(cheery music) >> Thanks, Adam. Thanks for everyone in the studio. Dave, we've got some great main stage CUBE interviews. Normally we'll sit at the desk, and do a remote, but since it's a virtual event, and a physical event, it's a hybrid event. We've got two amazing Google leaders to talk with us. I had a chance to sit down with Amol who was gone yesterday during our breaking news segment. They had the big news. We had two great guests, Amol Phadke. He's our first interview. He's the head of Google's telecom industry. Again, he came in, broke into our segment yesterday with breaking news. Obviously released with Ericsson, and the O-RAN Alliance. I had a great chance to chat with him. A wide ranging conversation for 13 minutes. Enjoy my interview with Amol, right now. (cheery music) Well welcome to the CUBE's coverage for Mobile World Congress, 2021. I'm John Furrier, your host of the CUBE. We're here in person as well as remote. It's a hybrid event. We're on the ground at Mobile World Congress, bringing all the action here. We're remote with Amol Phadke, who's the Managing Director of the Telecom Industry Solutions team at Google Cloud, a big leader, and driving a lot of the change. Amol, thank you for coming on theCUBE here in the hybrid event from Mobile World Congress. >> Thank you, John. Thank you, John. Thank you for having me, So, hybrid event, which means it's in person, we're on the floor, as well as doing remote interviews and people are virtual. This is the new normal. Kind of highlights where we are in this telecom world, because the last time, Mobile World Congress actually had a physical event was winter of 2019. A ton has changed in the industry. Look at the momentum at the Edge. Hybrid cloud is now standard. Multi-cloud is being set up as we speak. This is all now the new normal, what is your take? And so it's pretty active in your industry. Tell us your opinion. >> Yes, John I mean the last two years have been seismic to say the least, right? I mean, in terms of the change that the CSP industries had had to do. You know, John, in the last two years, the importance of a CSP infrastructure has never become so important, right? The infrastructure is paramount. I'm talking to you remotely over the CSP infrastructure right now, and everything that we are doing in the last two years, whether it's working, or studying, or entertaining ourselves, all on that CSP infrastructure. So from that perspective, they are really becoming a critical national global information fabric on which the society is actually depending on. And that we see at Google as well, in the sense that we have seen up to 60% increase in demand, John, in the last two years, for that infrastructure. And then when we look at the industry itself, unfortunately all of that huge demand is not translating into revenue, because as an industry, the revenue is still flat-lining. In fact, the forecasted revenue for globally, for all the industry over the next 12 months is three to five per cent negative on revenue, right? So one starts to think, how come there is so much demand over the last two years, post-pandemic, and that's not translating to revenue? Having said that, the other thing that's happening is this demand is driving significant CapEx and OPEX investments in the infrastructure, as much as eight to $900 billion over the next decade is going to get spent in this infrastructure, from our perspective, Which means it's really a perfect storm. John, We have massive demand, massive need to invest to meet that demand, yet not translating to revenue, and the crux of all this is customer experience, because ultimately all of that translates into not having that kind of radically disruptive or transformational customer experience, right? So that's a backdrop that we find ourselves in the industry, and that really sets the stage for us to look at these challenges in terms of how does the CSP industry as a whole, grow top line, radically transform CSPCO, at the same time, reinventing the customer experience and finding those capital efficiencies. It's almost an impossible problem to find solution. >> It's a perfect storm. The waves are kind of coming together to form one big wave. You mentioned CapEx and OPEX. That's obviously changing the investments of their post-pandemic growth, and change in user behavior and expectations. The modern applications are being built on top of the infrastructure, that's changing. All of this is being driven by Cloud Native, and that's clear. You're seeing a lot more open kind of approaches, IT and OT coming together, whatever you want to do, this is just, it's a collision, right? It's a collision of many things. And this positive innovation coming out of it. So I have to ask you, what are you seeing as a solution that are showing the most promise for these telco industry leaders, because they're digitally transforming, so they got to re-factor their platforms while enabling innovation, which is a key growth for the revenue. >> Yes. So John, from a solution standpoint, what we actually did first and foremost as Google Cloud, was look at ourselves. So just like the transformation we just talked about in the CSP industry, we are seeing Google being transformed over the last two decades or so, right. And it's important to understand that there's a lot Google data over the last two decades that we can actually not externalize all of that innovation, all of that open source, all of that multicloud, was originally built for all the Google applications that all of us use daily, whether it's YouTube, or email or maps, you know. Same infrastructure, same open source, same multicloud. And we decided to sort of use the same paradigm to build the telecom solutions that I'm going to talk about next, right. So that's important to bear in mind, that those assets were there, and we wanted to externalize those assets, right. There are really four big solutions that are resonating really well with our CSP partners, John. You know, number one to your point, is how can they monetize the Edge? All of this happens at the Edge. All of this gets converged at the Edge. We believe with 5G acting as the brilliant catalyst to really drive this Edge deployment. CSPs would be in a very strong position, partnering with Cloud players like ourselves to drive growth, not just for their top line, but also to add value to the actual end enterprises that are seeking to use that Edge. Let me give you a couple of examples. We've been working with industries like retail and manufacturing, to create end solutions in a post-pandemic world. Solutions like contact-less shopping, or visual inspection of an assembly line in a manufacturing plant, without the need for having a human there, because of the digitalization of workforce. Which meant these kinds of solutions, can actually work well at the Edge driven by 5G. But of course they can't be done in isolation. So what we do is we partner with CSPs. We bring our set of solutions, and we actually launch in December 30 partners that are already on our Google Cloud Solutions. And then we partner with the CSPs based on our infrastructure, and their infrastructure to ultimately bring this all to life at the end customer, which often tends to be an enterprise, whether it's a manufacturing, plant, or a retail chain. >> Yeah, you guys got some great examples there. I love that Edge story. I think it's huge. I think it's only going to get bigger. I got to ask you while I got you here, because again, you're in the industry, you're the managing director, so you have to oversee this whole telecom industry. But it's bigger, it's beyond Telecom, where it's now Telecom's just one other Edge network, piece of the pie of the surety computing, as we say. So I got to ask you, one of the big things that Google brings to the table is the developer mojo, and opensource, and scale obviously. Scale's unprecedented, everyone knows that. But ecosystems are super important, and Telco's kind of really aren't good at that, right? So, you know, the Telco ecosystem was, I mean, okay, I'd say, okay, but mostly driven by carriers and moving bits from point A to point B. But now you've got a developer mindset, public cloud, developer ecosystem. How is this changing the landscape of the CSPs and how is it changing this cloud service provider's ability to execute, because that's the key in this new world? What's your opinion? >> Absolutely, John. So, there are two things, there are two dimensions to look at. One is when we came to market a couple of years ago with AnToks, we recognized exactly what you said, John, which is the world is moving to multi-cloud, hybrid cloud. We needed to provide a common platform that the developer community can utilize through microservices and API. And that platform had to by definition, work not just from Google Cloud, but any cloud. It could work on any public cloud, can work on CSP's private cloud. And of course, supports on some Google Cloud, right? The reason was, once you deploy and cause, once as a seamless application development platform, you could put all kinds of developer apps on top. So I just talked about 5G Edge John, a minute ago, those apps can sit on Antoks, but at the same time, IT to your point, John, IT apps could also sit on the same AnToks paradigm, and network apps. So as networks start becoming Cloud Native, whether it's SRAN, whether it's O-Ran, whether it's 5G core, same principle. And that's why we believe when we partner with CSPs, we are saying, "Hey, you give this AnToks to an ecosystem of community, whether that community is network, whether that community is IT, whether the communities Edge apps, all of those can reside seamlessly on this sort of AnToks fabric, John. >> Yeah, and that's going to set the table for multicloud, which is basically cloud words for multi-vendor, multi app. Amol, I've got to ask you while I have you here, first of all, thank you for coming on and sharing your insights. It's really great industry perspective. And obviously Google Cloud's got huge scale, and great leadership. And again, you know, the big, cloud players are moving in and helping out, and enabling a lot of value. I got to ask you, if you don't mind sharing, if someone asked you, "Amol, tell me about the impact that public cloud is having on the Telco industry." What would you say? What's the answer to that? Because a lot of people are like, okay, public cloud, I get it. I know what it looks like, but now everyone's knows it's going hybrid. So everyone will ask you the question, "What is public cloud doing for the telecom sector?" >> Yeah, I think it's doing three things, John, and great question by the way. Number one, we are actually providing unprecedented amount of insights on data that the CSPs traditionally already had, but have never looked at it from the angle we have looked at it. Whether that insights are at the network layer, whether those insights are to personalize customer experiences on the front-end systems. Or whether those insights are to drive care solutions in contact centers, and so on, and so forth. So it's a massive uplift of customer experience that we can help with, right. So that's a very important point, because we do have a significant amount of leadership, John at Google Cloud on analytics and data and insights, right? So, and we offer those roads to these people. Number two, is really what I talked about, which is helping them build an ecosystem, because let's take retail as an example. As a minimum, there are five constituents in that ecosystem, John. There is a CSP, there is Google Cloud, there's an actual retail store. There is a hardware supplier, there's a software developer. All of them as a minimum, have to work together to build that ecosystem, which is where we give those solutions, right? So that's the second part. And then the third part is, as they move towards Cloud Native, we are really helping them change their business model to become a DevOps, a Cloud Native mindset, not just a Cloud Native network or IP. But a Cloud Native mindset that creates unparalleled agility and flexibility in how they work as a business. So those are the three things I would say, as a response to that question. >> And also the retail's a great vertical for Google to go in there, given the Amazon fear out there. People want this for certainly low hanging fruit. I think the DevOps piece is going to be a big, winning opportunity to see how the developers get driven into the landscape. I think that's a huge point. Amol, that's really great insight. A final question for you, while I got you here. If someone says, "Hey, what's happened in the industry since 2019?" Last time we had Mobile World Congress, they were talking speeds and feeds. Now the world has changed. We're coming out of the pandemic. California is opening up. There's going to be a physical event. The world's going hybrid, certainly on the event, and certainly cloud. What's different in the telecom industry, from, you know, many, many months ago, over a year and a half ago, from 2019? >> I would say primarily, it's the adoption of digital everywhere, which previously, you know, there were all these inhibitions and oh, would this work? Would my customer systems become fully digital? Would I be able to offer AR VR experiences? Ah, that's a futuristic thing, you know. And suddenly the pandemic has created this acceleration that says, "Oh, even post-pandemic, half my customers are always going to talk to me, via our digital channel only." Which means the way they experience us, has to be through these new experiences whether it's AR VR, whether it's some other thing or applications. So that has been accelerated John, and the CSPs have therefore really started to go to the application, and to the services. Which is why you are seeing less on, you know, speeds and feeds because 5G is here, 5G's been deployed. Now, how do we monetize 5G? How can we leverage that biggest number? So that's the biggest- >> There's down stack, and then there's a top of the stack for applications. And certainly there's a lot of assets in the telecom landscape, a lot of value, a lot of refactoring going on, and new opportunities that are out there. Great, great conversation. Well, thank you, Amol Phadka, Managing Director, Telecom Industry Solutions. Thanks for comin' on the CUBE, appreciate it. >> Thank you, John. Thank you having me. >> Okay, Mobile World Congress here, in person, and hybrid, and remote. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Thank you for watching. We are here in person at the Cloud City Expo Community Area. Thanks for watching. Okay, that was us. That was me, online. Now, I'm here in person, as you can see Dave. That's a lot of fun. I love doing those interviews. So we had a chance to grab Google's top people when we could. They're not here, obviously. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google, the three hyperscalers, Dave, didn't make it out here. They didn't have a booth, but we had a chance to grab them. And that was head of the industry marketing, and I mean the industry group. So he's like the managing door. He runs the business side. >> It's an important sector for Google. You know, Amazon was really first, with that push into telco. Thomas Curran last March, laid out Google strategy for Telco. It's a huge sector. They know it. They understand how the cloud can disrupt it, and play a massive role there. >> Yeah. >> And Google, of course. >> They're not going to object to the public cloud narrative that Danielle Royston- >> No. >> I think they like it open source, Android coming to telco. Who knows what it's going to look like? >> That's what we call digital- >> So the next interview I did was with Shailesh Shukla. He is the Senior Vice-president. He's the Senior Leader at Google Cloud for Networking. And if you know, Google, Dave, Google's networking is really well known in the industry for being really awesome, because they power obviously Google Search, and a variety of other things. They pioneered the concept of SRE, Site Reliability Engineer, which is now a de facto position for DevOps, which is a cloud now persona inside almost every company, and certainly a very important position. And so- >> Probably the biggest global network, right? Undersea cables, and- >> I mean, Microsoft's got a big hyper-scale, because they've had MSN, and bunch of other stuff, infrastructure globally. But Amazon, Google and Microsoft all have massive scale, and Google again, very well engineered. They're total, and they're as we know, I live in Palo Alto, so I can attest that they're very strong. So this next interview is really from a networking perspective, because as infrastructure, as code gets more prolific and more penetrated, it's going to be programmable. And that's really going to be a key new enabler. So let's hear from Shailesh, Head of Networking at Google Cloud, and my interview with him. (cheery music) Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of Mobile World Congress, 2021. We are here in person in Barcelona, as well as remote. It's a hybrid event. You're going to have the physical space, in Barcelona for the first time, since 2019, and virtual worlds connecting. I've got a great guest here from Google, Shailesh Shukla, Vice-president and General Manager of the Networking Team, Google Cloud. Shailesh, it's great to see you. Thank you for coming on theCUBE for the special presentation from Mobile World Congress. Obviously, the Edge networking core, Edge human devices, all coming together. