>> Narrator: Live, from Las Vegas. It's the Cube! Covering NAB 2017, brought to you by HGST. (electronic music) >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCube. We're here at NAB 2017 in Las Vegas Convention Center, 100,000 people, place has got a buzz, last year was all about AR and VR, this year it's all about machine learning and AI, platforms and storage and cloud, kind of sounds familiar with most of the other events that we go to. So we're really excited to have industry veteran, Roger Sherwood, he is the global strategy media and entertainment lead at Cisco, welcome Roger. >> Thank you very much. >> So first off, you've been coming to this show for a little while, first impressions? >> This is my seventh year, we've been super relevant for the last two or three years, we used to be buried away in the hole, in a dirty corner. Yeah, what a fantastic show! I think it's bigger than ever. More exhibitors than ever. Which amazes me in this space, but it's pretty fascinating to see what's going on right now. >> Now, you guys are doing big things, you basically took over cisco.com. >> Yes, we have. We get to do that for two weeks a year. >> For two weeks, so tell us about what's going on with Cisco and media. >> Well, for the show itself, NAB has become one of our major events. We used to do INTX and SCT and very cable, you know, Telco, and all that shows. Strong recognition within the company that a lot is changing on the content side, the production side. And we've had these customers for many, many years, very much selling into the IT side of these places, and two years ago, we really took an approach of, we're really becoming quite relevant on the broadcast side. The technology has changed, the technology has moved frpm from very traditional SDI technology, to IP. And that's Cisco's wheelhouse. Virtualization, UCS, orchestration, security. For the first time, we're very, very relevant on the content acquisition, distribution, production side. So yeah, we get to take over the Cisco homepage, because for the next two weeks, a lot of people want to talk about media and entertainment. Brand new website, brand new customer testimonials and everything else. It's nice to get that recognition from the company that this is a big thing. >> Right. And there's a solution behind the takeover, right, it's not just for publicity. >> Oh, no, no, no. It's all real. We're absolutely doing things. The big thing for us is this transition to IP. We're an IP company, 30-35 years ago, the company was founded on the premise of IP. This industry is one of the last ones to go from a legacy protocol. I mean, broadcast has been broadcast, it's been the same for 30-35 years. >> It's your classic kind of opportunity meets capability. >> It is in transition. And Cisco loves to go into transition, and what Cisco also loves to do, is take out legacy network protocols. So, SDIs, are exactly that. IP is here, I will say that only in 12, 18 months however, have we actually had the compute capacity, the bandwidth capacity, to take what is essentially, you know, I'm being filmed in uncompressed video right now. >> Right. >> You know, the routers and switchers that we sell, have not been able to process that amount of information. The last 12, 18 months, Moore's Law on everything else, and some software optimizations. Uncompressed video is flowing at high speed, across data networks, that Cisco provides. That's a great place to be, as this industry recognizes. >> It's funny, the Moore's Law thing, because people like to poo-poo on it, you know, but no, Moore's Law is an attitude. >> Roger: It absolutely is. >> It's a way to attack problems, with just massive increases in capability, whether it's networking, storage, or compute, and the combination of the three together, it's crazy. >> And that's exactly where we found ourselves two years ago, and so, we have very good timing. But we are a company that likes to step into those, you know, and say, "We've got this!" We understand, we've seen so many transitions in other industries, from legacy to IP. And hey, this one is just high cashe for the company, I mean the brands, and the names, and the companies that we get to work with right now, from Disney to NBC, to the BBC, these are fabulous companies that have global recognition. Like Cisco. >> Right. And it's interesting with the UCS comparison, not so much that it's Apple's origins, but the fact that Cisco is taking more of a solutions approach, and not just for the routers and the switchers, you know, kind of the IP backbone, but an integrated solution, where you can pull and compute, and you can pull and store, and oh by the way, it also has the networking stuff, so now you're offering customers a really interesting package. A cloud-based application solution, if you will, and then, as you mentioned, still partnering with best of breed applications across the country. >> And that's been key. This industry demands, in some cases, immediate solutions, I have a problem, I need to solve it. And I'm not so interested in an architecture, in a road map, and tell me where you're going over the next 12, 18 months. I need something now. So yeah, we absolutely have been very focused on, I mean everything on our booth is available to buy. Sometimes we show up to shows, and it's all futuristic stuff that maybe we don't even develop at some point. It's all in our price list. The partner side of this, is absolutely key. So we would not be here without Grass Valley, without Everts, Sony, Evias, big, big, traditional broadcaster vendors that have validated our solution, and turned around to the industry and said, "These guys get it." >> The other interesting part is that you guys are doing so much in the space, you've got the solutions base, and that you are doing the partnering, and that it's a great move for Cisco, right? You've got so much better-- >> I mean, it's really very few companies that can do the IP side of things. When you