>> Boston, Massachusetts. It's the queue covering W T G transformed 2019 Accio by Winslow Technology Group. >> Hi, I'm Stew Minutemen And this is the Cubes. Third year at W. T. G. Transform 2019 which is the Window Technologies Group, Their user conference. Longtime compelling customer, of course. Compelling, bought by Del del Body M. C. So it's now the deli emcee user event and to help me kick off a day of content where we're gonna be talking. Toa some of the W T G executive some of their customers and some of their partners is first time guests on the program. Joe Batista, Who's a Creek and easy chief creative, apologised at Del Technologies. Joe Appreciate you making it all the way in from the suburbs to come here to downtown Boston in the shadow of Fenway. >> It was a long haul this morning with no traffic of 5 30 35 minutes in. >> Yeah, a Zeiss safe for the people. Adele. It's about the distant from Boston Towe where we live as it is to go from Austin to Round Rock. So >> there we go, >> you know, similar types of things. So I have to start create apologised. A song. You know, I did a little bit of reading and, you know, having watched Aquino, it's, you know, sparking that creativity. So I love the idea of it. You've had this title for quite a while since before you Riddell just give us a little bit about background of you know what you do, and you know why you're qualified to do it. >> Well, it was quite a fight. It's a fun brand, but literally. It sits at the nexus of business and technology, and my job's simply is to help it re image the business, because now every company's a technology company. So what does that look like? So I get involved Also, it's a really cool problems, opportunities that customers are facing by re imaging it >> well, it's funny that you say re image, because when I did my history, the oldest thing I found some article from the nineties talking about somebody from Polaroid that that title and I was actually talking to some of the young people in the office there, like everybody's using Polaroids. There's these days, it's cool. It's true. They're doing it. So what's old is new again. You know everything come back together. So luckily, you know our industry. I mean, nothing changes, right? You know, it's the same now as it was 10 years ago, 100 years ago. You know, I'll just go into the factory and pumping things out now. >> Still, you know, I've been a referee a long time, and in the old days we had swim lengths, right? You know, you thought about certain vendors. They were in swim lanes. Now, today, with the influx of cash, as I was talking about, and the level of it of even innovation cycle time and how the industry's become more fragmented with lots of products, the complexity index has increased exponentially, and the velocity around that complexity is even more accelerate. So, no, it hasn't gotten easier. It's gotten more difficult. >> Yeah, fascinating. Actually. I just heard a segment on our national public radio station here in Boston talking about that. One of the biggest changes and how people think over the last few decades is we're better at recognizing patterns. Used to be, we could be an expert on something and do our thing, you know. We know the old trope is well, you know. My grandfather, you know, worked at a company for 30 years and did his same thing today. Things are changing constantly. You know, we didn't have, you know, the power of a supercomputer in our pocket, you know, 10 years ago, you know, let alone even older. So, you know, this is a user conference. So you know what air they did do. I mean, if if I understand, if I'm, you know, making a decision today for my business. And oftentimes that decision is something I need to live with for a while. How do I make sure that I'm making the right decisions That's going to keep me, you know, you know, keeping up with the competition and keeping my business moving forward as things constantly change. >> Yeah. So there is no easy answer to that question. There's a couple of thoughts and hasn't said in the presentation. You gotta look at these vectors that impacted trajectory of the thinking. And I love the Peter Drucker coat. Right. If he using yesterday's logic probably gonna get in trouble, you have to rethink the logic. In the example I gave you was the high jumper and how we did high jumping before and after 1960. So? So the question becomes one of those vectors, and I went through some of those vectors to help people think about, Okay, I do. My analysis on technology, that's all good. And, uh, tell technology you got a huge portfolio of technology. But how do you think about the perimeter? About how those things change over depreciation cycle. So is trying to add a little bit more color in there, thought processes. And I got a lot of post questions afterwards and a lot of engagements. So it seemed to resonate with the field. And I'll tell you what. The thing that they like the most was the business conversation off. They're like, you know, we don't do that enough. >> Yeah, right. I mean, you know, when we look at the successful companies today, it is not, You know, we've been talking for years, you know? Does it matter? Is it just a cost center? And it needs to be if it isn't helping the business drive forward and responding to what the business needs, uh, you know, could be replaced. That's where we got. Shadow it. It's It can't be the nowhere the slow needs to be. When the business says we need to go, you know, get on board and drive. I love one of the analogies you used is, you know, in this world of complexity, there's so many things out there, You know, when I've worked with, you know, enterprises and small cos you look at their environments and it's like, Oh my God, it's this Hedorah genius mess, you know? How do we standardize things? How do we make things easier? You had a fun little analogy talking about space. Maybe, maybe. >> Okay, that was good. I always try to use visuals as