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you so much, John. It's great to see you again. And it's always a pleasure talking to theCUBE. And I want to say hello to everybody, from, you know, in Mobile World Congress. >> Yeah, and people don't know your background. You have a great history in networking. You've been there, many ways of innovation. You've been part of directly, big companies that were now known. Big names are all there. But now we haven't had a Mobile World Congress, since 2019. Think about that. That's, you know, many months, 20 something months gone by, since the world has changed in telco. I got to ask you, what is the disruption happening? Because think about that. Since 2019, a lot's changed in telco. Cloud-scale has happened. You've got the Edge developing. It's IT like now. What's your take? Shailesh, tell us. >> Yeah, John, as you correctly pointed out the last 18 months have been very difficult. And you know, I'll acknowledge that right up front, for a number of people around the world. I empathize with that. Now in the telecom, and kind of the broader Edge world, I would say that the last 18, 24 months have actually been transformative. O-RAN, it turns out was a very interesting sort of, you know, driver of completely new ways of both living, as well as working, right, as we all have experienced. I don't think that I've had a chance to see you live in 24 months. So, what we are seeing is the following. Number one, a number of telecom carriers around the world have started the investment process for 5G, right, and deployment process. And that actually changes the game, as you know, due to latency, due to all of the capabilities around kind of incalculable bandwidth, right. Much lower latency, as well as, much higher kind of enterprise oriented capabilities, right? So network's licensing, as an example, quality of service, you know, by a traffic type, and for a given enterprise. So that's number one. Number two, I would say that the cloud is becoming a lot more kind of mainstream in the world, broader world of telecom. What we are seeing is an incredible amount of partnerships between telecom carriers and cloud providers, right? So instead of thinking of those two as separate universes, those are starting to come together. So I believe that over a period of time, you will see the notion of kind of Cloud Native capability for both the IT side of the house, as well as the network side of the house is becoming, you know, kind of mainstream, right. And then the third thing is that increasingly it's a lot more about enabling new markets, new applications, in the enterprise world, right. So certainly it opens up a new kind of revenue stream for service providers and carriers around the world. But it also does something unique, which is brings together the cloud capabilities right, around elasticity, flexibility, intelligence, and so on, with the enterprise customer base that most of the cloud providers already have. And with the combination of 5G, brings it to the telecom world. And those, you know, I started to call it, as a kind of the triad, right? The triad of an enterprise, the telecom service provider, and the cloud provider, all working together to solve real business problems. >> Yeah, and it's totally a great call out there on the pandemic. I think the pandemic has shown us, coming out of it now, that cloud-scale matters. And you look at all the successes between work, play, and how we've all kind of adjusted, the cloud technologies were a big part of that, those solutions that got us through it. Now you've got the Edge developing with 5G. And I got to ask you this question, because when we have CUBE interviews with all the leaders of engineering teams, whether it's in the industry, or customers in the enterprise, and even in the telcos, the modern application teams have end-to-end visibility into the workload. You're starting to see more and more of that. You starting to see more open source in everything, right. So okay, I buy that. You got an SRE on the team, you got some modern developers, you're shifting left, you've got Devs set up. All good, all cloud. However, you're a networking guy. You know this. Routing packets across multiple networks is difficult. So if you're going to have end-to-end visibility, you got to have end-to-end intelligence on the networking. How is that being solved? Because this is a critical discussion here at Mobile World Congress. Okay, I buy Cloud Native, I buy observability, I buy open source, but I got to have end-to-end visibility for security, and workload management and managing all the data. What's the answer on the network side? >> Yeah, so that's a great question. And the simple way to think about this, is first and foremost, you need kind of global infrastructure, right? So that's a given, and of course, you know, Google with its kind of global infrastructure, and some of the largest networks in the world, we have that present, right. So that's important. Second is, to be able to abstract a way that underlying infrastructure, and make it available to applications, to a set of APIs. Right, so I'll give an analogy here. Just as you know, say 10 years ago, around 10 years ago, Android came into the market from Google, in the following way. What it did, was that it abstracted away the underlying devices with a simple kind of layer on top of operating system, which exposed APIs northbound. So then application developers can write new applications. And that actually unleashed, you know, a ton of kind of creativity right, around the world. And that's precisely what we believe is kind of the next step, as you said, on an end-to-end observability basis, right? If you can do an abstraction away from all of the underlying kind of core infrastructure, provide the right APIs, the right kind of information around observability, around telemetric, instead of making, you know, cloud and the infrastructure, the black box. Make it open, make it kind of visible to the applications. Bring that to the applications, and let the thousand flowers bloom, right? The creativity in each vertical area is so significant, because there are independent software vendors. There are systems integrators. There are individual developers. So one of the things that we are doing right now, is utilizing open source technologies, such as Kubernetes, right? Which is something that Google actually brought into the market. And it has become kind of the de facto standard for all of the container and modernization of applications. So by leveraging those open technologies, creating this common control plane, exposing APIs, right, for everything from application development, to observability, you certainly have the ability to solve business problems through a large number of entities in the systems integrator and the ISC and the developer community. So that's the approach that we are taking, John. >> I love the Android analogy of the abstraction layer, because at that time, the iPhone was closed. It still is. And they got their own little strategy there. Android went the other way. They went open, went open abstraction. Now abstraction layers are good. And now I want to get your thoughts on this, because anyone in operating systems knows abstractions are great for innovation. How does that apply to the real world on telco? Because I get how it could add some programmability in there. I get the control plane piece. Putting it into the operator's hands, how do you guys see, and how do you guys talk about the Edge service offering? What does it mean for the telco? Because if they get this right, this is going to be in telco cloud developer play. It's going to be a telco cloud ecosystem play. It's an opportunity for a new kind of telco system. How do you see that rolling out in real world? >> Great question, John. So the way I look at it, actually even we should take a step back, right? So the confluence of 5G, the kind of cloud capabilities and the Edge is, you know, very clear to me that it's going to unleash a significant amount of innovation. We are in early stages, no question, but it's going to drive innovation. So one almost has to start by saying what exactly is Edge, right? So the way I look at it, is that the Edge can be a continuum all the way from kind of an IOT device in automobiles, right? Or an enterprise Edge, like a factory location, or a retail store, or kind of a bank branch. To the telecom Edge, which is where the service providers have, not only their points of presence, and central offices, but increasingly a very large amount of intelligent RAN sites as well, right. And then the, kind of public cloud Edge, right. Where, for example, Google has, you know, 25 plus kind of regions around the world. 144, you know, PoPS, lots of CDN locations. We have, you know, few thousand nodes deployed deep inside service provider networks for caching of content, and so on. So if you think about these as different places in the network that you can deploy, compute, storage and intelligence act, right. And do that in a smart way, right? For example, if you were to run the learning algorithms in the cloud with its flexibility and elasticity, and run the inferencing at the Edge, very Edge, at the point of sort of a sale, or a point, a very consumer standing. Now you suddenly have the ability to create a variety of Edge applications. So going back to the new question, what have we seen, right? So what we are seeing, is depending on the vertical, there are different types of Edge applications, okay. So let's take a few examples. And I'll give you some, a favorite example of mine, which is in the sports arena, right? So in baseball, when you are in a stadium, and soon there are people sort of starting to be in stadiums, right? And a pitcher is throwing the pitch, right, the trajectory of the ball, the speed of the pitch, where the batter is, you know, what the strike zone is, and all of these things, if they can be in a stadium in real time, analyzed, and presented to the consumer as additional intelligence, and additional insight, suddenly it actually creates kind of a immersive experience. Even though you may be in the stadium, looking at the real thing, you are also seeing an immersive experience. And of course at home, you get a completely different experience, right? So the idea is that in sports, in media and entertainment, the power of Edge compute, and the power of AI ML, right, can be utilized to create completely new immersive experiences. Similarly, in a factory or an automotive environment, you have the ability to use AI ML, and the power of the Edge and 5G coming together, to find where the defects are, in a manufacturing environment, right? So every vertical, what we're finding is, there are very specific applications, which you can call as kind of killer apps, right in the Edge world, that over time will become prevalent and mainstream. And they will drive the innovation. They will drive deployment, and they also will drive ultimately, kind of the economics of all of this. >> You're laying out, essentially the role of the public cloud in the telco market. I'd love to get your thoughts, because a lot of people are saying, "Oh, the cloud, it's all Edge now. It's going back to on-premises." This is not the case. I mean, I've been really vocal on this. The public cloud and cloud operations is now the new normal. So developers are there. So I want you to explain real quick, the role of the public cloud in the telecom market and the Telecom Edge, because now they're working together. You've got abstraction, you mentioned that Android-like environment coming, there's going to be an Android-like effect, that abstraction. You got O-RAN out there, creating these connection points, for interoperability, for radio signals, and the End Transceivers or the Edge of the radios. All of this is happening. How is Google powering this? What is the role of public cloud in this? >> Yeah, so let me first talk about genetically the role of public cloud. Then I'll talk about Google, okay, in particular. So, if at the end of the day, the goal here is to create applications in a very simple and efficient manner, right? So what do you like, if you look for that as the goal, then the public cloud brings, you know, three fundamental things. Number one, is what I would call as elasticity and flexibility, right? So why is this important? Because as we discussed earlier, Edge is not one place, it's a variety of kind of different locations. If there is a mechanism to create this common control plane, and have the ability to kind of have elastic compute, elastic networking, elastic storage, and have this deployed in a flexible manner. Literally if you think, think about it like an effortless Edge is what we are starting to call it. You can move workload and capability, and run it precisely where it makes sense, right? Like I said, earlier, training and learning algorithms in the deep cloud. Inferencing, at the very edge, right? So if you can make that decision, then it becomes very powerful. So that's the first point, you know, elasticity and flexibility that cloud can bring. Second is, intelligence. The whole notion of leveraging the power of data, and the power of AI and ML is extremely crucial for creation of new services. So that's something that the public cloud brings. And the third is this notion of, write once, deploy anywhere, right? This notion of kind of a full stack capability that when open, kind of developer ecosystem can be brought in, right? Like we talked about Kubernetes earlier. So if there's a way in which you can bring in those developer and ISV ecosystem, which is already present in the world of public cloud, that's something that is the third thing that public cloud brings. And Google strategy very simply, is to play on all of these, right? Because we, you know, Google has incredibly rich deployment experience around the world for some of the largest services on the planet, right? With some of the biggest infrastructure in the networking world. Second, is we have a very open and flexible approach, right? So open as you know, we not only leverage kind of the Kubernetes environment, but also there are many other areas, Key Native, and so on where Google has brought a lot of open kind of capabilities to the broader market. And the third, is the enablement of the ecosystem. So last year we actually announced 200 applications, you know, from 30 ISVs in multiple verticals that we're now going to be deployed on Google Cloud, in order to solve specific business pain points, right. And building out that ecosystem, working with telecom service providers, with systems integrators, with equipment players, is the way that we believe Google Cloud can make a difference in this world of developing Edge applications. We are seeing great traction, John, you know, whether it is in the carrier world. Carrier such as Orange, Telecom Italia, TELUS, SK Telecom, Vodafone. These have all publicly announced their work with Google Cloud, leveraging the power of data, analytics, AI ML, and our very flexible infrastructure. And then a variety of kind of partners and OEM players, in the industry. As an example, Nokia, right, Amdocs, and Netcracker, and many others. So we are really excited in the traction that we are getting. And we believe that public cloud is going to be a key part of the evolution of the telecom industry. >> Shailesh, it's great to have you on. Shailesh Shukla, VP and GM of Networking at Google Cloud. And I would just add to that final point there, that open and this Android-like open environment is going to create a thousand flowers to bloom. Those are new applications, new modern applications, new companies, a new ecosystem in the Telco Cloud. So congratulations. Thanks for coming on and sharing your insights. Google Cloud, you guys are about the data, and being open. Thanks for comin' on. >> Thank you, John. Good to talk to you. >> Okay, so keeps coverage of Mobile World Congress. Google Cloud, featured interview here on theCUBE. Really a big part of the public cloud is going to be a big driver. Call it public cloud, hybrid cloud, whatever you want to call it. It's the cloud, cloud and Edge with 5G, making a big difference and changing the landscape, and trying innovation for the telco space. I'm John Furrier, your CUBE host. Thanks for watching. Okay, Dave, that's the Google support. They are obviously singing the same song as Danielle Royston, every vertical. >> Two great interviews, John. Really nice job. We can see the tech. The strategy is becoming more clear. You know, one of the big four. >> Yeah, I just love, these guys are so smart. Every vertical is going to be impacted by elastic infrastructure, AI, machine learning, and this new code deployment, write once, deploy anywhere. That's theCUBE. We love being here it's a cloud show now. Mobile World Congress, back to the studio for more awesome Cloud City content.

