>> Voiceover: Live from Las Vegas it's theCUBE. Covering NetApp Insight 2017. Brought to you by NetApp. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. Live in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE's exclusive coverage of NetApp Insight 2017. I'm John Furrier, the cohost of theCUBE; co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media here with Keith Downson, my cohost for the day. CTO Advisor. Our next guest is Brett Roscoe; vice president of process solutions marketing at NetApp; and Madge Miller, who's the director of Worldwide Public Relations PR. So, how're you guys feeling? The end of the day. A lot of action. >> A lot of stuff going on. >> I thought that was why they reinvent; all these announcements. Almost we needed another keynote. >> We do. We definitely do. A lot of really great announcements happening this week, and a lot of really big excitement in the halls about what is happening with our announcements. And you know Microsoft, HCL. >> John: How many did you have, roughly? >> We had three but we wrapped them into our >> John: Oh really? >> Only three, three big ones >> John: Three big ones? >> Three press releases, right? >> Yeah three big ones >> We had multiple functions, multiple products in each one. >> I mean it felt like it was 60 announcements >> Yeah, yeah it did >> But you packaged them up into three >> Yes, to map to our three IT imperatives and to map back to the data visionary transformation that NetApp has been undergoing this past year. >> John: So you've been busy? >> Very busy. >> Herding the cats internally putting it all into blocks so three transformation zones are: 1. Data center, traditional data center modernization and extension. Next generation data center, and then power of cloud. >> Brett: Yeah, harnessing the power of cloud, absolutely. >> Harnessing the power of the cloud. Which is on everyone's mind. As a portfolio, not a product any more, because in the old days you had the product, now it's a portfolio the data fabric is really kicking new territory now. How do you put that together when you take it to the market? Because you know representative notations are great but customers are different; you can't just put one customer in a box and say there are ten other customers like that because they might have a mix of hybrid cloud, a little bit of on-prem. >> Yeah well if you hear, I'm sure you've heard, Data Fabric that is our, that's how we talk about connecting the hybrid cloud so that spans really all three of those so whether you're in a modernized next gen data center or a hard sparrow cloud the data fabric kind of spans all of those and it creates a unique story for NetApp about how we break down boundaries between traditional on-prem and cloud-based environments. So that really spans a portfolio right but then when you get into these different solutions even though there might be something around modernize we still talk about how you're going to harness the power of the cloud within that modernized capability. So all our announcements this week, it's really cool to see that hybrid cloud capability coming through all of that. It's one of the key investments in our product roadmap and you're seeing that come as we new capabilities. >> OK Jean did a great job on the marketing but I get excited by Sheila FitzPatrick because she's driving the passion around privacy which is not so much security but it's data security, data privacy, data as tech, data for developers. You've got governance going on, you got privacy; GDPR going on in Europe. So you guys are in a lot of touch-points you've got a lot of irons in the fire relative to the market opportunities outside the core base. >> Brett: Right. >> What's the plan, because everyone's like "What's my reference implementation, how do I use NetApp?" >> Well we started using use case terminology. We have nine different use cases that we use. So that's really about the issue or the problem or the project the customer's working on right so if they're trying to build, if they're trying to accelerate a traditional application or if they're trying to harness new modern data services from the cloud. Or if they're trying to build DevOps environments. So we use that buyer journey to come in and talk to the customer and say "This is what we think you're trying to do. Here's the unique capabilities with our portfolio that we can bring to that solution." So we really try to make the product the last part and we really talk about the capabilities across the portfolio; how they address and differentiate us into each of those use case environments. So that's really the way we try to simplify it so we're not talking about all these different products, we're talking about NetApp's capabilities. >> So I was pretty impressed with the keynote yesterday we got an hour into the keynote without even mentioning a product. However this conference has typically, has traditionally been a storage conference. So how has the average attendee as you've walked the floor and as you've talked to the customers and attendees. How have they been receptive of that message of data first and now today we get to the meat of actual speeds and fees? >> I think really the thing about the conversation that NetApp is having now and just like you saw on stage at the keynote is that we are allowing people to elevate their role within their organization. So everyone is coming to the IT department and saying you know "How do I create these new services, how do I monetize data?" and now we're giving our folks that we've worked with traditionally for years the opportunity to step in that conversation and be experts and really come and be the hero in that conversation just like you saw on stage. So they can take their knowledge of those speeds and fees and they can come in and interpret them for new services new revenue models for data. >> And you guys did a great job with the A-team you had a bunch of them on here in theCUBE. They had the greatest analysts come in because they're on the front lines. They're a mix of tech geeks and also partners. >> Yeah they're great advocates right? And I also spent the whole day meeting with our analyst community as they come away to get their impressions and they were very positive, very excited. They've kind of been on this journey with us and watched us transform as we go through our own digital transformation about becoming a data-focused company. Around meeting customer needs and how they extract value and create new customer touchpoints and optimize operations and look for new innovative ways to use data. >> Alright so where is the focus in the solutions and also the comms. is important to because as you have comms. and solutions. You're like on the landscape looking at all the community action going on. You've also got to look at what's going on in the narrative of the industry; for thought leadership. You got to come in and pick and choose your resources for instance the Cloud Native Compute Foundation is one of the hottest things on the planet for Cloud. So that's more open source but there's a lot of influencers in there; a lot of A-tea potential. You've got to make some choices So as you go out to the market how do you look at the landscape because there's almost too much to do for you guys. If you hit every single piece, where is the focus? >> Yeah, I think that's really where our core message of being the data authority in the hybrid cloud world comes in and looking back at those three IT imperatives that we talked about. Really our focus is on building out those core strengths and that's really what you saw from our announcements at the show, is building up to those core strengths that we have and continuing to build them out. >> About customer and community sectors. Open source obviously is still growing like crazy. >> Open source is important for us. Looking at hyperscalers is very important for us looking at cloud native partners as we go forward you know which is part of what our announcement with Microsoft was about today is moving more into that cloud native conversation as NetApp with our core services and things that we're really known for and made us who we are today. >> Brett you've got to look at the cloud thing with Microsoft, I mean now not only are they a great channel for you guys >> Brett: Yeah. >> And you guys have got to step up to the plate and deliver some good value because you know they're finicky, they have sales guys out on the streets. Got to be reliable to be rock solid so pressure's on you but this opens up a lot of doors for NetApp doesn't it? >> Well yeah I think it's a fantastic opportunity for us right? It's an honor that Microsoft chose us as a partner in this space but at the same time I do believe that we are the best, we have the best capability in this space right? A true scalable enterprise capability that we bring to others I think is going to be right. It's going to hit the heart of the market for them and really provide a high quality, high enterprise scale kind of service. So I think, I'm super excited that this partnership came together; I think it makes total sense you look at the number one hyperscaler, the number one data vendor out there and you say they've come together to address customer needs. >> