at any given moment, we're chasing 3 to 5. And we want to move the needle on those 3 to 5 and then we want to get, capture and address the next ones. So that's what I would call kind of the basic, fundamental pieces. What I think is exciting, is, we can now take a view of a customer, a complete view of that customer, we know what they bought, we know who they bought it from, we know the number of escalations they've had, we know what their delivery performance has been, we know how many times they've changed the AE on the account we know what their corporate responsibility priorities are, and we can look at that in totality, and we can put an outreach kind of program in place for them, or, we can look at it and go, this one is about to go south, and we need to put our best people to go call on the account and help the account executive, who in a lot of ways sees this also, and help to figure out how to turn it around. >> So, and you can do that across the integrated company today? >> We have piloted across the integrated set of companies, and in the Q3 period of time, working closely with Baz, we're going to automate this and turn it into like an Amber Alert, early warning type of system, so that we can help the AE and our customers before things happen. And the other piece that we can do, is we know, we know the ten levers of customer value. And, you know, for the most part we do those generally well. But in some cases, some of the reasons that our customers come back to us is because we've discovered things at their account that they didn't even know was happening. So we're, we've got this power of big data sitting right in front of us with Chief Customer Office that can really, really light it up. >> Well the other thing you said is the account teams know when there's a problem, but the executive teams, they have limited resources. So you don't know where to prioritize. >> Right, and some of our AE's have more than one account. >> Dave: Yeah, right. >> So, you know, some of them are handling 20 accounts. So where this thing becomes really interesting is as you think about scaling it, down through the organization, not just at the top ones. The top accounts, they're one to, one-to-one kind of engagement, and those types of things. It gets really interesting when you start to get below that and you start to really use it in a more scaleable way. >> Plus, as you go more channel, right, and you go more to edge, you get all these complexities beyond just product portfolio. You're dealing with that stuff, but then the channel complexities, and then the new markets that are emerging, particularly in edge, and the channels that that's going to precipitate. >> Right, right. >> To me, this is even more important. >> So 18 months into this new role that Michael Dell created, lots of accomplishments, it sounds like you're really leveraging it to partner with customers to help, not just them, but also your internal teams, be able to identify where there needs to be escalations. What are some of the things that you're opening up with respect to diversity and inclusion, because that's also under your purview? >> That's right, that's right Lisa. What I think is really interesting is how much our sales teams now is coming to my team, to use some of these other platforms to open doors and have conversations with CIOS that they could not get before. So I'll give you a perfect case in point. The sales leader in the U.K. came to me and said, "I have a particular account in London, "I haven't really been able to make any progress, "the CIO is a woman, their head of infrastructure is a woman "you're going to be there in London, would you send her a note "and let's have a conversation around some of the things "that we have some mutual interest in." Technology being one, as well as getting more women involved in to technology. So we had this conversation, an hour in, she said, you know, if Dell would host a session with other female CIOs in the U.K area, I will open up my Rolodex and we will get other women to come. Two months later, we did it, in London in January. I was there, Michael was there, our heads of sales were there, we had about 15 or 20 of these super impressive women in the public sector, the private sector, higher education universities, big brands, we just did a similar one here at Dell Technologies World. We just hosted, as a matter of fact yesterday, 20 women, we actually had a couple of men that were there, too, all just coming together talking about areas that we deeply care about. How do we get more women and minorities interested in these technology fields. >> And here we are in 2018, this is still such an issue, and it's something that's still surprising when we get to see females on stage in keynotes, like yourself, like Allison Doo who was just chatting with you, Dave, and Stu. It's still, we're actually kind of going, hey, we're starting from a deficit whereas 20 30 years ago we were kind of going up. What are some of the things that you hear from your male peers in terms of the importance of showing multiple generations of girls and women you do belong here, if this is something that you're interested in, do not be afraid. >> Yeah, what I find remarkable in these conversations is there's clearly a number of key themes that are emerging. One of the biggest ones is, this is an economic imperative. You think about, there's going to be 1.1 million jobs in the computer science technology field over the next ten years. 45% of those jobs are going to be filled by U.S. college grads. It's a gap 55%. Women that are graduating in the area of computer science and technology is down, significantly, from like 30% down to like 18% right now. You are simply not going to have enough of what has been the traditional workforce in order to fill these jobs. So, that's one, and that's one that we at Dell care about a lot. Second piece that we care about, is, we just know that when you bring together a diverse group of individuals, always get to a better answer for your customers, you do. Research has proven it, we can prove it, we can see it, all of that. And then the third piece is, I just think women bring unique skills in a collaborative global context that can really bust through some of the big, complex, thorny opportunities that corporations are working through. >> So, ladies, let me jump in here, if I may. So there's two sides to this coin is, one is yes, we've got to get young women excited, but the other is you've got to promote women to leadership positions. Obviously Dell does a good job of that, clearly IBM gets high marks for that, I mean one of the sad things about