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE. With digital coverage of VMworld 2020 brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back, I'm Stuart Miniman and this is theCUBES's coverage of VMworld 2020. Our 11th year doing the show and happy to welcome back to the program one of our CUBE's alums. Somebody that's is going to VMworld longer than we have been doing it for theCUBE. So Vaughn Stewart he is the Vice President of Technology Alliances with Pure Storage Vaughn, nice to see you. How you doing? >> Hey, Stu. CUBE thanks for having me back. I miss you guys I wish we were doing this in person. >> Yeah, we all wish we were in person but as we've been saying all this year, we get to be together even while we're apart. So we look to you on little screens and things like that rather than bumping into each other at some of the after parties or the coffee shops all around San Francisco. So Vaughn, obviously you know Pure Storage long, long, long partnership with VMware. I think back the first time that I probably met with the Pure team, in person, it probably was around Moscone, having a breakfast having a lunch, having a briefing or the likes. So just give us the high level. I know we've got a lot of things to dig into. Pure and VMware, how's the partnership going these days? >> Partnership is growing fantastic Pure invests a lot of engineering resources in programs with VMware. Particularly the VMware design partner programs for vVols, Container-Native Storage et cetera. The relationship is healthy the business is growing strong. I'm very excited about the investments that VMware is making around VMware Cloud Foundation as a replatforming of what's going on MPREM to help better enable hybrid cloud and to support Tanzu and Kubernetes platforms. So a lot going on at the infrastructure level that ultimately helps customers of all to adopt cloud native workloads and applications. >> Wonderful. Well a lot of pieces to unpack that. Of course Tanzu big piece of what they're talking about. But let's start. You mentioned VCF. You know what is it on the infrastructure side, that is kind of driving your customer adoption these days, and the some of the latest integrations that you're doing? >> Yeah you know VCF has really caught the attention of our mid to large or mid to enterprise size customers. The focus around, as I use the phrase replatform is planning out with VMworld phrase. But the focus on simplifying the lifecycle management, giving you a greater means to connect to the public cloud. I don't know if you're aware, but all VMware public cloud offerings have the VCF framework in terms of architectural framework. So now bringing that back on-prem, allowing customers on a per workload domain basis to extend to a hybrid cloud capability. It's a really big advancement from kind of the base vSphere infrastructure, which architecturally hasn't had a significant advancement in a number of years. What's really big around VCF besides the hybrid connectivity, is the couple of new tools SDDC Manager and vSphere Lifecycle Manager. These tools can actually manage the infrastructure from bare metal up to workload domains and then from workload domains you're now handing off to considered like delegated vCenter Servers right? So that the owner of a workload if you will and then that person can go ahead and provision virtual machines or containers, based on whatever is required to run their workloads. So for us the big gain of this is the advancement in the VMware management. They are bringing their strength in providing simplicity, and end-to-end hardwared application management to disaggregated architectures. Where the focus of that capability has been with HCI over say the past five or six years. And so this really helps close that last gap, if you will, and completes a 360 degree view of providing simplified management across dissimilar architecture and it's consistent and it's standardized by VMware. So HCI, disaggregated architecture, public cloud, it all operates the same. >> So Vaughn, you made a comment about not a lot of changes. If I remember our friends at VMware they made a statement vSphere 7 was the biggest architectural change in over a decade. Of course bringing in Kubernetes it's a major piece of the Tanzu discussion. Pure. Your team's been pretty busy in the Kubernetes space too. Recent acquisition of Portwox to help accelerate that. Maybe let's talk a little bit about you know cloud native. What you're hearing from your customers. (chuckles) And yeah, like we've Dave Vellante had a nice interview with, Pure and Portwox CEOs. Give the VMworld audience a little bit of an update as you know where you all fit in the Kubernetes space. >> Yeah and actually, there was a lot that you shared there kind of in connecting the VCF piece through to vSphere 7 and a lot of changes there in driving into Tanzu and containers. So maybe we're going to jump around here a bit but look we're really excited. We've been working with VMware, but in addition to all of our application partners, you are seeing nearly every traditional enterprise application being replatformed to support containers. I'd love to share with you more details, but there's a lot of NDAs I'd be breaking in that. But the way for enterprise adoption of containers is right upon us. And so the timing for VMware Tanzu is ideal. Our focus has always been around providing a rich set of data services. One that provides faster provisioning, simplified fleet management, and the ability to move that container and those data services between different clouds and different cloud platforms, Be it on-prem, or in the public cloud space. We've had a lot of success doing that with the Pure Service Orchestrator Version 6.0 enables CSI compliant persistent storage capabilities. And it does support Tanzu today. The addition or I should say the acquisition of Portworx is really interesting. Because now we're bringing on an enhanced set of data services that not only run on a Pure Storage storage products, but runs universally regardless of the storage platform, or the Cloud architecture. The capabilities within Portworx are above and beyond what we had in PSO. So this is a great expansion of our capabilities. And ultimately we want to help customers. Whether they want to do containers solely on Tanzu, or if they're going to mix Tanzu with say Amazon EKS, or they've got some department that does development on OpenShift. Whatever it might be. You know that the focus of storage vendors is obviously to help customers make that data available on these platforms through a consistent control plane. >> Yeah. Vaughn it's a great acquisition. Think a nice fit. Anybody that's been talking to Pure the last year or so you've been. How do we take the storage make it more cloud native if you will. So you've got code. Obviously, you've got a great partnership with VMware, but as you said, in Amazon and some of the other hyper clouds those clouds, those storage services, no matter where a customer is, so that that core value, of course we know, is this the software underneath it. And that's what Portworx is. So you know not only Pure's, but other hardware, other clouds and the likes. So a really interesting space You know Vaughn, you and I've been covering this, since the early days of VMware. Hey this software is kind of a big deal and you know (chuckles) cloud in many ways is an extension of what we're doing. I know we used to joke how many years was it that VMworld was storage world? You know. >> Ooh yeah. >> There was talk about like big architectural changes, you know vVols When that finally came out, it was years of hard work by many of the big companies, including your previous and current you know employer. What's the latest? My understanding is that there are some updates there when it comes to the underlying vVols. What are the storage people need to know? >> Yeah. So great question and VMware is always been infrastructure world really Right? Like it is a showcase for storage. But it's also been a showcase for the compute vendors and every Intel partner. From a storage perspective, a lot is going on this year that should really excite both VMware admins and those who are storage centric in their day-to-day jobs. Let's start with the recent news. vVols has been promoted within VCF to being principal storage. For those of you who maybe are unfamiliar with this term 'principal storage' VMware Cloud Foundation supports any form of storage that's supported by vSphere. But SDDC manager tool that I was sharing with you earlier that really excites large scale organizations around it's end-to-end simplicity and management. It had a smaller, less robust support list when it comes to provisioning external storage. And so it had two tiers. Principal and secondary. Principal meant SDDC manager could provision and deprovision sub-tenants. So the recent news brings vVols both on Fiber Channel and iSCSI up to that principal tier. Pure Storage is a VMware design partner around vVols. We are one of the most adopted vVols storage platforms, and we are really leaning in on VCF. So we are very happy to see that come to fruition for our customers. Part of why VMware partners with Pure Storage around VCF, is they want VCF enabled on any Fabric. And you know some vendors only offer ethernet only forms of connectivity. But with Pure Storage, we don't care what your Fabric is right. We just want to provide the data services be it ethernet, fiber channel or next generation NVMe over Fabric. That last point segments into another recent announcement from from VMware. Which is the support for NVMe over Fabric within vSphere 7. This is key because NVMe over Fabric allows the IO path to move away from SCSI based form of communication one to a memory based form of communication. And this unleashes a new level of performance, a way to better support those business and mission critical applications. Or a way to drive greater density into a smaller form factor and footprint within your data center. Obviously Fabric upgrades tend to not happen in conjunction with hypervisor upgrades, but the ability to provide customers a roadmap and a means to be able to continually evolve their infrastructure non disruptively, is our key there. It would be remiss of me to not point out one kind of orthogonal element, which is the new vMotion capabilities that are in vSphere 7. Customers have been tried for a number of years, probably from vSphere 4 through six to virtualize more performance centric and resource intense applications. And they've had some challenges around scale, particularly with the non-disruptive. The ability to non disruptively move a workload. VMware rewrote vMotion for vSphere 7 so it can tackle these larger more performance centric workloads. And when you combine that along with the addition of like NVMe over Fabric support, I think you're truly at a time where you can say, almost every workload can run on a VMware platform, right? From your traditional two two consolidation where you started to looking at performance centric AI, in machine learning workloads. >> Yeah. A lot of pieces you just walked through Vaughn, I'm glad especially the NVMe over Fabric piece. Just want to drill down one level there. As you said, there's a lot of pieces to make sure that this is fully worked. The standards are done, the software is there, the hardware, the various interconnects there and then okay, when's does the customer actually ready to upgrade that? How much of that is just you know okay hitting the update button. How much of that is do I need to do a refresh? And we understand that the testing and purchasing cycles there. So how many customers are you talking to that are like, "Okay I've got all the pieces, "we're ready to roll, "we're implementing in 2020." And you know, what's that roadmap look like for kind of the typical enterprise, which I know is a bit of an oxymoron? (laughs) >> So we've got a handful. I think that's a fair way to give you a size without giving you an exact number. We had a handful of customers who have NVMe over Fabric deployments today. The deployments tend to be application or workload centric versus ubiquitous across the data center. Which I think does bear an opportunity for VMware adoption to be a little bit earlier than across the entire data center. Because most VMware architectures today are based on top of rack switching. Whether that switching is fiber channel or ethernet base, I think the ability to then upgrade that switch. Either you've got modern hardware and it just needs a firmware update, or you've got to replace that hardware and implement NVMe over Fabric. I think that's very attractive. Particularly that you can do so in a non disruptive manner with a flash array or with flash deck. We expect to see the adoption really start to take take hold in 2021. But you probably won't see large market gains until 2022 or 23. >> Well that's super helpful Vaughn especially Pure Storage you've got customers that have some of the most demanding performance environments out there. So they are some of the early adopters that you would expect go into adopting this new technology. All right. I guess last piece, listening to the keynote looking at all the announcements that they have you know, VMware obviously has a big push into the cloud native space they've made a whole lot of acquisitions. We touched on a little bit before but what's your take as to what you are hearing from your customers, where they are with adoption into really modernizing and accelerating their businesses today? >> I think for the majority of our customers and again I would consider more of a commercial or mid market centric up through enterprise. They've particularity enterprise, they've adapted cloud native technologies particularity in developing their own internal or customer facing applications. So I don't think the technology is new. I think where it's newer is this re platforming of enterprise applications and I think that what's driving the timeline for VMware. We have a number of Pivotal deployments that run up here. Very large scale Pivotal deployments that run on Pure. And hopefully as you audience knows Pivotal is what VMware Tanzu has been rebranded as. So we've had success there. We've have had success in the test and development and in the web facing application space. But now this is a broader initiative from VMware supporting enterprise apps along with you know the cloud native disaggregated applications that have been built over the last say five to 10 years. But to provide it though a single management plane. So I'm bullish, I'm really bullish I think they are in a unique position compared to the rest of our technology partners you know they own the enterprise virtualization real estate and as so their ability to successfully add cloud native application to that, I think it's a powerful mix . For us the opportunity is great. I want to thank you for focusing on the fact that we've been able to deliver performance. But performances found on any flash product. And it's not to demote our performance by any means, but when you look at our customers and what they purchase us in terms of the repeat purchases, it's around simplicity, it's around the native integration with VMware and the extending of that value prop through our capabilities whether it's through the end-to-end infrastructure management, through data protection extending in the hybrid cloud. That's where Pure Storage customers fall in love with Pure Storage. And so it's a combination of performance, simplicity and ultimately, you know, economics. As we know economics drive most technical decisions not the actual technology itself. >> Well, Vaughn Stewart thank you so much for the update, congratulation on all the new things that are being brought out in the partnership >> Thank you Stu appreciate being on theCUBE, big shout out to VMware congratulations on VMworld 2020, look forward to seeing everybody soon >> All right, stay tuned for more coverage VMworld 2020 I'm Stu Miniman and that you for watching theCUBE. (bright upbeat music)

(upbeat techno music) >> Announcer: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. This is Lenovo Transform. Please welcome to the stage Lenovo's Rod Lappin. (upbeat instrumental) >> Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go. I was out the back having a chat. A bit faster than I expected. How are you all doing this morning? (crowd cheers) >> Good? How fantastic is it to be in New York City? (crowd applauds) Excellent. So my name's Rod Lappin. I'm with the Data Center Group, obviously. I do basically anything that touches customers from our sales people, our pre-sales engineers, our architects, et cetera, all the way through to our channel partner sales engagement globally. So that's my job, but enough of that, okay? So the weather this morning, absolutely fantastic. Not a cloud in the sky, perfect. A little bit different to how it was yesterday, right? I want to thank all of you because I know a lot of you had a lot of commuting issues getting into New York yesterday with all the storms. We have a lot of people from international and domestic travel caught up in obviously the network, which blows my mind, actually, but we have a lot of people here from Europe, obviously, a lot of analysts and media people here as well as customers who were caught up in circling around the airport apparently for hours. So a big round of applause for our team from Europe. (audience applauds) Thank you for coming. We have some people who commuted a very short distance. For example, our own server general manager, Cameron (mumbles), he's out the back there. Cameron, how long did it take you to get from Raleigh to New York? An hour-and-a-half flight? >> Cameron: 17 hours. >> 17 hours, ladies and gentleman. That's a fantastic distance. I think that's amazing. But I know a lot of us, obviously, in the United States have come a long way with the storms, obviously very tough, but I'm going to call out one individual. Shaneil from Spotless. Where are you Shaneil, you're here somewhere? There he is from Australia. Shaneil how long did it take you to come in from Australia? 