(techno music) >> Narrator: Live from Chicago, Illinois, its theCUBE. Covering LeMon 2018. Brought to you by VeeAM. >> Welcome back to the windy city everybody. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We go out to the events. We track the signal, extract the signal from the noise. My name is Dave Vellante and I'm here with co-host Stu Miniman. This is our second year here at VeeAMON. Hashtag Veeamon, simple enough. Kate Hutchison is here, she's the CMO of VeeAm. >> Yes, thank you very much for having me. Its a pleasure to be here. >> You're very welcome, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule, great show. You've painted the town in green. >> We certainly have. (laughs) >> So VeeAM obviously didn't need your expert help in creating awareness in places like this. >> Kate: Yes. >> And having a persona around around the green team. Awesome. Your background, Riverbed, Polycom, VMware, Citrix, BEA, some rockstar companies. You've got a lot of experience there. Why did you come to Veeam, and why now? >> Yes, so I was attracted to VeeAM for many reasons. We have some, as you know, some stellar attributes as a company. We've been talking about our net promoter score of 73, which is three and half times the industry average. And of course the executive team themselves, and meeting them and really wanting to be a part of that team. So that was a huge reason for me joining, but as it relates to my career and my background and what I thought I could bring to VeeAM. Very much about enterprise marketing. So I've spent about the last 20 years in the industry, as you mentioned the company names. Really helping those companies build the powerhouse brand, and so I just love being a company who is known for one thing, but is very successful that being known for something that's even broader and more strategic. And that's why I wanted to join the company. >> You mentioned the phrase powerhouse brand. What is a powerhouse brand, and how do you go about building it? >> Well everybody probably has a different definition of a powerhouse brand, but having spent a good 15 years in the Bay area, Silicon Valley, when you're walking around Silicon Valley and you say who you work for and everyone recognizes it, you're working for a powerhouse brand. That hasn't been the case with VeeAM. Now we're very strong, we do our research. We come out pretty strong it Europe, but in terms of our brand awareness in North America we have a ways to go there. Again, and I think because when it comes to building a brand and a powerhouse brand, enterprises really rely on customers to do that. To really leverage the voice of customers, to get the word out and to get the customers to go on record to talk about the power and value of VeeAM. Because when customers go on to talk about it, there really is no better marketing that you can do. >> Ya Kate, one of the things I saw. VeeAM started out with the geeks, and I say that in the most loving terms. People that did virtualization. >> Kate: Yes. >> VeeAM solved a problem, simple, huge adoption in that market, but as we've been talking about all day here, data protection is going up the stack. >> Kate: It is. >> It's hitting the seed sweep more, so. >> Kate: Yes. >> Maybe you could explain to a lot of our audience are the techies and they're like I don't understand this brand in marketing things. >> Kate: Sure. >> We just want the next little containers and things there. >> Kate: Absolutely. >> So why the brand elevation? >> So, first and foremost, we're known for one thing in the industry, as it relates to our product. It just works, and we're not leaving that behind, and certainly the enterprise cares a lot about the product, but as we go into the enterprise space, there's some things that an enterprise customer is going to look for, that an SMB may not. Enterprise is one of the assured company that they're doing business with, has long term viability. They want to make sure that there's plenty of addressable market and headroom for them to go far and above, beyond their sights of, a billion in our case. The other thing is, enterprise customers have a different way of engaging with that company, as it relates to the selling motion. So whether it's our partners, our alliance partners, our resellers, our sales teams directly, they want to be able to work with them as trusted advisors, and they want our folks to be able to anticipate their needs, well ahead of when they actually encounter them. So, we're talking a lot about a journey for our customers. We've been talking about intelligent data management, and the five stages of getting to that. So its really, its building on our core. Which has been SMB and commercial, but also now, up leveling the story, and by the way, the technologists at all companies of all sizes, want to be doing more to influence the outcomes, the business outcomes. So we're telling a story that we think will resonate with them and there's always plenty of click downs into the technology if you want it. (laughs) >> So you guys are putting a lot of emphasis on the up leveling. As Stu mentioned, CXO is becoming more aware of the data protection problem. >> Kate: Yes. >> Its becoming a board level topic. >> Kate: Yes. >> So I think I get the why now. >> Kate: Yes. >> My question is, why VeeAM? And what is the brand promise that you're going to bring to that enterprise? >> So I think, traditionally, VeeAM has been thought of as more of an S&B and commercial play. So the why now is that we have a much broader portfolio then we had a few years ago, and yet we're thought of as just back up and replication. Now, we're building on what our reputation is and back up and replication, but we want to take customers to where we know the puck is going. So for example, as enterprise customers want to take advantage of public clouds, of manage clouds, of SAS applications, they need to be able to get control of all their data. That's the one thing we hear over and over. I don't know where all my data is. Right? So they need to have a platform that can give them that visibility and that aggregated view, that single paint of glass. Then they're going to eventually want to take advantage of being able to move workloads into places where it makes more sense to have them. In cases where there needs to be tighter protection, or in the case of archive data, that they don't need to spend a lot of money on primary storage. It just depends on what our customers want to do. And, ultimately, to be able to move to more of a behavior based way of managing that data. For example, if we see malware crossing that network we can immediately respond and make sure that those workloads are secure. It could also happen as it relates to weather systems and being able to have the data be smart enough to sense and respond where it needs to move to. >> We saw some slides this morning that Peter McKay was showing, like off the platform slide, and I tweeted out that we learned years ago, working with Eric Brinyawlson and Andy McAfee that platforms beat products. >> Kate: Yes. >> So, talk about the importance of platforms through the enterprise. >> Yes, so first of all you cannot be a platform provider without an ecosystem that's embracing and extending the value, and we're working with our ecosystem through the API's, the application programming interfaces, that we make available to them so that they can integrate with our products, and actually allow our platform to be able to be the most complete platform for intelligent data management. That is not all coming from VeeAm, we are very heavily dependent on our ecosystem. >> Dave: Right. >> So that's really the crux of how important a platform is because customers have a lot of technology already in their environments. They want to make sure that if I'm buying something from you, that it'll integrate into my existing environment so I don't have to do a complete rip and replace. That's a very expensive proposition. So, we have been investing and we have thousands of technology partners that are embracing our API's and again, extending the value of our platform. >> I don't want to jump in but, I was going to ask you how you add value to those partners, and it's not just the product and the features, and doing what you say you're going to do from a product standpoint, it's having that platform that makes it easy to integrate, >> Kate: That's right. >> And creating that scale effect, that flyaway effect. >> Absolutely, and a solution that is better together. So, customers really like buying solutions that are already packaged and integrated as it might relate to Cysco and VeeAM or HPE and VeeAM or NetApp and VeeAM. That's what we've been doing with those partners in particular and really going to market together, and that is a preferred way for many customers to buy. >> Or IBM and VeeAM, or Microsoft and VeeAM, >> Yes >> Botanics and VeeAM. VMware and Veeam, we don't want to leave anybody out. >> Kate: We don't want to leave anyone out. Those three that I mentioned, we're on their price list and we are reselling. >> So that's the difference. >> Yes. That's the difference >> Okay, that's really the point. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So my question is, as you go up the stack a bit, talk about platforms and things like orchestration, >> Kate: yes >> the swim lanes get a little bit muddy, because if you talk about those same partners, the VMware, Microsoft, the Newtanics of the world. >> Kate: Yes. >> They want to own a lot of those pieces in the multi cloud world. >> Kate: Yes. >> Maybe you can help explain that. >> I think we're all probably saying some of the same words, but defining them a little differently. So when we talk about orchestration, it's very much about allowing workloads to move seamlessly across multi-clouds. To do that while the data is secure and protected, and eventually introduce, we have partnerships today that allow us to leverage artificial intelligence. So that those workloads can move seamlessly without any disruption to the business as they're moving to the right location. So yes, I think you hear a lot of the terms, but as you drill down into it and you double click on what does that mean for, in your environment, it's a little different. >> So