seeing Meg Whitman go was that you had a dynamic woman leader. Maybe not the greatest speaker in the world, but one-on-one, super strong, and I think an inspiration to a lot of young women. And I think our industry clearly, Silicon Valley, Boston, just not doing enough. Particularly in smaller companies, larger companies I think do a better job, so your thoughts on that? >> My thought on that is it's a hard problem, but at its very basic, it's actually quite simple. And these are the things that we're doing at Dell, it takes commitment from the top, and at all levels of the company to make change, drive the accountability, set goals. To your point, go place some bets on the younger generation up-and-coming diverse talent, put them in roles, and then surround them with a support system that they need to be successful. And, we've done that, you know, Michael has done that, he did it with me. When, six or seven years ago, he called me and said how'd ya like to be Dell's next Chief Marketing Officer? And then you know, called me 18 months ago and said, how'd ya like to be Dell's first Chief Customer Officer. You need people that see things in that talent and you need that commitment. You need a culture that supports that. You need more role models. You need to get rid of and totally eliminate the harassment and the bullying and the old boys kind of club. You've got to create places where women and minorities feel like they can be themselves. Culture plays a huge, huge, huge role. And then, you know, communities play a huge role. So we have a very, very growing and thriving employee resource group set of networks. We have 14 of them across Dell and Dell EMC. And they're just a safe haven for where people of color, women, LGBT, veterans, disabilities can come and just be themselves, and be with others that they feel safe with. So, some level, it's not that hard. It really does take the commitment and the wherewithal and the sense of urgency that says we've got to fix it, and we have to fix it now. >> I feel like 2017 was a milestone year, I'd love to know what your thoughts are. You had that incident in the tech industry, with that poor misguided soul from Google who decided to write this Jerry Maguire memo and just brought a lot of attention to the issue, and then the #MeToo movement, so I feel like 2018 is a more optimistic year, but still, a lot of that stuff that you were talking about goes on, and it needs to be exposed. Again, I think the #MeToo movement brings that out and a lot of people are thinking uh-oh, wow. This really has to stop. Your thoughts, do you agree with that, or do you just think, no Dave, we're still way too far away. >> I think what #MeToo has done is opened a lot of eyes around how pervasive all of this is. I know, in the case of Dell, we have a zero tolerance zero tolerance policy when it comes to all of that. What was so shocking to us is how pervasive it still was in either other companies or other industries. To me, what is encouraging now, is the conversation is going beyond harassment, to aggression and bullying and culture and some of the things that have happened over the years, and by the way, it happens across all genders. There's articles that are being written now about women that are bullying and have bullied, so. This is something that all corporations need to be setting the tone around what are the right behaviors and those types of things, and we've been doing that now, for years. The other piece that I feel very strongly about, is, if men retreat from this conversation, that is a huge problem, a huge problem. Leaders like you have to be part of it. They have to be part of, this has to change. I want to be part of the solution. I have daughters, or wives, or nieces or whatever it is that I know that they have just as much capability as boys and men do, and my job is to help them. So I love it, I love the way that men and women are both coming together and engaging in this conversation. And we are seeing progress. I think everybody wants it to be faster, but we are seeing progress. Hey, yesterday at this CIO round table that we have, one of my favorite quotes, we got into this whole conversation around, well what is the next generation feeling? And one of the women that was there said, "hey, my daughter told me three weeks ago, "you know mom, she goes, I really think, "to me it's really simple. "I want to be a mom and I want to be a CEO." It's that simple. >> Wow, I love that. So in the last few seconds or so, Karen, you've made a tremendous amount of progress impact as the Chief Customer Officer in 18 months. What are you looking forward to accomplishing the rest of 2018? >> Well I think the thing that gets me really energized, too is how we're applying our technology in the area of corporate responsibility and innovation. So, you know, you saw our plastic bottle demo that we had here, that fish moves from one event to another, we got really serious around how do we play a really key role in stopping the plastics from entering the ocean? So there's 86 million metric tons of plastic that is in the ocean today. By the year 2050, there will be more pieces of plastic in the ocean than there are fish. You have to stop the plastic from entering the ocean, which is a pilot project that we did about a year ago, and we recently announced an expansion of that called next wave, where we have our customers that are partnering with us to figure out how do we scale that? So, General Motors, Herman Miller, are just a couple of examples. And then, at CES this year, we announced an effort that we're doing around how do you extract gold out of motherboards, and using that, and recycling that back into our motherboards and using it in jewelry manufacturing. So we partnered with a jewelry manufacturer out of the West Coast, Nikki Reed. She is creating this jewelry, these rings, through recycled gold, and it's 99% more environmentally friendly. So, I love the fact that we can use our technology to innovate, change the world, use, reuse the stuff that we're putting into the economy. So, scaling these is a big, big priority for me in 2018. >> Dave: Awesome. >> Wow, momentum is the only word I can think of to describe what you've achieved, what you're doing so far. Karen, thank you so much for stopping by and chatting with Dave and me, and congratulations on what you've accomplished, and we look forward to talking to you next year. >> Thanks, thank you. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE we are live, finishing up day three at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, I am Lisa Martin for Dave Vellante, thanks for watching.