25 hour, ladies and gentleman. A big round of applause. That's a pretty big effort. Shaneil actually I want you to stand up, if you don't mind. I've got a seat here right next to my CEO. You've gone the longest distance. How about a big round of applause for Shaneil. We'll put him in my seat, next to YY. Honestly, Shaneil, you're doing me a favor. Okay ladies and gentlemen, we've got a big day today. Obviously, my seat now taken there, fantastic. Obviously New York City, the absolute pinnacle of globalization. I first came to New York in 1996, which was before a lot of people in the room were born, unfortunately for me these days. Was completely in awe. I obviously went to a Yankees game, had no clue what was going on, didn't understand anything to do with baseball. Then I went and saw Patrick Ewing. Some of you would remember Patrick Ewing. Saw the Knicks play basketball. Had no idea what was going on. Obviously, from Australia, and somewhat slightly height challenged, basketball was not my thing but loved it. I really left that game... That was the first game of basketball I'd ever seen. Left that game realizing that effectively the guy throws the ball up at the beginning, someone taps it, that team gets it, they run it, they put it in the basket, then the other team gets it, they put it in the basket, the other team gets it, and that's basically the entire game. So I haven't really progressed from that sort of learning or understanding of basketball since then, but for me, personally, being here in New York, and obviously presenting with all of you guys today, it's really humbling from obviously some of you would have picked my accent, I'm also from Australia. From the north shore of Sydney. To be here is just a fantastic, fantastic event. So welcome ladies and gentlemen to Transform, part of our tech world series globally in our event series and our event season here at Lenovo. So once again, big round of applause. Thank you for coming (audience applauds). Today, basically, is the culmination of what I would classify as a very large journey. Many of you have been with us on that. Customers, partners, media, analysts obviously. We've got quite a lot of our industry analysts in the room. I know Matt Eastwood yesterday was on a train because he sent a Tweet out saying there's 170 people on the WIFI network. He was obviously a bit concerned he was going to get-- Pat Moorhead, he got in at 3:30 this morning, obviously from traveling here as well with some of the challenges with the transportation, so we've got a lot of people in the room that have been giving us advice over the last two years. I think all of our employees are joining us live. All of our partners and customers through the stream. As well as everybody in this packed-out room. We're very very excited about what we're going to be talking to you all today. I want to have a special thanks obviously to our R&D team in Raleigh and around the world. They've also been very very focused on what they've delivered for us today, and it's really important for them to also see the culmination of this great event. And like I mentioned, this is really the feedback. It's not just a Lenovo launch. This is a launch based on the feedback from our partners, our customers, our employees, the analysts. We've been talking to all of you about what we want to be when we grow up from a Data Center Group, and I think you're going to hear some really exciting stuff from some of the speakers today and in the demo and breakout sessions that we have after the event. These last two years, we've really transformed the organization, and that's one of the reasons why that theme is part of our Tech World Series today. We're very very confident in our future, obviously, and where the company's going. It's really important for all of you to understand today and take every single snippet that YY, Kirk, and Christian talk about today in the main session, and then our presenters in the demo sections on what Lenovo's actually doing for its future and how we're positioning the company, obviously, for that future and how the transformation, the digital transformation, is going ahead globally. So, all right, we are now going to step into our Transform event. And I've got a quick agenda statement for you. The very first thing is we're going to hear from YY, our chairman and CEO. He's going to discuss artificial intelligence, the evolution of our society and how Lenovo is clearly positioning itself in the industry. Then, obviously, you're going to hear from Kirk Skaugen, our president of the Data Center Group, our new boss. He's going to talk about how long he's been with the company and the transformation, once again, we're making, very specifically to the Data Center Group and how much of a difference we're making to society and some of our investments. Christian Teismann, our SVP and general manager of our client business is going to talk about the 25 years of ThinkPad. This year is the 25-year anniversary of our ThinkPad product. Easily the most successful brand in our client branch or client branch globally of any vendor. Most successful brand we've had launched, and this afternoon breakout sessions, obviously, with our keynotes, fantastic sessions. Make sure you actually attend all of those after this main arena here. Now, once again, listen, ask questions, and make sure you're giving us feedback. One of the things about Lenovo that we say all the time... There is no room for arrogance in our company. Every single person in this room is a customer, partner, analyst, or an employee. We love your feedback. It's only through your feedback that we continue to improve. And it's really important that through all of the sessions where the Q&As happen, breakouts afterwards, you're giving us feedback on what you want to see from us as an organization as we go forward. All right, so what were you doing 25 years ago? I spoke about ThinkPad being 25 years old, but let me ask you this. I bet you any money that no one here knew that our x86 business is also 25 years old. So, this year, we have both our ThinkPad and our x86 anniversaries for 25 years. Let me tell you. What were you guys doing 25 years ago? There's me, 25 years ago. It's a bit scary, isn't it? It's very svelte and athletic and a lot lighter than I am today. It makes me feel a little bit conscious. And you can see the black and white shot. It shows you that even if you're really really short and you come from the wrong side of the tracks to make some extra cash, you can still do some modeling as long as no one else is in the photo to give anyone any perspective, so very important. I think I might have got one photo shoot out of that, I don't know. I had to do it, I needed the money. Let me show you another couple of photos. Very interesting, how's this guy? How cool does he look? Very svelte and athletic. I think there's no doubt. He looks much much cooler than I do. Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it gives me great honor to obviously introduce our very very first guest to the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, our chairman and CEO, Yuanqing Yang. or as we like to call him, YY. A big round of applause, thank you. (upbeat techno instrumental) >> Good morning everyone. Thank you, Rod, for your introduction. Actually, I didn't think I was younger than you (mumbles). I can't think of another city more fitting to host the Transform event than New York. A city that has transformed from a humble trading post 400 years ago to one of the most vibrant cities in the world today. It is a perfect symbol of transformation of our world. The rapid and the deep transformations that have propelled us from the steam engine to the Internet era in just 200 years. Looking back at 200 years ago, there was only a few companies that operated on a global scale. The total value of the world's economy was around $188 billion U.S. dollars. Today, it is only $180 for each person on earth. Today, there are thousands of independent global companies that compete to sell everything, from corn and crude oil to servers and software. They drive a robust global economy was over $75 trillion or $1,000 per person. Think about it. The global economy has multiplied almost 450 times in just two centuries. What is even more remarkable is that the economy has almost doubled every 15 years since 1950. These are significant transformation for businesses and for the world and our tiny slice of pie. This transformation is the result of the greatest advancement in technology in human history. Not one but three industrial revolutions have happened over the last 200 years. Even though those revolutions created remarkable change, they were just the beginning. Today, we are standing at the beginning of the fourth revolution. This revolution will transform how we work (mumbles) in ways that no one could imagine in the 18th century or even just 18 months ago. You are the people who will lead this revolution. Along with Lenovo, we will redefine IT. IT is no longer just information technology. It's intelligent technology, intelligent transformation. A transformation that is driven by big data called computing and artificial intelligence. Even the transition from PC Internet to mobile Internet is a big leap. Today, we are facing yet another big leap from the mobile Internet to the Smart Internet or intelligent Internet. In this Smart Internet era, Cloud enables devices, such as PCs, Smart phones, Smart speakers, Smart TVs. (mumbles) to provide the content and the services. But the evolution does not stop them. Ultimately, almost everything around us will become Smart, with building computing, storage, and networking capabilities. That's what we call the device plus Cloud transformation. These Smart devices, incorporated with various sensors, will continuously sense our environment and send data about our world to the Cloud. (mumbles) the process of this ever-increasing big data and to support the delivery of Cloud content and services, the data center infrastructure is also transforming to be more agile, flexible, and intelligent. That's what we call the infrastructure plus Cloud transformation. But most importantly, it is the human wisdom, the people learning algorithm vigorously improved by engineers that enables artificial intelligence to learn from big data and make everything around us smarter. With big data collected from Smart devices, computing power of the new infrastructure under the trend artificial intelligence, we can understand the world around us more accurately and make smarter decisions. We can make life better, work easier, and society safer and healthy. Think about what is already possible as we start this transformation. Smart Assistants can help you place orders online with a voice command. Driverless cars can run on the same road as traditional cars. (mumbles) can help troubleshoot customers problems, and the virtual doctors already diagnose basic symptoms. This list goes on and on. Like every revolution before it, intelligent transformation, will fundamentally change the nature of business. Understanding and preparing for that will be the key for the growth and the success of your business. The first industrial revolution made it possible to maximize production. Water and steam power let us go from making things by hand to making them by machine. This transformed how fast things could be produced. It drove the quantity of merchandise made and led to massive increase in trade. With this revolution, business scale expanded, and the number of customers exploded. Fifty years later, the second industrial revolution made it necessary to organize a business like the modern enterprise, electric power, and the telegraph communication made business faster and more complex, challenging businesses to become more efficient and meeting entirely new customer demands. In our own lifetimes, we have witnessed the third industrial revolution, which made it possible to digitize the enterprise. The development of computers and the Internet accelerated business beyond human speed. Now, global businesses have to deal with customers at the end of a cable, not always a handshake. While we are still dealing with the effects of a digitizing business, the fourth revolution is already here. In just the past two or three years, the growth of data and advancement in visual intelligence has been astonishing. The computing power can now process the massive amount of data about your customers, suppliers, partners, competitors, and give you insights you simply could not imagine before. Artificial intelligence can not only tell you what your customers want today but also anticipate what they will need tomorrow. This is not just about making better business decisions or creating better customer relationships. It's about making the world a better place. Ultimately, can we build a new world without diseases, war, and poverty? The power of big data and artificial intelligence may be the revolutionary technology to make that possible. Revolutions don't happen on their own. Every industrial revolution has its leaders, its visionaries, and its heroes. The master transformers of their age. The first industrial revolution was led by mechanics who designed and built power systems, machines, and factories. The heroes of the second industrial revolution were the business managers who designed and built modern organizations. The heroes of the third revolution were the engineers who designed and built the circuits and the source code that digitized our world. The master transformers of the next revolution are actually you. You are the designers and the builders of the networks and the systems. You will bring the benefits of intelligence to every corner of your enterprise and make intelligence the central asset of your business. At Lenovo, data intelligence is embedded into everything we do. How we understand our customer's true needs and develop more desirable products. How we profile our customers and market to them precisely. How we use internal and external data to balance our supply and the demand. And how we train virtual agents to provide more effective sales services. So the decisions you make today about your IT investment will determine the quality of the decisions your enterprise will make tomorrow. So I challenge each of you to seize this opportunity to become a master transformer, to join Lenovo as we work together at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution, as leaders of the intelligent transformation. (triumphant instrumental) Today, we are launching the largest portfolio in our data center history at Lenovo. We are fully committed to the (mumbles) transformation. Thank you. (audience applauds) >> Thanks YY. All right, ladies and gentlemen. Fantastic, so how about a big round of applause for YY. (audience applauds) Obviously a great speech on the transformation that we at Lenovo are taking as well as obviously wanting to journey with our partners and customers obviously on that same journey. What I heard from him was obviously artificial intelligence, how we're leveraging that integrally as well as externally and for our customers, and the investments we're making in the transformation around IoT machine learning, obviously big data, et cetera, and obviously the Data Center Group, which is one of the key things we've got to be talking about today. So we're on the cusp of that fourth revolution, as YY just mentioned, and Lenovo is definitely leading the way and investing in those parts of the industry and our portfolio to ensure we're complimenting all of our customers and partners on what they want to be, obviously, as part of this new transformation we're seeing globally. Obviously now, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado once again, to tell us more about what's going on today, our announcements, obviously, that all of you will be reading about and seeing in the breakout and the demo sessions with our segment general managers this afternoon is our president of the data center, Mr. Kirk Skaugen. (upbeat instrumental) >> Good morning, and let me add my welcome to Transform. I just crossed my six months here at Lenovo after over 24 years at Intel Corporation, and I can tell you, we've been really busy over the last six months, and I'm more excited and enthusiastic than ever and hope to share some of that with you today. Today's event is called "Transform", and today we're announcing major new transformations in Lenovo, in the data center, but more importantly, we're celebrating the business results that these platforms are going to have on society and with international supercomputing going on in parallel in Frankfurt, some of the amazing scientific discoveries that are going to happen on some of these platforms. Lenovo has gone through some significant transformations in the last two years, since we acquired the IBM x86 business, and that's really positioning us for this next phase of growth, and we'll talk more about that later. Today, we're announcing the largest end-to-end data center portfolio in Lenovo's history, as you heard from YY, and we're really taking the best of the x86 heritage from our IBM acquisition of the x86 server business and combining that with the cost economics that we've delivered from kind of our China heritage. As we've talked to some of the analysts in the room, it's really that best of the east and best of the west is combining together in this announcement today. We're going to be announcing two new brands, building on our position as the number one x86 server vendor in both customer satisfaction and in reliability, and we're also celebrating, next month in July, a very significant milestone, which will we'll be shipping our 20 millionth x86 server into the industry. For us, it's an amazing time, and it's an inflection point to kind of look back, pause, but also share the next phase of Lenovo and the exciting vision for the future. We're also making some declarations on our vision for the future today. Again, international supercomputing's going on, and, as it turns out, we're the fastest growing supercomputer company on earth. We'll talk about that. Our goal today that we're announcing is that we plan in the next several years to become number one in supercomputing, and we're going to put the investments behind that. We're also committing to our customers that we're going to disrupt the status quo and accelerate the pace of innovation, not just in our legacy server solutions, but also in Software-Defined because what we've heard from you is that that lack of legacy, we don't have a huge router business or a huge sand business to protect. It's that lack of legacy that's enabling us to invest and get ahead of the curb on this next transition to Software-Defined. So you're going to see us doing that through building our internal IP, through some significant joint ventures, and also through some merges and acquisitions over the next several quarters. Altogether, we're driving to be the most trusted data center provider in the industry between us and our customers and our suppliers. So a quick summary of what we're going to dive into today, both in my keynote as well as in the breakout sessions. We're in this transformation to the next phase of Lenovo's data center growth. We're closing out our previous transformation. We actually, believe it or not, in the last six months or so, have renegotiated 18,000 contracts in 160 countries. We built out an entire end-to-end organization from development and architecture all the way through sales and support. This next transformation, I think, is really going to excite Lenovo shareholders. We're building the largest data center portfolio in our history. I think when IBM would be up here a couple years ago, we might have two or three servers to announce in time to market with the next Intel platform. Today, we're announcing 14 new servers, seven new storage systems, an expanded set of networking portfolios based on our legacy with Blade Network Technologies and other companies we've acquired. Two new brands that we'll talk about for both data center infrastructure and Software-Defined, a new set of premium premiere services as well as a set of engineered solutions that are going to help our customers get to market faster. We're going to be celebrating our 20 millionth x86 server, and as Rod said, 25 years in x86 server compute, and Christian will be up here talking about 25 years of ThinkPad as well. And then a new end-to-end segmentation model because all of these strategies without execution are kind of meaningless. I hope to give you some confidence in the transformation that Lenovo has gone through as well. So, having observed Lenovo from one of its largest partners, Intel, for more than a couple decades, I thought I'd just start with why we have confidence on the foundation that we're building off of as we move from a PC company into a data center provider in a much more significant way. So Lenovo today is a company of $43 billion in sales. Absolutely astonishing, it puts us at about Fortune 202 as a company, with 52,000 employees around the world. We're supporting and have service personnel, almost a little over 10,000 service personnel that service our servers and data center technologies in over 160 countries that provide onsite service and support. We have seven data center research centers. One of the reasons I came from Intel to Lenovo was that I saw that Lenovo became number one in PCs, not through cost cutting but through innovation. It was Lenovo that was partnering on the next-generation Ultrabooks and two-in-ones and tablets in the modem mods that you saw, but fundamentally, our path to number one in data center is going to be built on innovation. Lastly, we're one of the last companies that's actually building not only our own motherboards at our own motherboard factories, but also with five global data center manufacturing facilities. Today, we build about four devices a second, but we also build over 100 servers per hour, and the cost economics we get, and I just visited our Shenzhen factory, of having everything from screws to microprocessors come up through the elevator on the first floor, go left to build PCs and ThinkPads and go right to build server technology, means we have some of the world's most cost effective solutions so we can compete in things like hyperscale computing. So it's with that that I think we're excited about the foundation that we can build off of on the Data Center Group. Today, as we stated, this event is about transformation, and today, I want to talk about three things we're going to transform. Number one is the customer experience. Number two is the data center and our customer base with Software-Defined infrastructure, and then the third is talk about how we plan to execute flawlessly with a new transformation that we've had internally at Lenovo. So let's dive into it. On customer experience, really, what does it mean to transform customer experience? Industry pundits say that if you're not constantly innovating, you can fall behind. Certainly the technology industry that we're in is transforming at record speed. 