much as possible. So high, high, high light with challenges. So the challenge was, Oh, actually have it in my pocket. So they pulled this out and basically what it is. If you look at the international space shuttle, that's the only thing that they need to fix anything on Specialist 7/16 inch socket or the millimeter version of it. I can't read. Excited my glasses on to fix anything. So imagine if I had one tool to fix anything that's Nirvana. That's not reality. I have to fatigue. So I need to get to that simplicity. Its glasses law remember, every 25% increase in function shin is 100% increase in complexity. And that's public enemy number one for us. >> All right, so So you hopped on board the Dell family relatively recently, when most people think, Adele, it's well, you know, Delpy sees, you know, talk to my you know, my parents. They're like they know Dell computers. They've used them forever. You're talking most people, you know, Del servant. Like you talked a lot about your presentation software is eating the world. Give give us how you know where Del fits in that software was eating the world picture. >> Well, what I can tell you, though, is I was absolutely amazed when I did my due diligence about all the innovation that happens in this company. Phenomenal not only about the hardware but the soft. And I think actually, Jeff said it best. I think we have more software engineers now that we have heart hardware engineers. So the pivots there, we're pivoting our talent, the software, but it's the innovation that's in this company. And I think I kind of rattled off a couple of statistics by how much we spend the quantity of I p that we have. And I think customers are amazed at that innovation. But the supercharger on is okay. How does the innovation apply to the business mechanics of the company? And what value do you extract from it? And that's where the whole language and conversation usually happens with us. I will tell you, though, I'm really excited that Del Technologies kind of doubling down on business outcomes. They're really trying to change the culture and helping customers understand what the technology >> means. Yeah, one of things that struck me. I've been to this event now for a couple of years, and, you know, there's a lot of product discussion here, you know, when you get down to the channel, it's like, Okay, great. You know, I'm doing a server refresh. I'm looking to things like hyper convert, you know? What am I doing in my network? You know, when you up level things a little bit, You know, when I went to del World, it's like, you know, we hear about the venture, you know, activity that's happening around and things like coyote coming down the pipe. But How does that trickle down to the customers? That talking event here? It's great to talk about innovation, but, you know, I got to run my business. You know what? You know. Where does Del fit in that picture >> for you? Got it? Well, it's a custom you got to do both, right? So this has got to be a shift, because now I have to think differently, right? I know how to do feature analysis and benefit analysis of a point in time product, but what's the periphery of activities that inspecting, impacting that decision? Does that architectures scale? What are the economics around that? So you need to think about all those things. And I think it's just a journey for not only us as a vendor, but also for customers as well. >> Okay, so you're relatively new in today. L I want to ask you You gave a great quote in your presentation from from Jack Welch. Er said if the rate of change outside the company is greater than inside the company, the end is near. >> I would say the post. >> So, you know, explain to us the pace of change inside of del technologies. >> Well, you know, that's That's a That's a big question. I mean, piece of change varies by organization by business unit I really can't comment on your individual business units, but I will say, though there's a definite desire toe. Understand? We're customers interested. He is there. So what's the customer trying to dio? And then how do we satisfy the customer request? It's a matter of fact. I don't know if you know this and it was amazing because that's what the customer the other day, you know, Stevie Awards. Which a customer satisfaction, which we double down on customer satisfaction. We have a customer chief customer officer was Karen, and we just won 15 Stevie Awards, which is about customer satisfaction. So I think there's a slow shift, but there's a real focus on customer Central City. For us, the velocity will get there. But if you put the customer at the center like we do, that's a winning strategy. >> Yeah, well, yeah, we know Karen Kim does quite well, you know, culture and working with customers. You know, quite dio you talked about the portfolio of companies and l We know Del Bhumi quite well. We've done their event in the team were well, and you know, VM wears no slouch in the industry. I've had one of the pleasures of my careers. You know, I started working with him. Where when they were, like, 100 person company. No, watch them grow and pack. El Singer, I think was just named like the number one number two, you know, CEO work for employees by employees from glass doors. So, you know No, no slouch on the the venture family. So congratulations, toe Dale family on all that. >> Thank you very much are exciting. >> Joe Batista. Thank you so much for joining me here at the W T. G. Transformed 2019. Pleasure to catch up with you. Appreciate the opportunity. All right, so we're here with customers, the executives, and digging into all the industry trends. Of course. Check out the cute dot net for where we will be. And, uh, I think it was always for watching the cube