add in security, compute, orchestration, professional services, training. Like, just training broadcast engineers that have been so steeped in high-quality video, and they've known SDI, and they're now coming to us and saying, "Help me get trained in IP, "I recognize this transition is coming, "but I've got a legacy skillset, help me transition." There aren't many companies that can offer that range of solutions and services. And we're doing this with-- >> Real security, over and over again. The last couple of days, I mean, it's a huge to-do. >> So I try to move that from the last thing we talk about, to the first thing that we talk about. You move to an IP network, you can add an IP network to a data center, that center is connected to the internet, and these guys would actually be free. >> But the other cool thing for you guys, is that the primary distribution method, the SDI, or some of these other old-school broadcast methods are now no longer an important piece of the puzzle. But there's now all this stuff that's going out on all different types of applications, and all that stuff's IP at the core, right? Those are all IP applications at the core. Whether it's Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those were never going to broadcast medium. >> And you know, 2009, 2010, this industry was saying, "We're going to go IP," but it was always, "Well, you know, it's out there in the future." You're exactly right. The ability to now, the barrier to entry, to get this type of content onto an IP network, and down to every single device on the internet, It's never been so low. And so that's where you're seeing this high-value, premium content creation, acquisition, editing process. It's been recognized that they've got to move as well, they've got to move to a far more flexible infrastructure, automation, machine-learning of how things work, analytics, you know, the whole caboodle. And we're right there to support this industry to do that. >> And it's such an easy fit, right, because this industry is built on temporary projects, and the temporary assembly of a team, and they come, and they produce, and they create, and then there's a lot of derivative assets-- >> And tear the whole thing down. >> It's perfect for-- >> Absolutely. We've been talking about that with some of the Hollywood clients, and that's exactly what, they stand on a massive amount of infrastructure, for the latest Avatar movie, for instance. And then they tear it all down, and it's all written off, and then they go build a new one somewhere else. We think the industry can be a lot smarter about that. There is a way to truly repurpose. Hey, what you just built? You no longer need to throw it all away. >> So I want to shift gears a little bit, we have a lot of opensource shows, opensource is big, and you're part of the Alliance for IP Media Solutions, so there's always this question between now, the kind of opensource deriving standards in adoption, versus the old-school, standard's body. What role has AIMS played, give us a little bit more color, as to their role, and how that's kind of shaping things. >> So I say the old-school standards are absolutely alive and kicking. SIM, TVSF, Amwar, these guys have been around for years. What they are very focused on, however, is really making sure there is technical, inter-operability between ourselves, and all the vendors in this industry, as this move to IP takes place. So, we want a utopia where you can plug in a Cisco infrastructure, or a Reaster, or an Everts, and it's all going to work. That's what those standard bodies do for the industry. AIMS has basically said, "That's great, but it's a very, very technical thing." And there's some very, very technical people, that like to talk technical things To truly drive an industry forward, we've got to sort of go up the stack, and become much more relevant from a marketing perspective. And AIMS has basically said, "Look, we support all the adoption of IP, "but let's actually go push out news cases, "let's push out public references of customers "that are doing this today." We need to drive the industry forward at that level. So, very much rather the promotion of open standards, inter-operability, but really looking at how we market that, and foster the adoption of these standards. >> Okay, so last question before I let you go, priorities for 2017, it's hard to believe we're a third of the way through the year, but I'm still asking the question, because we still have a ways to go. What's kind of your top of mind awareness, what are you working on, obviously a big launch here for the next couple weeks, but looking down a little bit further down the road, what's your top of mind? >> Virtualization. We've been looking at virtualization, we've been telling the industry that they need to move to virtualization, that all these applications that are currently hardware, software, a lot today, that hardware piece is going to disappear, and we're all going to move into software. It's all going to move into VM ware, you need an IP foundation before you can do that, and that's what we're seeing take place right now. 12 months from now, the main headline for Cisco is going to be how we're helping every application vendor, and our customers move truly into a virtualized data center model. And then again, back to our little thing about Avatar and the tear down, that just becomes a thing of the past. Now it's about reusing all of that data center, over, and over, and over again. For all of the other Avatar sequels. >> It's so funny right, it's a recurring theme we see all over the place. It's just a little bit late here in the ME space. Alright, well Roger, thanks again for taking a few minutes of your day. And I'll see you around, and go Warriors. >> Absolutely. >> Alright, that's Roger Sherwood, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCube from NAB 2017. We'll be right back after this short break, thanks for watching. (electronic music)