42% of business leaders or CIOs say that digital first is their top priority, but less than 50% actually admit that they have a strategy to get there. So people are looking for a partner to keep pace with that innovation and change, and that's really what we're driving to at Lenovo. So today we're announcing a set of plans to take another step function in customer experience, and building off of our number one position. Just recently, Gartner shows Lenovo as the number 24 supply chains of companies over $12 billion. We're up there with Amazon, Coca-Cola, and we've now completely re-architected our supply chain in the Data Center Group from end to end. Today, we can deliver 90% of our SKUs, order to ship in less than seven days. The artificial intelligence that YY mentioned is optimizing our performance even further. In services, as we talked about, we're now in 160 countries, supporting on-site support, 50 different call centers around the world for local language support, and we're today announcing a whole set of new premiere support services that I'll get into in a second. But we're building on what's already better than 90% customer satisfaction in this space. And then in development, for all the engineers out there, we started foundationally for this new set of products, talking about being number one in reliability and the lowest downtime of any x86 server vendor on the planet, and these systems today are architected to basically extend that leadership position. So let me tell you the realities of reliability. This is ITIC, it's a reliability report. 750 CIOs and IT managers from more than 20 countries, so North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, Africa. This isn't anything that's paid for with sponsorship dollars. Lenovo has been number one for four years running on x86 reliability. This is the amount of downtime, four hours or more, in mission-critical environments from the leading x86 providers. You can see relative to our top two competitors that are ahead of us, HP and Dell, you can see from ITIC why we are building foundationally off of this, and why it's foundational to how we're developing these new platforms. In customer satisfaction, we are also rated number one in x86 server customer satisfaction. This year, we're now incentivizing every single Lenovo employee on customer satisfaction and customer experience. It's been a huge mandate from myself and most importantly YY as our CEO. So you may say well what is the basis of this number one in customer satisfaction, and it's not just being number one in one category, it's actually being number one in 21 of the 22 categories that TBR talks about. So whether it's performance, support systems, online product information, parts and availability replacement, Lenovo is number one in 21 of the 22 categories and number one for six consecutive studies going back to Q1 of 2015. So this, again, as we talk about the new product introductions, it's something that we absolutely want to build on, and we're humbled by it, and we want to continue to do better. So let's start now on the new products and talk about how we're going to transform the data center. So today, we are announcing two new product offerings. Think Agile and ThinkSystem. If you think about the 25 years of ThinkPad that Christian's going to talk about, Lenovo has a continuous learning culture. We're fearless innovators, we're risk takers, we continuously learn, but, most importantly, I think we're humble and we have some humility. That when we fail, we can fail fast, we learn, and we improve. That's really what drove ThinkPad to number one. It took about eight years from the acquisition of IBM's x86 PC business before Lenovo became number one, but it was that innovation, that listening and learning, and then improving. As you look at the 25 years of ThinkPad, there were some amazing successes, but there were also some amazing failures along the way, but each and every time we learned and made things better. So this year, as Rod said, we're not just celebrating 25 years of ThinkPad, but we're celebrating 25 years of x86 server development since the original IBM PC servers in 1992. It's a significant day for Lenovo. Today, we're excited to announce two new brands. ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile. It's an important new announcement that we started almost three years ago when we acquired the x86 server business. Why don't we run a video, and we'll show you a little bit about ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile. >> Narrator: The status quo is comfortable. It gets you by, but if you think that's good enough for your data center, think again. If adoption is becoming more complicated when it should be simpler, think again. If others are selling you technology that's best for them, not for you, think again. It's time for answers that win today and tomorrow. Agile, innovative, different. Because different is better. Different embraces change and makes adoption simple. Different designs itself around you. Using 25 years of innovation and design and R&D. Different transforms, it gives you ThinkSystem. World-record performance, most reliable, easy to integrate, scales faster. Different empowers you with ThinkAgile. It redefines the experience, giving you the speed of Cloud and the control of on-premise IT. Responding faster to what your business really needs. Different defines the future. Introducing Lenovo ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile. (exciting and slightly aggressive digital instrumental) >> All right, good stuff, huh? (audience applauds) So it's built off of this 25-year history of us being in the x86 server business, the commitment we established three years ago after acquiring the x86 server business to be and have the most reliable, the most agile, and the most highest-performing data center solutions on the planet. So today we're announcing two brands. ThinkSystem is for the traditional data center infrastructure, and ThinkAgile is our brand for Software-Defined infrastructure. Again, the teams challenge themselves from the start, how do we build off this rich heritage, expanding our position as number one in customer satisfaction, reliability, and one of the world's best supply chains. So let's start and look at the next set of solutions. We have always prided ourself that little things don't mean a lot. Little things mean everything. So today, as we said on the legacy solutions, we have over 30 world-record performance benchmarks on Intel architecture, and more than actually 150 since we started tracking this back in 2001. So it's the little pieces of innovation. It's the fine tuning that we do with our partners like an Intel or a Microsoft, an SAP, VMware, and Nutanix that's enabling us to get these world-record performance benchmarks, and with this next generation of solutions we think we'll continue to certainly do that. So today we're announcing the most comprehensive portfolio ever in our data center history. There's 14 servers, seven storage devices, and five network switches. We're also announcing, which is super important to our customer base, a set of new premiere service options. That's giving you fast access directly to a level two support person. No automated response system involved. You get to pick up the phone and directly talk to a level two support person that's going to have end-to-end ownership of the customer experience for ThinkSystem. With ThinkAgile, that's going to be completely bundled with every ThinkAgile you purchase. In addition, we're having white glove service on site that will actually unbox the product for you and get it up and running. It's an entirely new set of solutions for hybrid Cloud, for big data analytics and database applications around these engineered solutions. These are like 40- to 50-page guides where we fine-tuned the most important applications around virtual desktop infrastructure and those kinds of applications, working side by side with all of our ISP partners. So significantly expanding, not just the hardware but the software solutions that, obviously, you, as our customers, are running. So if you look at ThinkSystem innovation, again, it was designed for the ultimate in flexibility, performance, and reliability. It's a single now-unified brand that combines what used to be the Lenovo Think server and the IBM System x products now into a single brand that spans server, storage, and networking. We're basically future-proofing it for the next-generation data center. It's a significantly simplified portfolio. One of the big pieces that we've heard is that the complexity of our competitors has really been overwhelming to customers. We're building a more flexible, more agile solution set that requires less work, less qualification, and more future proofing. There's a bunch of things in this that you'll see in the demos. Faster time-to-service in terms of the modularity of the systems. 12% faster service equating to almost $50 thousand per hour of reduced downtime. Some new high-density options where we have four nodes and a 2U, twice the density to improve and reduce outbacks and mission-critical workloads. And then in high-performance computing and supercomputing, we're going to spend some time on that here shortly. We're announcing new water-cooled solutions. We have some of the most premiere water-cooled solutions in the world, with more than 25 patents pending now, just in the water-cooled solutions for supercomputing. The performance that we think we're going to see out of these systems is significant. We're building off of that legacy that we have today on the existing Intel solutions. Today, we believe we have more than 50% of SAP HANA installations in the world. In fact, SAP just went public that they're running their internal SAP HANA on Lenovo hardware now. We're seeing a 59% increase in performance on SAP HANA generation on generation. We're seeing 31% lower total cost to ownership. We believe this will continue our position of having the highest level of five-nines in the x86 server industry. And all of these servers will start being available later this summer when the Intel announcements come out. We're also announcing the largest storage portfolio in our history, significantly larger than anything we've done in the past. These are all available today, including some new value class storage offerings. Our network portfolio is expanding now significantly. It was a big surprise when I came to Lenovo, seeing the hundreds of engineers we had from the acquisition of Blade Network Technologies and others with our teams in Romania, Santa Clara, really building out both the embedded portfolio but also the top racks, which is around 10 gig, 25 gig, and 100 gig. Significantly better economics, but all the performance you'd expect from the largest networking companies in the world. Those are also available today. ThinkAgile and Software-Defined, I think the one thing that has kind of overwhelmed me since coming in to Lenovo is we are being embraced by our customers because of our lack of legacy. We're not trying to sell you one more legacy SAN at 65% margins. ThinkAgile really was founded, kind of born free from the shackles of legacy thinking and legacy infrastructure. This is just the beginning of what's going to be an amazing new brand in the transformation to Software-Defined. So, for Lenovo, we're going to invest in our own internal organic IP. I'll foreshadow: There's some significant joint ventures and some mergers and acquisitions that are going to be coming in this space. And so this will be the foundation for our Software-Defined networking and storage, for IoT, and ultimately for the 5G build-out as well. This is all built for data centers of tomorrow that require fluid resources, tightly integrated software and hardware in kind of an appliance, selling at the rack level, and so we'll show you how that is going to take place here in a second. ThinkAgile, we have a few different offerings. One is around hyperconverged storage, Hybrid Cloud, and also Software-Defined storage. So we're really trying to redefine the customer experience. There's two different solutions we're having today. It's a Microsoft Azure solution and a Nutanix solution. These are going to be available both in the appliance space as well as in a full rack solution. We're really simplifying and trying to transform the entire customer experience from how you order it. We've got new capacity planning tools that used to take literally days for us to get the capacity planning done. It's now going down to literally minutes. We've got new order, delivery, deployment, administration service, something we're calling ThinkAgile Advantage, which is the white glove unboxing of the actual solutions on prem. So the whole thing when you hear about it in the breakout sessions about transforming the entire customer experience with both an HX solution and an SX solution. So again, available at the rack level for both Nutanix and for Microsoft Solutions available in just a few months. Many of you in the audience since the Microsoft Airlift event in Seattle have started using these things, and the feedback to date has been fantastic. We appreciate the early customer adoption that we've seen from people in the audience here. So next I want to bring up one of our most important partners, and certainly if you look at all of these solutions, they're based on the next-generation Intel Xeon scalable processor that's going to be announcing very very soon. I want to bring on stage Rupal Shah, who's the corporate vice president and general manager of Global Data Center Sales with Intel, so Rupal, please join me. (upbeat instrumental) So certainly I have long roots at Intel, but why don't you talk about, from Intel's perspective, why Lenovo is an important partner for Lenovo. >> Great, well first of all, thank you very much. I've had the distinct pleasure of not only working with Kirk for many many years, but also working with Lenovo for many years, so it's great to be here. Lenovo is not only a fantastic supplier and leader in the industry for Intel-based servers but also a very active partner in the Intel ecosystem. In the Intel ecosystem, specifically, in our partner programs and in our builder programs around Cloud, around the network, and around storage, I personally have had a long history in working with Lenovo, and I've seen personally that PC transformation that you talked about, Kirk, and I believe, and I know that Intel believes in Lenovo's ability to not only succeed in the data center but to actually lead in the data center. And so today, the ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile announcement is just so incredibly important. It's such a great testament to our two companies working together, and the innovation that we're able to bring to the market, and all of it based on the Intel Xeon scalable processor. >> Excellent, so tell me a little bit about why we've been collaborating, tell me a little bit about why you're excited about ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile, specifically. >> Well, there are a lot of reasons that I'm excited about the innovation, but let me talk about a few. First, both of our companies really stand behind the fact that it's increasingly a hybrid world. Our two companies offer a range of solutions now to customers to be able to address their different workload needs. ThinkSystem really brings the best, right? It brings incredible performance, flexibility in data center deployment, and industry-leading reliability that you've talked about. And, as always, Xeon has a history of being built for the data center specifically. The Intel Xeon scalable processor is really re-architected from the ground up in order to enhance compute, network, and storage data flows so that we can deliver workload optimized performance for both a wide range of traditional workloads and traditional needs but also some emerging new needs in areas like artificial intelligence. Second is when it comes to the next generation of Cloud infrastructure, the new Lenovo ThinkAgile line offers a truly integrated offering to address data center pain points, and so not only are you able to get these