Narrator: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto and Boston, it's theCUBE! Covering IBM Think, brought to you by IBM. >> Hello everybody, we're back. And this is theCUBE, and we're covering IBM Think 2020, the Digital Think, and we are covering wall-to-wall. We're here with Keith Dyer, who's the Vice President of Sales and Channels at Cisco, and Laura Guio, long-time friend to CUBE Alum, she's the General Manager of the Global Cisco Alliance, and California Senior State Exec. Folks, welcome back to theCUBE, good to see you again. >> Nice to see you, Dave. >> Good to see you too, Dave. >> Hey, I got to ask you, Laura, what's this California Senior State Executive into your title? Tell me about that. >> So, I'm responsible for all of the IBM population here in the state of California, and during this time of COVID-19, it's been very interesting, so I manage all the, as I call it, care and feeding of the employees up and down the state, and how we're responding to the shelter-in-place orders, and how IBM is responding from an employee perspective. >> Yeah, you know, I've interviewed a number of CXOs, some from both your companies, and that's the theme that we keep hearing, Keith, is: Number one is the health and wellbeing and safety of our employees, and then once that's confirmed, get to work. >> Yeah, it's a completely different environment that we're in, and I mean, Cisco and IBM both being big global companies, coming from being in offices and in environments of working closely with one another to sheltering in  home and working out of our home offices, I think the thing that both of our companies have the ability to do is to empower our folks to do that. And we're doing that, we're doing that both from an individual perspective, with our tools and our technologies, but we're also doing that together, with a lot of the things that this partnership and this alliance brings to this, which is really, you know, being able to provide IT services to remote workers and to be able to still keep this economy moving along. >> Yeah, along with our data partner, ETR, we were one of the first to report that sort of work-from-home offset, how budgets are shifting, in fact, 20% of the CIOs that we surveyed, 1200 CIOs, said their budgets were actually increasing. So, I wonder, Laura, if you could talk about the, you guys had a relationship with Cisco and IBM for a long time. Maybe, talk about some of the go-to-market highlights, and I want to double-click on that. >> Yeah, so we've had a long-standing relationship, over 20 years, that we've partnered together in the marketplace. And because of that long-standing relationship, it gives us an opportunity, not at just the very senior levels of this relationship, but all the way out to the field in the sellers, on what's needed out there from a client perspective. We're constantly coming out with new, integrated solutions, things that answer the questions and the problems that our customers are trying to solve. One in particular, right now, is called Private Cloud Infrastructures as a Service. This with Cisco Technology, and IBM Technology and Services gives the client an answer on how to get that private Cloud in their facility and not have to have the CAPEC question on getting that server portion of that in there. Cisco has a unique opportunity with IBM, to offer that customer. >> So Keith, one of the things I'd like to talk about with any go-to-market strategies is, you get together when you get a market partner and you try to identify the ideal customer, what's the right profile, What's the value proposition. And I'm wondering, just generally, what does that look like for you guys, and then specifically, how has that changed, or has that changed as a result of COVID-19? >> Well, I think a couple of things: One, one of the things where Cisco and IBM have long been partners together has been from a security perspective, and as we move into this new class of workers that are working remotely, and that are working in environments where security is paramount, and one of the work that we've done together around threat management and the way we both have put security measures and security products in place and solutions to help remote workers to be able to work with security into their networks. >> Yeah, so in our reporting, we've noted that it's not just video collaboration tools that are on the uptake, it is things like, whether it's VPNs, networking bandwidth, wide area networks, securing that remote infrastructure. So Laura, maybe, you could help us understand what IBM's bringing to the table, and maybe we can talk about what Cisco's bringing to the table here. >> Well, when you look at it from an IBM perspective, our huge client base out there from a services perspective. Generally, where we start, those customers are looking for end-to-end solutions. So when you take technologies like Cisco has, and combine it with the breadth of technology, around Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Security, that gives the ability to a client to come to one place, get that end-to-end solution, and feel secure that it is an enterprise-quality solution, that they don't have to worry about all the other part pieces they have to plug in there. >> Yeah, one of the things we've been talking about is: I was just talking to Rob Thomas about this, he said, "You know, Dave, I don't know if anything's "going to really dramatically change with COVID-19, "maybe, it is, maybe it isn't, "but definitely some things are being accelerated. "And when you think about the acceleration to Cloud, talking about the industry angle, Laura, Edge, IOT, I wonder if you guys could talk a little bit about, maybe, start with Keith, do you see there are some learnings here in this period, during this pandemic, that maybe will accelerate, sort of some of those Edge discussions, or the things that we've learned that maybe, would have taken longer to put into practice? Let us start with Keith. >> Yeah, I think first and foremost, it's just getting at the data, and being able to have that data to a decision faster, and that's the whole reason we're really investing around Edge technologies, so that we can take that data in, we can hope it helps us make decisions faster, and get to outcomes for customers better, and a part of that becomes around having the right security postures, but also then being able to link up back to the data center, which is what we do with IBM around HyperCloud. >> Laura, anything you'd add to that from an industry perspective? >> Yeah, I think that the technology that Cisco brings to the table really it helps accelerate that solution, and get what the client's looking for. We had a recent example, well, at the end of last year; we met with a number of manufacturing customers in Europe. And we took them through a solution that we have with the Edge and Security that Cisco offers, the pieces that IBM brings to the table, but the manufacturers really looked at this and said, "Wow! This really gives me that Edge technology that I need, "it provides all the security that I'm looking for, "and allows this manufacturing to line autonomously, "run without having to have that intervention "that a number of other solutions would require." >> You know, it's kind of a sensitive topic when I talk to executives, and when we talk to the CIOs and CSOs with ETR in the roundtable, there was a sensitivity