when VeeAM decided to expand deeper into the enterprise, it's putting its money where its mouth is. I mean Robby brought in Peter McKay, he brought in a number of folks on the sale side with enterprise, now yourself. >> Kate: Yes. >> We saw Dave Russel up on stage today. >> Kate: Yes. >> He's got some enterprise jobs. >> I'm looking forward to working with him. >> You're not just talking to talk, you're walking to walk. Which is great to see, and thinking about the total available market, its a TAM expansion move, can you address that at all? >> Kate: Yes. >> I know you guys are very research oriented, as a company. >> Kate: Yes. >> You have relationships with all the big research houses. What do you see from a taman standpoint. >> Yes, so, remember that our proposition is to have the most complete platform for intelligent data management. By virtue of saying that, it really means we have to look at adjacent markets for additional capabilities to put into our platform, to ensure that we remain ahead of the competition as it relates to intelligent data management. We're looking at various adjacent markets. Whether that be through a build buyer partner strategy. So one of the largest market opportunities in an adjacency is the cloud infrastructure as a service market. It's huge. Its about 90 billion. It's got a very fast clip in terms of its compounded annual growth rate, and we've already made some pretty great progress there, both organically, as well as through the acquisition of N2WS. When we move into fast growing market segments like that, and we have many others that are adjacent as well, it's creating an addressable market of about 30 billion for us as we look out into 2022. So we're pretty excited about that, and again, that gets back to making those investments so that an enterprise customer feels confident betting their business on us. We have that scale ability. We have that addressable market, and we are increasingly helping our folks on the front lines become trusted advisors to our customers. >> In your estimation, I know some of this is hard when you're doing the analysis >> Kate: Yes. >> I used to do that for a living so I know. In your estimation is that sort of an approximation of spend, or does it include what we look at, as the money that's left on the table by the global 2000 because they have inadequate data protection. Presume it does not include that. >> Kate: Yeah. >> Because if it did, it would probably be a trillion. >> Kate: Right >> But I wonder if you can add some color to it. >> Well I think as we get into an era of compliance, we have GDPR coming down this month, I think companies are taking a new look at what does it really mean to ensure that I know where all my data is, that I ensure it's protected, that I'm sure that it's secure, and that it's in compliance. I think you're seeing more attention, more money. You mentioned earlier that this is becoming more of a sea level issue, and I think in an era of compliance and regulations that are coming down, you're going to see that only increase. >> One of the interesting things that we saw about VeeAM when we were looking at the show here, you're almost, how do I say it, a tweener. You're still kind of a startup, but you're one of the bigger companies in the space. There's a lot of buzz and energy, and customer interest >> Yes. >> In this all market thing. How do you look at yourself compared to some of the legacy giants, >> Yeah. >> And some of the new startups? >> So we are a very fast growing company. We posted 40 percent growth in Q4. We were at 36% year over year. I mean off the very big numbers. I haven't seen these numbers since I was at VMware. So that is a rapid growth company that grows up quickly when it's growing at that clip, so I think there's a part of us that's extremely paranoid about the competition and looking at some of the new entrance to make sure that we are really staying ahead and innovating, continuing to innovate. Then we look at some being legacy companies that have been in this space, and we see in some cases, a downward trend in their revenue and in their investments in this era, in this area. Again, I think it's a healthy balance of innovative and paranoid, and recognizing that customers want the solution that VeeAM offers, and they do want to be able to migrate off of the legacy systems that are out there. We are seeing that time and again. We just showed, this morning in the general session, we showed a Royal Caribbean video and that was a case where they abandoned their legacy system to go with VeeAM. >> Well that's quite a story. Nearly a billion dollars, growing at 35 plus percent a year. You got to look to companies like Service Now, Work Day. >> Kate: Yes. >> You're in that rare-ified air. Well Kate thanks so much for coming. >> Absolutely. >> Congratulations on the new role. >> Thank you. >> Really excited to see you sort of take VeeAM up into that new stratosphere. >> I'm very excited to be here. >> It's great to be part of VeeAMON 2018. Thanks for watching everybody. We'll be right back with our next guess, right after this short break. (techno music)