pretested solutions, but these pretested solutions are going to get deployed in your infrastructure faster, and they're going to be deployed in a way that's going to meet your specific needs. This is something that is new for both of us, and it's an incredible innovation in the marketplace. I think that it's a great addition to what is already a fantastic portfolio for Lenovo. >> Excellent. >> Finally, there's high-performance computing. In high-performance computing. First of all, congratulations. It's a big week, I think, for both of us. Fantastic work that we've been doing together in high-performance computing and actually bringing the best of the best to our customers, and you're going to hear a whole lot more about that. We obviously have a number of joint innovation centers together between Intel and Lenovo. Tell us about some of the key innovations that you guys are excited about. >> Well, Intel and Lenovo, we do have joint innovation labs around the world, and we have a long and strong history of very tight collaboration. This has brought a big wave of innovation to the marketplace in areas like software-defined infrastructure. Yet another area is working closely on a joint vision that I think our two companies have in artificial intelligence. Intel is very committed to the world of AI, and we're committed in making the investments required in technology development, in training, and also in R&D to be able to deliver end-to-end solutions. So with Intel's comprehensive technology portfolio and Lenovo's development and innovation expertise, it's a great combination in this space. I've already talked a little bit about HPC and so has Kirk, and we're going to hear a little bit more to come, but we're really building the fastest compute solutions for customers that are solving big problems. Finally, we often talk about processors from Intel, but it's not just about the processors. It's way beyond that. It's about engaging at the solution level for our customers, and I'm so excited about the work that we've done together with Lenovo to bring to market products like Intel Omni-Path Architecture, which is really the fabric for high-performance data centers. We've got a great showing this week with Intel Omni-Path Architecture, and I'm so grateful for all the work that we've done to be able to bring true solutions to the marketplace. I am really looking forward to our future collaboration with Lenovo as we have in the past. I want to thank you again for inviting me here today, and congratulations on a fantastic launch. >> Thank you, Rupal, very much, for the long partnership. >> Thank you. (audience applauds) >> Okay, well now let's transition and talk a little bit about how Lenovo is transforming. The first thing we've done when I came on board about six months ago is we've transformed to a truly end-to-end organization. We're looking at the market segments I think as our customers define them, and we've organized into having vice presidents and senior vice presidents in charge of each of these major groups, thinking really end to end, from architecture all the way to end of life and customer support. So the first is hyperscale infrastructure. It's about 20% on the market by 2020. We've hired a new vice president there to run that business. Given we can make money in high-volume desktop PCs, it's really the manufacturing prowess, deep engineering collaboration that's enabling us to sell into Baidu, and to Alibaba, Tencent, as well as the largest Cloud vendors on the West Coast here in the United States. We believe we can make money here by having basically a deep deep engineering engagement with our key customers and building on the PC volume economics that we have within Lenovo. On software-defined infrastructure, again, it's that lack of legacy that I think is propelling us into this space. We're not encumbered by trying to sell one more legacy SAN or router, and that's really what's exciting us here, as we transform from a hardware to a software-based company. On HPC and AI, as we said, we'll talk about this in a second. We're the fastest-growing supercomputing company on earth. We have aspirations to be the largest supercomputing company on earth, with China and the U.S. vying for number one in that position, it puts us in a good position there. We're going to bridge that into artificial intelligence in our upcoming Shanghai Tech World. The entire day is around AI. In fact, YY has committed $1.2 billion to artificial intelligence over the next few years of R&D to help us bridge that. And then on data center infrastructure, is really about moving to a solutions based infrastructure like our position with SAP HANA, where we've gone deep with engineers on site at SAP, SAP running their own infrastructure on Lenovo and building that out beyond just SAP to other solutions in the marketplace. Overall, significantly expanding our services portfolio to maintain our number one customer satisfaction rating. So given ISC, or International Supercomputing, this week in Frankfurt, and a lot of my team are actually over there, I wanted to just show you the transformation we've had at Lenovo for delivering some of the technology to solve some of the most challenging humanitarian problems on earth. Today, we are the fastest-growing supercomputer company on the planet in terms of number of systems on the Top 500 list. We've gone from zero to 92 positions in just a few short years, but IDC also positions Lenovo as the fast-growing supercomputer and HPC company overall at about 17% year on year growth overall, including all of the broad channel, the regional universities and this kind of thing, so this is an exciting place for us. I'm excited today that Sergi has come all the way from Spain to be with us today. It's an exciting time because this week we announce the fastest next-generation Intel supercomputer on the planet at Barcelona Supercomputer. Before I bring Sergi on stage, let's run a video and I'll show you why we're excited about the capabilities of these next-generation supercomputers. Run the video please. >> Narrator: Different creates one of the most powerful supercomputers for the Barcelona Supercomputer Center. A high-performance, high-capacity design to help shape tomorrow's world. Different designs what's best for you, with 25 years of end-to-end expertise delivering large-scale solutions. It integrates easily with technology from industry partners, through deep collaboration with the client to manufacture, test, configure, and install at global scale. Different achieves the impossible. The first of a new series. A more energy-efficient supercomputer yet 10 times more powerful than its predecessor. With over 3,400 Lenovo ThinkSystem servers, each performing over two trillion calculations per second, giving us 11.1 petaflop capacity. Different powers MareNostrum, a supercomputer that will help us better understand cancer, help discover disease-fighting therapies, predict the impact of climate change. MareNostrom 4.0 promises to uncover answers that will help solve humanities greatest challenges. (audience applauds) >> So please help me in welcoming operations director of the Barcelona Supercomputer Center, Sergi Girona. So welcome, and again, congratulations. It's been a big week for both of us. But I think for a long time, if you haven't been to Barcelona, this has been called the world's most beautiful computer because it's in one of the most gorgeous chapels in the world as you can see here. Congratulations, we now are number 13 on the Top500 list and the fastest next-generation Intel computer. >> Thank you very much, and congratulations to you as well. >> So maybe we can just talk a little bit about what you've done over the last few months with us. >> Sure, thank you very much. It is a pleasure for me being invited here to present to you what we've been doing with Lenovo so far and what we are planning to do in the next future. I'm representing here Barcelona Supercomputing Center. I am presenting high-performance computing services to science and industry. How we see these science services has changed the paradigm of science. We are coming from observation. We are coming from observation on the telescopes and the microscopes and the building of infrastructures, but this is not affordable anymore. This is very expensive, so it's not possible, so we need to move to simulations. So we need to understand what's happening in our environment. We need to predict behaviors only going through simulation. So, at BSC, we are devoted to provide services to industry, to science, but also we are doing our own research because we want to understand. At the same time, we are helping and developing the new engineers of the future on the IT, on HPC. So we are having four departments based on different topics. The main and big one is wiling to understand how we are doing the next supercomputers from the programming level to the performance to the EIA, so all these things, but we are having also interest on what about the climate change, what's the air quality that we are having in our cities. What is the precision medicine we need to have. How we can see that the different drugs are better for different individuals, for different humans, and of course we have an energy department, taking care of understanding what's the better optimization for a cold, how we can save energy running simulations on different topics. But, of course, the topic of today is not my research, but it's the systems we are building in Barcelona. So this is what we have been building in Barcelona so far. From left to right, you have the preparation of the facility because this is 160 square meters with 1.4 megabytes, so that means we need new piping, we need new electricity, at the same time in the center we have to install the core services of the system, so the management practices, and then on the right-hand side you have installation of the networking, the Omni-Path by Intel. Because all of the new racks have to be fully integrated and they need to come into operation rapidly. So we start deployment of the system May 15, and we've now been ending and coming in production July first. All the systems, all the (mumbles) systems from Lenovo are coming before being open and available. What we've been installing here in Barcelona is general purpose systems for our general workload of the system with 3,456 nodes. Everyone of those having 48 cores, 96 gigabytes main memory for a total capacity of about 400 terabytes memory. The objective of this is that we want to, all the system, all the processors, to work together for a single execution for running altogether, so this is an example of the platinum processors from Intel having 24 cores each. Of course, for doing this together with all the cores in the same application, we need a high-speed network, so this is Omni-Path, and of course all these cables are connecting all the nodes. Noncontention, working together, cooperating. Of course, this is a bunch of cables. They need to be properly aligned in switches. So here you have the complete presentation. Of course, this is general purpose, but we wanted to invest with our partners. We want to understand what the supercomputers we wanted to install in 2020, (mumbles) Exascale. We want to find out, we are installing as well systems with different capacities with KNH, with power, with ARM processors. We want to leverage our obligations for the future. We want to make sure that in 2020 we are ready to move our users rapidly to the new technologies. Of course, this is in total, giving us a total capacity of 13.7 petaflops that it's 12 times the capacity of the former MareNostrum four years ago. We need to provide the services to our scientists because they are helping to solve problems for humanity. That's the place we are going to go. Last is inviting you to come to Barcelona to see our place and our chapel. Thank you very much (audience applauds). >> Thank you. So now you can all go home to your spouses and significant others and say you have a formal invitation to Barcelona, Spain. So last, I want to talk about what we've done to transform Lenovo. I think we all know the history is nice but without execution, none of this is going to be possible going forward, so we have been very very busy over the last six months to a year of transforming Lenovo's data center organization. First, we moved to a dedicated end-to-end sales and marketing organization. In the past, we had people that were shared between PC and data center, now thousands of sales people around the world are 100% dedicated end to end to our data center clients. We've moved to a fully integrated and dedicated supply chain and procurement organization. A fully dedicated quality organization, 100% dedicated to expanding our data center success. We've moved to a customer-centric segment, again, bringing in significant new leaders from outside the company to look end to end at each of these segments, supercomputing being very very different than small business, being very very different than taking care of, for example, a large retailer or bank. So around hyperscale, software-defined infrastructure, HPC, AI, and supercomputing and data center solutions-led infrastructure. We've built out a whole new set of global channel programs. Last year, or a year passed, we have five different channel programs around the world. We've now got one simplified channel program for dealer registration. I think our channel is very very energized to go out to market with Lenovo technology across the board, and a whole new set of system integrator relationships. You're going to hear from one of them in Christian's discussion, but a whole new set of partnerships to build solutions together with our system integrative partners. And, again, as I mentioned, a brand new leadership team. So look forward to talking about the details of this. There's been a significant amount of transformation internal to Lenovo that's led to the success of this new product introduction today. So in conclusion, I want to talk about the news of the day. We are transforming Lenovo to the next phase of our data center growth. Again, in over 160 countries, closing on that first phase of transformation and moving forward with some unique declarations. We're launching the largest portfolio in our history, not just in servers but in storage and networking, as everything becomes kind of a software personality on top of x86 Compute. We think we're very well positioned with our scale on PCs as well as data center. Two new brands for both data center infrastructure and Software-Defined, without the legacy shackles of our competitors, enabling us to move very very quickly into Software-Defined, and, again, foreshadowing some joint ventures in M&A that are going to be coming up that will further accelerate ourselves there. New premiere support offerings, enabling you to get direct access to level two engineers and white glove unboxing services, which are going to be bundled along with ThinkAgile. And then celebrating the milestone of 25 years in x86 server compute, not just ThinkPads that you'll hear about shortly, but also our 20 million server shipping next month. So we're celebrating that legacy and looking forward to the next phase. And then making sure we have the execution engine to maintain our position and grow it, being number one in customer satisfaction and number one in quality. So, with that, thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you in the breakouts today and talking with many of you, and I'll bring Rod back up to transition us to the next section. Thank you. (audience applauds) >> All right, Kirk, thank you, sir. All right, ladies and gentlemen, what did you think of that? How about a big round of applause for ThinkAgile, ThinkSystems new brands? (audience applauds) And, obviously, with that comes a big round of applause, for Kirk Skaugen, my boss, so we've got to give him a big round of applause, please. I need to stay employed, it's very important. All right, now you just heard from Kirk about some of the new systems, the brands. How about we have a quick look at the video, which shows us the brand new DCG images. >> Narrator: Legacy thinking is dead, stuck in the past, selling the same old stuff, over and over. So then why does it seem like a data center, you know, that thing powering all our little devices and more or less everything interaction today is still stuck in legacy thinking because it's rigid, inflexible, slow, but that's not us. We don't do legacy. We do different. Because different is fearless. Different reduces Cloud deployment from days to hours. Different creates agile technology that others follow. Different is fluid. It uses water-cooling technology to save energy. It co-innovates with some of the best minds in the industry today. Different is better, smarter. Maybe that's why different already holds so many world-record benchmarks in everything. From virtualization to database and application performance or why it's number one in reliability and customer satisfaction. Legacy sells you what they want. Different builds the data center you need without locking you in. Introducing the Data Center Group at Lenovo. Different... Is better. >> All right, ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause, once again (mumbles) DCG, fantastic. And I'm sure all of you would agree, and Kirk mentioned it a couple of times there. No legacy means a real consultative approach to our customers, and that's something that we really feel is differentiated for ourselves. We are effectively now one of the largest startups in the DCG space, and we are very much ready to disrupt. Now, here in New York City, obviously, the heart of the fashion industry, and much like fashion, as I mentioned earlier, we're different, we're disruptive, we're agile, smarter, and faster. I'd like to say that about myself, but, unfortunately, I can't. But those of you who have observed, you may have noticed that I, too, have transformed. I don't know if anyone saw that. I've transformed from the pinstripe blue, white shirt, red tie look of the, shall we say, our predecessors who owned the x86 business to now a very Lenovo look. No tie and consequently a little bit more chic New York sort of fashion look, shall I say. Nothing more than that. So anyway, a bit of a transformation. It takes a lot to get to this look, by the way. It's a