to, and sort of a negative sensitivity to so-called "the ambulance chasing." And so what they don't want is, "Hey, here's a free trial for, you know, "but you got to swipe your credit card, "you have to promise to sign something. "We just don't have time for that." I bring that up because Cisco and IBM came up in this roundtable as two companies, there were others, too, by the way, that were really responding well from the customer perspective. And these were industries that were hard-hit, you know, we're talking about airlines, we're talking about hospitality, really hard-hit types of industries, and they called out IBM, Cisco, and as I say, seven or eight other companies, so I think the industry, because you guys are large companies, established companies, they expect more of you. They expect kind of adult supervision, if you will, in the room. I wonder if you could talk about, maybe, some of the other things that, but first of all, react to that, and tell me the other things, Laura, that, maybe, you guys have done, either as individual companies or jointly. >> Yeah, I'll start and I'll let Keith answer here. So, I liked the comment, "the adults in the room". What we're finding as customers are coming to companies like Cisco and IBM and saying, "Look, I need a solid enterprise solution. "I'm looking for somebody who's tested it, tried-and-true, "that you've got recognition in the industry, "that you're going to bring a complete, "solid solution forward." And so we are being tapped into as two companies, to really bring us two to the clients, they don't have a whole lot of time right now to go figure it out, and they believe in us, and what we've been able to provide for the market. >> Yeah, and one of the things that I would add to that was that the investment that both of our companies are making, really just in our customers, and helping them get through this journey. You know, we both have fantastic CEOs, who are really visionaries, and who are really beginning to look at, and how they can help accelerate our customers, so that when we get on the other side we're stronger and we're able to deliver technology, and be able to deliver to our customers. You know, Laura and I, we're inundated, almost on a daily basis of requests and support. And we've actually had a grassroots effort that really kind of bore up through our sales teams are providing education and providing services in the education sector, using IBM technology, and using Cisco Webex Technology. We've been partnering with other partners, such as Samsung and Apple, to deliver those on devices, and you know, these aren't necessarily things that came out of the CEO offices, these were solutions and efforts that are grassrooted up through our organization, because of the strong partnership that we have in the industry. >> I love that, because, I mean, we've all been touched by education, kids' remote learning, healthcare's another one. I mean, everybody knows somebody, you know, a nurse, or now the first responders, "the today's heroes", that are having to really risk their lives, literally, every day when they go into work, and that is happening on the front lines, so Keith, I appreciate your comment, that it's a grassroots effort and Laura, you got a new CEO, you know, Arvind, stepped into this and I'm excited to talk to him about his first moves, but any other color you can add to that, or other initiatives that you've seen in the field? >> Yeah, so Keith touched on it just a moment ago there, you talk about the ICUs in the hospitals. Almost a month ago when this all started, I sat there watching the news, watching people dying in the hospital without a chance to really talk to their family members, and the burden that it was putting onto the health care professionals. We came up with, I said, there's a solution there, went to Keith, said, "You know, we've got Webex, "we've got other things in the portfolio," went to Samsung, they have devices that are military-grade, that'll work there. We were able to put a solution together pretty quickly. We've got a number of hospitals that are evaluating it right now, we're almost ready to roll this out, but that just goes to a mature company that has all this security and interactions with other companies that have the part pieces that you need, and then test it, make sure it's secure, that it's enterprise-grade, and get it out there. There's not many companies in the world that can do that. >> Well, I think that goes to what you were saying before, I called it "adult supervision," but I talked to Sri Srinivasan, who runs Cisco's Collaboration division, and as they say, the CIOs told us, "You know, we're really off-put "by people trying to sell us," but what Sri told me was that Cisco made a free-offering, no swipe of the credit card, "Hey, if you buy something down the road that's fine, "if you don't, you know, doesn't matter." And that's the kind of leadership that I think people expect from companies like IBM and Cisco, quite frankly. >> Yeah, and you know, Dave, what Sri and what Chuck did there, you know, that wasn't easy to do, I mean, we've essentially doubled and almost tripled our capacity of Webex as we've gone through this, and we were just absolutely, that organization that is working well overtime, overtime, overtime. Laura and I were able to take that, take some of that technology, be able to get out in the front, and truly it's not about creating revenue right now, it's about helping get our customers through this crisis together. We'll worry about, you know, commercial opportunities that come down the road. >> Yeah, and those will happen, those are going to be outcomes of your business practices, and talking to Rob Thomas, and again, and he'd been the data angle here, all the data, the data sources, the data quality, you're seeing it. You see even the maps, you see even the real-time updates, I mean, things change, literally, on a day-to-day basis, and that's kind of IBM's wheelhouse, really. >> Yeah, yeah. And we're addressing a lot of that with what we're doing here between our two companies, and providing that solution, getting to that data, get it securely where it needs to be. We've been on the forefront of providing from an IBM perspective, around the COVID information that's being used around the world through our weather company application that we have out there. We've offered up the mainframe technologies, and our supercomputers around, be able to help hospitals and those that are working on vaccines and all of that information, so you've got to have the networking piece of that, you've got to have the technology that it works on, and then you've got to have that data that you can access and manipulate quickly to get those answers out. >> Yeah, and Cisco, IBM, it's been a partnership that made a lot of sense, there's not a ton of overlap in your portfolios, which is quite amazing given the size of your companies. You know, there is some, but generally speaking, it's been a pretty productive partnership. Keith, Laura, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE, sharing a little bit of information, and thanks for what you're doing during this crisis. Stay safe. >> Thanks Dave. Thanks Dave. >> All right, you're welcome. And thank you for watching. Everybody, this is Dave Vellante, our wall-to-wall coverage of IBM's Digital Think 2020. You're watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)