(music) >> From Boston, Massachusetts, it's The Cube. Covering WTG Transform 2019. Brought to you by Winslow Technology Group. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and we are in the shadow of Fenway Park. It's the third year we've had The Cube at The Winslow Technology Groups user evert, which is now called WTG Transform and it's 2019. Joining me is the president and founder of Winslow Technology Group, Scott Winslow. Thanks so much for joining me and for the second year of Scott, I say do, thank you for making the name of the show simpler for me to say. WTG Transform rolls off the tongue. >> Our marketing folks were happy to accommodate you, Stu. But we're delighted to have The Cube back. You guys do such a great job watching the industry, observing the industry, asking the great questions. So delighted to have you here. >> Well, and thank you, we always love talking to the users and you've got 189 users here. The company, itself, is now 50 employees, 35% growth last year. So congratulations and give us a little bit about what's happening at a macro level that are driving some of that, the growth in your business. >> Yeah, thank you, it's been, it's been a fun ride. I mean, we're in the right industry first of all, right? The server storage, hyperconverged infrastructure, networking, hybrid cloud solutions it all continues to grow. Data growth is explosive, so I think we happen to be in the right industry. That's certainly driving the growth. Our partnership with some of the key partners here. Partners like Dell, VMware, Nutanix, Arctic Wolf, Aerohive. You know, I think we've saddled up with the right horses there. And we've really got really a great team, on the sales side, but pre-sales engineering, post-sales engineering. So when you combine all of those factors together, it's led to some nice growth. I put some numbers up. Privately held companies don't usually share those numbers. We do like to share'em with our customers. And, you know, we're a $37 million company last year. We're going to be 47 plus this year and we feel like on our way to be a $100 million reseller by 2022. So it's real exciting. >> Well once again, congratulations on that and what's really interesting to watch is, you know, you started out selling Compellent. And Compellent got bought by Dell a few years back. Dell bought EMC. Those are some of the big inflection points in your business. And you've had some great insight on, you know, especially the things I've talked to you the last few years when we first met you at Dell World and through this transition of, you know, Dell going from just being Dell to being, you know, a bigger player in the enterprise market. They've now gone, as you said, VMware, all the hyperconverge, all of these tail winds for their growth have been part of what's been accelerating your growth. So give us the state of the state when it comes to Dell. How are they doing with the channel? How are they doing with the product, the solution, the innovation that Joe Batista talked about this morning? From Dell, how is that trickling down to you as a partner and, ultimately, your customers? >> Yeah, I mean, we first got involved with Dell back in 2011, as you referenced, when they acquired Compellent. We were concerned about it, at the time. We wondered how we could fit into the ecosystem of this, at the time, $60 billion company. Little did we know, it would be the best thing that ever happened to us, cause we were really, kind of, a boutique shop selling storage and now we've got the full line. And they've got the widest portfolio in the industry, you know, servers, storage, networking, hyperconverged solutions, obviously VMware. And so it's been a great relationship for us. You know, I think their relationship with the channel is good. I wouldn't call it simple. It is at times complex. They do about 40% of their business through the channel. You've got direct sellers out there that are very good that sometimes want to take the business direct, but you looked at the growth numbers that we have and we've accomplished that as a Dell-centric partner. So at the end of the day, and I think this is Michael's argument kind of to the partner community, is that we've been able to grow our business. Some companies will have a ceiling and say, okay all this business below a certain amount is partner business. You know, Dell doesn't have that. You have to kind of navigate your way through the system, but if you develop the kind of relationship that we have with them where there's some trust, they see our capabilities to, you know when you're driving 200 end users to an event like this, you know even large OEMs like Dell, take notice cause it's the ability to drive new logos for their business. So we think the relationship has been really good. I'd give'em, you know an A-. I'd say in terms of their portfolio, I'd give'em an A. In terms of the channel relationships, you know we have squabbles now and then, but in general, I think the relationship is very good. >> Well the thing we know in the industry is that there is no thing as perfect. >> Right. >> And that there needs to be change and growth along time and sounds like they're listening and working with you know, you, your peers in the industry to work that. I know there was a little bit of concern, you know when EMC came into the picture. You're in EMC's backyard here. >> Right. >> And there was some really big EMC channel partners and what would that mean to the companies that had been with Dell and it seems like you're navigating that quite well. >> Yeah, we've been able to find our niche in that ecosystem. You know it's, I'm not saying it's always been easy, but you know we're really starting to sell the PowerMaxes and Unitys and IBPAs and Isilon and getting away from just being that sort of, Compellent-centric partner. I think a couple of the benefits that came out of the merger, one is if you look at Dell's server business and I referenced this in my opening comments, over the last eight quarters they've taken six or seven points a share in the server market from their competitors, HP and Cisco. And that's really the result of the merger and having