lot of effort. Our next speaker, Christian Teismann, is going to talk a lot about the core business of Lenovo, which really has been, as we've mentioned today, our ThinkPad, 25-year anniversary this year. It's going to be a great celebration inside Lenovo, and as we get through the year and we get closer and closer to the day, you'll see a lot more social and digital work that engages our customers, partners, analysts, et cetera, when we get close to that birthday. Customers just generally are a lot tougher on computers. We know they are. Whether you hang onto it between meetings from the corner of the Notebook, and that's why we have magnesium chassis inside the box or whether you're just dropping it or hypothetically doing anything else like that. We do a lot of robust testing on these products, and that's why it's the number one branded Notebook in the world. So Christian talks a lot about this, but I thought instead of having him talk, I might just do a little impromptu jump back stage and I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about. So follow me for a second. I'm going to jaunt this way. I know a lot of you would have seen, obviously, the front of house here, what we call the front of house. Lots of videos, et cetera, but I don't think many of you would have seen the back of house here, so I'm going to jump through the back here. Hang on one second. You'll see us when we get here. Okay, let's see what's going on back stage right now. You can see one of the team here in the back stage is obviously working on their keyboard. Fantastic, let me tell you, this is one of the key value props of this product, obviously still working, lots of coffee all over it, spill-proof keyboard, one of the key value propositions and why this is the number one laptop brand in the world. Congratulations there, well done for that. Obviously, we test these things. Height, distances, Mil-SPEC approved, once again, fantastic product, pick that up, lovely. Absolutely resistant to any height or drops, once again, in line with our Mil-SPEC. This is Charles, our producer and director back stage for the absolute event. You can see, once again, sand, coincidentally, in Manhattan, who would have thought a snow storm was occurring here, but you can throw sand. We test these things for all of the elements. I've obviously been pretty keen on our development solutions, having lived in Japan for 12 years. We had this originally designed in 1992 by (mumbles), he's still our chief development officer still today, fantastic, congratulations, a sand-enhanced notebook, he'd love that. All right, let's get back out front and on with the show. Watch the coffee. All right, how was that? Not too bad (laughs). It wasn't very impromptu at all, was it? Not at all a set up (giggles). How many people have events and have a bag of sand sitting on the floor right next to a Notebook? I don't know. All right, now it's time, obviously, to introduce our next speaker, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope I didn't steal his thunder, obviously, in my conversations just now that you saw back stage. He's one of my best friends in Lenovo and easily is a great representative of our legendary PC products and solutions that we're putting together for all of our customers right now, and having been an ex-Pat with Lenovo in New York really calls this his second home and is continually fighting with me over the fact that he believes New York has better sushi than Tokyo, let's welcome please, Christian Teismann, our SVP, Commercial Business Segment, and PC Smart Office. Christian Teismann, come on up mate. (audience applauds) >> So Rod thank you very much for this wonderful introduction. I'm not sure how much there is to add to what you have seen already back stage, but I think there is a 25-year of history I will touch a little bit on, but also a very big transformation. But first of all, welcome to New York. As Rod said, it's my second home, but it's also a very important place for the ThinkPad, and I will come back to this later. The ThinkPad is thee industry standard of business computing. It's an industry icon. We are celebrating 25 years this year like no other PC brand has done before. But this story today is not looking back only. It's a story looking forward about the future of PC, and we see a transformation from PCs to personalized computing. I am privileged to lead the commercial PC and Smart device business for Lenovo, but much more important beyond product, I also am responsible for customer experience. And this is what really matters on an ongoing basis. But allow me to stay a little bit longer with our iconic ThinkPad and history of the last 25 years. ThinkPad has always stand for two things, and it always will be. Highest quality in the industry and technology innovation leadership that matters. That matters for you and that matters for your end users. So, now let me step back a little bit in time. As Rod was showing you, as only Rod can do, reliability is a very important part of ThinkPad story. ThinkPads have been used everywhere and done everything. They have survived fires and extreme weather, and they keep surviving your end users. For 25 years, they have been built for real business. ThinkPad also has a legacy of first innovation. There are so many firsts over the last 25 years, we could spend an hour talking about them. But I just want to cover a couple of the most important milestones. First of all, the ThinkPad 1992 has been developed and invented in Japan on the base design of a Bento box. It was designed by the famous industrial designer, Richard Sapper. Did you also know that the ThinkPad was the first commercial Notebook flying into space? In '93, we traveled with the space shuttle the first time. For two decades, ThinkPads were on every single mission. Did you know that the ThinkPad Butterfly, the iconic ThinkPad that opens the keyboard to its size, is the first and only computer showcased in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, right here in New York City? Ten years later, in 2005, IBM passed the torch to Lenovo, and the story got even better. Over the last 12 years, we sold over 100 million ThinkPads, four times the amount IBM sold in the same time. Many customers were concerned at that time, but since then, the ThinkPad has remained the best business Notebook in the industry, with even better quality, but most important, we kept innovating. In 2012, we unveiled the X1 Carbon. It was the thinnest, lightest, and still most robust business PC in the world. Using advanced composited materials like a Formula One car, for super strengths, X1 Carbon has become our ThinkPad flagship since then. We've added an X1 Carbon Yoga, a 360-degree convertible. An X1 Carbon tablet, a detachable, and many new products to come in the future. Over the last few years, many new firsts have been focused on providing the best end-user experience. The first dual-screen mobile workstation. The first Windows business tablet, and the first business PC with OLED screen technology. History is important, but a massive transformation is on the way. Future success requires us to think beyond the box. Think beyond hardware, think beyond notebooks and desktops, and to think about the future of personalized computing. Now, why is this happening? Well, because the business world is rapidly changing. Looking back on history that YY gave, and the acceleration of innovation and how it changes our everyday life in business and in personal is driving a massive change also to our industry. Most important because you are changing faster than ever before. Human capital is your most important asset. In today's generation, they want to have freedom of choice. They want to have a product that is tailored to their specific needs, every single day, every single minute, when they use it. But also IT is changing. The Cloud, constant connectivity, 5G will change everything. Artificial intelligence is adding things to the capability of an infrastructure that we just are starting to imagine. Let me talk about the workforce first because it's the most important part of what drives this. The millennials will comprise more than half of the world's workforce in 2020, three years from now. Already, one out of three millennials is prioritizing mobile work environment over salary, and for nearly 60% of all new hires in the United States, technology is a very important factor for their job search in terms of the way they work and the way they are empowered. This new generation of new employees has grown up with PCs, with Smart phones, with tablets, with touch, for their personal use and for their occupation use. They want freedom. Second, the workplace is transforming. The video you see here in the background. This is our North America headquarters in Raleigh, where we have a brand new Smart workspace. We have transformed this to attract the new generation of workers. It has fewer traditional workspaces, much more meaning and collaborative spaces, and Lenovo, like many companies, is seeing workspaces getting smaller. An average workspace per employee has decreased by 30% over the last five years. Employees are increasingly mobile, but, if they come to the office, they want to collaborate with their colleagues. The way we collaborate and communicate is changing. Investment in new collaboration technology is exploding. The market of collaboration technology is exceeding the market of personal computing today. It will grow in the future. Conference rooms are being re-imagined from a ratio of 50 employees to one large conference room. Today, we are moving into scenarios of four employees to one conference room, and these are huddle rooms, pioneer spaces. Technology is everywhere. Video, mega-screens, audio, electronic whiteboards. Adaptive technologies are popping up and change the way we work. As YY said earlier, the pace of the revolution is astonishing. So personalized computing will transform the PC we all know. There's a couple of key factors that we are integrating in our next generations of PC as we go forward. The most important trends that we see. First of all, choose your own device. We talked about this new generation of workforce. Employees who are used to choosing their own device. We have to respond and offer devices that are tailored to each end user's needs without adding complexity to how we operate them. PC is a service. Corporations increasingly are looking for on-demand computing in data center as well as in personal computing. Customers want flexibility. A tailored management solution and a services portfolio that completes the lifecycle of the device. Agile IT, even more important, corporations want to run an infrastructure that is agile, instant respond to their end-customer needs, that is self provisioning, self diagnostic, and remote software repair. Artificial intelligence. Think about artificial intelligence for you personally as your personal assistant. A personal assistant which does understand you, your schedule, your travel, your next task, an extension of yourself. We believe the PC will be the center of this mobile device universe. Mobile device synergy. Each of you have two devices or more with you. They need to work together across different operating systems, across different platforms. We believe Lenovo is uniquely positioned as the only company who has a Smart phone business, a PC business, and an infrastructure business to really seamlessly integrate all of these devices for simplicity and for efficiency. Augmented reality. We believe augmented reality will drive significantly productivity improvements in commercial business. The core will be to understand industry-specific solutions. New processes, new business challenges, to improve things like customer service and sales. Security will remain the foundation for personalized computing. Without security, without trust in the device integrity, this will not happen. One of the most important trends, I believe, is that the PC will transform, is always connected, and always on, like a Smart phone. Regardless if it's open, if it's closed, if you carry it, or if you work with it, it always is capable to respond to you and to work with you. 5G is becoming a reality, and the data capacity that will be out there is by far exceeding today's traffic imagination. Finally, Smart Office, delivering flexible and collaborative work environments regardless on where the worker sits, fully integrated and leverages all the technologies we just talked before. These are the main challenges you and all of your CIO and CTO colleagues have to face today. A changing workforce and a new set of technologies that are transforming PC into personalized computing. Let me give you a real example of a challenge. DXC was just formed by merging CSE company and HP's Enterprise services for the largest independent services company in the world. DXC is now a 25 billion IT services leader with more than 170,000 employees. The most important capital. 6,000 clients and eight million managed devices. I'd like to welcome their CIO, who has one of the most challenging workforce transformation in front of him. Erich Windmuller, please give him a round of applause. (audience applauds). >> Thank you Christian. >> Thank you. >> It's my pleasure to be here, thank you. >> So first of all, let me congratulation you to this very special time. By forming a new multi-billion-dollar enterprise, this new venture. I think it has been so far fantastically received by analysts, by the press, by customers, and we are delighted to be one of your strategic partners, and clearly we are collaborating around workforce transformation between our two companies. But let me ask you a couple of more personal questions. So by bringing these two companies together with nearly 200,00 employees, what are the first actions you are taking to make this a success, and what are your biggest challenges? >> Well, first, again, let me thank you for inviting me and for DXC Technology to be a part of this very very special event with Lenovo, so thank you. As many of you might expect, it's been a bit of a challenge over the past several months. My goal was really very simple. It was to make sure that we brought two companies together, and they could operate as one. We need to make sure that could continue to support our clients. We certainly need to make sure we could continue to sell, our sellers could sell. That we could pay our employees, that we could hire people, we could do all the basic foundational things that you might expect a company would want to do, but we really focused on three simple areas. I called it the three Cs. Connectivity, communicate, and collaborate. So we wanted to make sure that we connected our legacy data centers so we could transfer information and communicate back and forth. We certainly wanted to be sure that our employees could communicate via WIFI, whatever locations they may or may not go to. We certainly wanted to, when we talk about communicate, we need to be sure that everyone of our employees could send and receive email as a DXC employee. And that we had a single-enterprise directory and people could communicate, gain access to calendars across each of the two legacy companies, and then collaborate was also key. And so we wanted to be sure, again, that people could communicate across each other, that our legacy employees on either side could get access to many of their legacy systems, and, again, we could collaborate together as a single corporation, so it was challenging, but very very, great opportunity for all of us. And, certainly, you might expect cyber and security was a very very important topic. My chairman challenged me that we had to be at least as good as we were before from a cyber perspective, and when you bring two large companies together like that there's clearly an opportunity in this disruptive world so we wanted to be sure that we had a very very strong cyber security posture, of which Lenovo has been very very helpful in our achieving that. >> Thank you, Erich. So what does DXC consider as their critical solutions and technology for workplace transformation, both internally as well as out on the market? >> So workplace transformation, and, again, I've heard a lot of the same kinds of words that I would espouse... It's all about making our employees productive. It's giving the right tools to do their jobs. I, personally, have been focused, and you know this because Lenovo has been a very very big part of this, in working with our, we call it our My Style Workplace, it's an offering team in developing a solution and driving as much functionality as possible down to the workstation. We want to be able, for me, to avoid and eliminate other ancillary costs, audio video costs, telecommunication cost. The platform that we have, the digitized workstation that Lenovo has provided us, has just got a tremendous amount of capability. We want to streamline those solutions, as well, on top of the modern server. The modern platform, as we call it, internally. I'd like to congratulate Kirk and your team that you guys have successfully... Your hardware has been certified on our modern platform, which is a significant accomplishment between our two companies and our partnership. It was really really foundational. Lenovo is a big part of our digital workstation transformation, and you'll continue to be, so it's very very important, and I want you to know that your tools and your products have done a significant job in helping us bring two large corporations together as one. >> Thank you, Erich. Last question, what is your view on device as a service and hardware utility model? >> This is the easy question, right? So who in the room doesn't like PC or device as a service? This is a tremendous opportunity, I think, for all of us. Our corporation, like many of you in the room, we're all driven by the concept of buying devices in an Opex versus a Capex type of a world and be able to pay as you go. I think this is something that all of us would like to procure, product services and products, if you will, personal products, in this type of a mode, so I am very very eager to work with Lenovo to be sure that we bring forth a very dynamic and constructive device as a service approach. So very eager to do that with Lenovo and bring that forward for DXC Technology. >> Erich, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to work with you, today and going forward on all sides. I think with your new company and our lineup, I think we have great things to come. Thank you very much. >> My pleasure, great pleasure, thank you very much. >> So, what's next for Lenovo PC? We already have the most comprehensive commercial portfolio in the industry. We have put the end user in the core of our portfolio to finish and going forward. Ultra mobile users, like consultants, analysts, sales and service. Heavy compute users like engineers and designers. Industry users, increasingly more understanding. Industry-specific use cases like education, healthcare, or banking. So, there are a few exciting things we have to announce today. Obviously, we don't have that broad of an announcement like our colleagues from the data center side, but there is one thing that I have that actually... Thank you Rod... Looks like a Bento box, but it's not a ThinkPad. It's a first of it's kind. It's the world's smallest professional workstation. It has the power of a tower in the Bento box. It has the newest Intel core architecture, and it's designed for a wide range of heavy duty workload. Innovation continues, not only in the ThinkPad but also in the desktops and workstations. Second, you hear much about Smart Office and workspace transformation today. I'm excited to announce that we have made a strategic decision to expand our Think portfolio into Smart Office, and we will soon have solutions on the table in conference rooms, working with strategic partners like Intel and like Microsoft. We are focused on a set of devices and a software architecture that, as an IoT architecture, unifies the management of Smart Office. We want to move fast, so our target is that we will have our first product already later this year. More to come. And finally, what gets me most excited is the upcoming 25 anniversary in October. Actually, if you go to Japan, there are many ThinkPad lovers. Actually beyond lovers, enthusiasts, who are collectors. We've been consistently asked in blogs and forums about a special anniversary edition, so let me offer you a first glimpse what we will announce in October, of something we are bring to market later this year. For the anniversary, we will introduce a limited edition product. This will include throwback features from ThinkPad's history as well as the best and most powerful features of the ThinkPad today. But we are not just making incremental adjustments to the Think product line. We are rethinking ThinkPad of the future. Well, here is what I would call a concept card. Maybe a ThinkPad without a hinge. Maybe one you can fold. What do you think? (audience applauds) but this is more than just design or look and feel. It's a new set of advanced materials and new screen technologies. It's how you can speak to it or write on it or how it speaks to you. Always connected, always on, and can communicate on multiple inputs and outputs. It will anticipate your next meeting, your next travel, your next task. And when you put it all together, it's just another part of the story, which we call personalized computing. Thank you very much. (audience applauds) Thank you, sir. >> Good on ya, mate. All right, ladies and gentlemen. We are now at the conclusion of the day, for this session anyway. I'm going to talk a little bit more about our breakouts and our demo rooms next door. But how about the power with no tower, from Christian, huh? Big round of applause. (audience applauds) And what about the concept card, the ThinkPad? Pretty good, huh? I love that as well. I tell you, it was almost like Leonardo DiCaprio was up on stage at one stage. He put that big ThinkPad concept up, and everyone's phones went straight up and took a photo, the whole audience, so let's be very selective on how we distribute that. I'm sure it's already on Twitter. I'll check it out in a second. So once again, ThinkPad brand is a core part of the organization, and together both DCG and PCSD, what we call PCSD, which is our client side of the business and Smart device side of the business, are obviously very very linked in transforming Lenovo for the future. We want to also transform the industry, obviously, and transform the way that all of us do business. Lenovo, if you look at basically a summary of the day, we are highly committed to being a top three data center provider. That is really important for us. We are the largest and fastest growing supercomputing company in the world, and Kirk actually mentioned earlier on, committed to being number one by 2020. So Madhu who is in Frankfurt at the International Supercomputing Convention, if you're watching, congratulations, your targets have gone up. There's no doubt he's going to have a lot of work to do. We're obviously very very committed to disrupting the data center. That's obviously really important for us. As we mentioned, with both the brands, the ThinkSystem, and our ThinkAgile brands now, highly focused on disrupting and ensuring that we do things differently because different is better. Thank you to our customers, our partners, media, analysts, and of course, once again, all of our employees who have been on this journey with us over the last two years that's really culminating today in the launch of all of our new products and our profile and our portfolio. It's really thanks to all of you that once again on your feedback we've been able to get to this day. And now really our journey truly begins in ensuring we are disrupting and enduring that we are bringing more value to our customers without that legacy that Kirk mentioned earlier on is really an advantage for us as we really are that large startup from a company perspective. It's an exciting time to be part of Lenovo. It's an exciting time to be associated with Lenovo, and I hope very much all of you feel that way. So a big round of applause for today, thank you very much. (audience applauds) I need to remind all of you. I don't think I'm going to have too much trouble getting you out there, because I was just looking at Christian on the streaming solutions out in the room out the back there, and there's quite a nice bit of lunch out there as well for those of you who are hungry, so at least there's some good food out there, but I think in reality all of you should be getting up into the demo sessions with our segment general managers because that's really where the rubber hits the road. You've heard from YY, you've heard from Kirk, and you've heard from Christian. All of our general managers and our specialists in our product sets are going to be out there to obviously demonstrate our technology. As we said at the very beginning of this session, this is Transform, obviously the fashion change, hopefully you remember that. Transform, we've all gone through the transformation. It's part of our season of events globally, and our next event obviously is going to be in Tech World in Shanghai on the 20th of July. I hope very much for those of you who are going to attend have a great safe travel over there. We look forward to seeing you. Hope you've had a good morning, and get into the sessions next door so you get to understand the technology. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. (upbeat innovative instrumental)

(rhythmic music) >> From Phoenix, Arizona, The Cube. At Catalyst Conference, here's your host, Jeff Frick. (rhythmic music) >> Hey, Jeff Frick here with The Cube. We are in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls Who Code Catalyst Conference It's a great show, about 400 people; they're fourth year. It's going back to the Bay Area next year, so I wanted to come down, talk to some of the key notes, some of the speakers. And really give you a taste if you weren't able to make the trip to Phoenix this year of what's going on. So we're really excited to be joined by our next guest, Fran Maier, she co-founded Match, she co-founded TRUSTe. Serial entrepreneur, the start-up veteran. Fran, welcome. >> Thank you so much Jeff, It's great to be here. >> Absolutely. So you were giving a presentation on really what it is to be a woman entrepreneur. >> Yes, so I've been a internet entrepreneur for now more than twenty years going back to when we started Match.com. And I joined that in late 1994. We really launched around 1995, about 21 years ago, this month, April of 1995. >> Time flies >> And many of the things that were still very much, I think, in the early years of the impact of the internet and mobile and cloud and connectivity on our lives, but Match.com has proven to be what they call a unicorn, a very successful new business model, but more than that many, many people have found their life partner or at least a few good dates on Match.com. So I am always very happy about that. >> And you're way ahead of the curve. Now, I think, I don't know, I've been married for over twenty years, but I think a lot of people that's kind of the first way >> Yeah. to meet people. >> Not the second way. Where when you guys first made Match.com, that was a pretty novel idea. >> Well, well now they call dating where like we used to do it, where you met people at parties and bars, now that's called dating in the wild. >> In the wild (laughing) >> So the more natural thing is using Match.com. But from an entrepreneurial support, I was one of the only women who was involved in starting company in the mid-1990's, still women are less than 10% of TechFounders or venture-backed founders. Women raise a lot less money. And so one of my passions and why I am here at Girls in Tech is to try and impart some of the wisdom gleamed over twenty plus years. >> So what are some of the ways that you see that barrier starting to break down? Is it just, you just got to keep banging on it and slowly and slowly it will move and >> (murmers) >> So I think there's been some difference, I think it's a lot easier to be an entrepreneur of any kind now >> Well that's true. >> than it was twenty years ago. I mean, now having meals delivered to you and the sort of support like Girls in Tech, there was very little of that guidance or certainly there were very few role models, >> Right. >> Twenty years ago. So that certainly has changed. I think another big change, and this is probably over the last two or three years, is that now women feel they can speak out loud about some of the issues. And that there is some, men are willing to listen, >> Right >> Right >> at least some are. >> We still see things like TechCrunch a couple of years ago had a team present a new mobile app called Titstare. We still hear about things like that. We still, there was a survey called The Elephant in Silicon Valley that itemized stories and stats about women and sexual abuse, other kinds of harassment, exclusion, not being invited to sit at the table. So a lot of that stuff is still going on. But I feel like we can call it out a little bit easier. >> Right, right. And it's ... >> Without retribution potentially. >> Is there, is there, kind of a tipping point event, action, that you see potentially as to kind of accelerating ... accelerating it? >> Well I think the media, since lead-in has really kind of picked up on this and discovering it. And the Ellen Pao trial, last year; I spoke a little bit about that, where she brought suit to Kleiner Perkins. She lost the suit, but it started the dialogue. >> Right. >> So I think a lot of this is, is happening and my approach is to try and ... I see, I advise so many start ups. And I see business plans. And almost invariably the business plans from women aren't big enough. They don't say "Hey we're going to be a hundred million dollar company in five years. And we need to raise five million dollars to get there." >> Right. >> Women play it more safe, and, I don't think that, I'm trying to encourage them to take more risk, to figure out how to do it, to play to win. >> Right. Play big to win, right? Playing big. >> Play big to win, yes, swing big. >> It's interesting, on the Lean In, you know Sheryl Sandberg's, I don't know if ground breaking is the right word, but certainly ground breaking. >> Surely, yeah. >> But the Golden State Warriors right now, probably the most popular professional sports team in the country, at the zenith of their success, they have a Lean In commercial. I don't know if you've seen it in the Bay Area, >> I havent seen it! >> where all of the players talk about leaning in. And it just so happens that Steph Curry, their number one superstar, >> Sure. is very close to his wife. She has a cooking show. They're very family orientated. Green ... >> But I thought you were going to ... >> Draymond Green has his mom, who he just constantly just gushes about his mom. And so they, as a male sports team, have a whole commercial they run quite frequently on specifically Lean In. >> Well I, I appreciate that. I also, though, read the article that, that team is owned by bunch of venture capitalists. They all get together and play basketball and it reminded me of a little bit of another place where women have been excluded. And so I was talking to a venture capital friend of mine saying "Buy into the Warriors, or let's buy into a women's soccer team." And you know sports being what they are, it's almost a different thing, but the news about the women's soccer players being paid much less than the men, even though they generate more income. It's just another example, profession by profession where women are paid less or have less opportunity to advance. >> But to your point, I think people understand it, it's not right, but I think everyone pretty much knows that women aren't paid the same as men. But that was interesting about the soccer story, to your point is it was brought up. >> Yeah we could talk about it. >> It wasn't a retribution, right? It's like hey, you know, we're not getting paid and they listed the numbers in Sports Illustrated. They were dramatically different. And, in fact, you know, one of the knocks in the WNBA is that you can't make a living as a player in the WNBA. You just can't. They pay them like, I don't know >> So they should have been. Yeah. >> $60,000. Whatever it is. You know they have to go play in other places, foreign countries to make enough money to live. So I do think its interesting, your point that, you know, the exposure of the problem, the kind of acceptance that we need to do something about it, does seem to be in a much better place than it used to be. >> The other thing that I think that these things illustrate is one of the messages I try and get across, is women tend to settle for too little. You know, they don't necessarily negotiate for themselves. Out of college they don't do as well. They, I've talked to many women who they felt that when they were raising capital, or negotiating deals, that the men on the other side of the table, mostly, not always of course, it sort of said, "Hey this is great, you should be happy to get this. How many women get this?" And that's not really the issue. The issue should be, you should be getting what you deserve. I learned that the hard way, we talked about it a little bit, awhile ago, where Match.com was sold in 1998 for less than $10,000,000. And I was the general manager, I had grown it, we were number one, we were cash flow positive, although probably shouldn't have been. And I walked away with a hundred thousand dollars. And, at the time, sure that's a lot of money, but nobody seemed to encourage me that I probably could have raised the money and led the investment and had an equity round. A year later Match.com was sold from Send It to ISC for $70,000,000. And of course I didn't get anything. >> Yeah. >> So that's my big lesson. The good news is, ten years later, I took TRUSTe, which was a nonprofit, switched it to a for-profit, I raised the capital, and got my ownership in equity position. But tough lesson. >> Yeah, expensive one. >> Yeah. >> But those are the ones you learn though. (laughter) >> I could go through a few of those too. So Fran, we're running low on time. I wanted to give you the last word and get your perspective on, kind of, mentorship and sponsorship. We hear those words tossed around a lot. And that there's a significant difference between just being a mentor and actually being a sponsor, taking an active role in someone else's career. Pushing them to maybe uncomfortable places. Giving them, you know, kind of, the oomph, if you will, that, "Yes you can do this, you do belong." What are you seeing kind of the development of that as people try to help more women ascend, kind of up the line? >> Well, you know, I tend to think of mentorship as something that happens within a company and sponsorship can happen within a company, but advising, sponsoring, promoting, championing, are things that we certainly need to do within the entrepreneurial community of women. So, mentoring is, I see that as a little bit more passive, and I don't know why. But, it's important to have people to look up to and for you, role models are really important. But I think the active thing of championing or sponsoring or even being a more active coach or advisor, is a little bit more hands-on and willing to challenge, you know, you're not just a role model, you're really saying, "Tell me what you're dealing with, and let me see how I can help." I just got off a phone call from one of my advisees, she just raised the money, great news, you know, now she's freaking out about how to spend it. (laughing) >> Maybe with your next problem. >> Yeah. (laughter) >> Been there, done that. >> Right, right. >> You know. >> Well, it's good, good for helpin' them out, and Fran, thanks for taking a few minutes. >> Sure. Lot of fun. >> Absolutely. Track Fran down if you're a budding entrepreneur. She's been there, she's got the scars and the wounds from the early days, and learned from it on the success with TRUSTe. >> Thank you. >> And, some great videos on the web, by the way. I was watching them, the whole story on the Match thing was pretty funny. You'll enjoy it, so take the time ... >> There's one of them where I start to cry, I hate that, but what can you do? >> I didn't get to the crying part, but that's okay. >> Yeah, yeah, that's all right. >> That's what happens in Jerry McGuire all the time. All right, well thanks a lot Fran. >> Thanks so much. >> I'm Jeff Frick, you are watching The Cube. We are in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. (rhythmic music)