that additional sales bandwidth. So that's been fantastic for our business and for theirs. I think if you look, like at Dell end user compute, that was never a big part of our business. We kind of got into that over the last four or five years, really at the behest of the Dell sales team. And that's been a big win for us, surprisingly enough, particularly with the Windows 7 to 10 migration. Our end user compute business it through the roof. I gave our sales team too low of numbers on that, they're all about 160% of quota. (laughs) So going to have to fix that next year. >> All right well always tip to the sales rep, if you have a good plan (laughs) max it out because they will adjust it later. >> Exactly. Exactly, pay back is a you know what. (laughs) >> So Scott, one of the biggest changes I've seen in your business, in the last year is, you know you've been deep with Dell for many years. And with the Dell XC, which is the Nutanix OEM, is something that you were on early. You were a strong partner there, Nutanix. Still a strong partner, but today it is a mix of both the Dell XC and the VxRail from Dell EMC. So talk a little bit about, you know why that changed. How that's going, you know, how customers are seeing things these days? >> Yeah, I mean absolutely, we were on very early with Nutanix and we very much believe in their product and the software solution set that they've put together. I can remember Alan Atkinson, from Dell, standing up and saying, "This is our HCI solutions, could be Nutanix on Dell compute." And you know, we've got, you know 55+ really happy customers out there and we continue to sell that solution. And we've got a lot, very good customer satisfaction. That relationship's not going away. Despite what some people may say in the industry. The fact is they've got 35,000 units out there. There's a billion dollar pipeline of XC series. And there's a gentleman that runs the server business at Dell that wants to make sure that doesn't go away cause that's one of the reasons that Dell is doing so well in the server business. Now having said that, you know our take on it has been, hey let's have two of the best products in the industry in our quiver. That being XC series Nutanix and VxRail. You know initially when VxRail first came out, we didn't think that it had some of the capabilities that it needed and as it's evolved, we think that VxRail's gotten a lot better and it's a lot more competitive. Certainly in a VMware environment, a very strong player. And if you look at the numbers, they're doing very well with VxRail and so are we. So right now, we've got the one and two horse in the industry. We think it's great for us to be able to go our customers. We give our AEs and our SAs in the field the ability to evaluate the opportunity. What are the requirements of the customer and do we think that either XC series Nutanix or VxRail will be the better fit? And we feel like either way, it's a win for us and a win for the customer. >> So Scott, feedback we heard at Dell World is that, you know the Dell team is really trying to put their thumb on the scale. To really incent the field to sell VxRail. The XC is there, as you said. You know, Ashley and the server team, you know, they want to sell servers, but you know all things being equal, they're not equal. They want to sell the full Dell stack. So is there any of that that impacts what you're doing or you know pretty much from your standpoint, it's customer choice. We understand there's never one best solution out there and it is often differentiation in there. Obviously, one is only VMware. One has multi-hypervisor including a you know, built in hypervisor, there. There's definitely, it's tough to line these up and compare them. There are differences there, but what's the impact of kind of Dell's positioning and you know, what customers, how do they determine what to use? >> At the end of the day, the rubber meets the road at the customer. I mean we've got to, we always say within our company, we have to be aligned first with the customer. What do they want? What's the best fit for the customer? Now internally, inside the inside baseball, within of our what we say is we've got to grow both businesses. We've got to grow our Nutanix business, which we did significantly last year. And we have to grow our VxRail business, which we did. And that way we keep both groups happy. And we're able to offer a nice portfolio. So I think that's the best way to approach it. >> All right Scott, why don't I give you the final word, is this the 16th year of your event here? >> It's 16th year of the company, 15th year of the event. >> Okay. All right, so give us the final takeaway. I know you've got a lot of meetings. Got a lot of activity. >> Yeah. >> Give everybody the final takeaway from Transform. >> Well it's been a great event, thus far. We've got, you know more breakout sessions to go. We got the ballgame tonight. Chris Sales is on the mound, so that's always exciting. We got a lot of winning ball teams here in Boston, but for us it's just growth. More customers are here, more partners. We've got more going on in the hands on lab. Our expo hallway, there's more product there. More subject matter experts. You know we have a lot more going on in terms of security this year. With Arctic Wolf being here, our VP of PS, Matt Kozlowski's going to walk through a little cyber security case study. And so I think we're doing more on security. And certainly we've just got kind of more of all the solutions that we offer. And we're delighted to have an even bigger group here this year. So onward and upward, I guess, is the final word. >> All right, onward and upward. Scott, thank you so much again for sharing the updates on your company, as well as what's happening with all your users. And we always love those user stories. So, I've got a full day of coverage here at WTG Transform 2019. I'm Stu Miniman and thank you for watching The Cube. (electronic music)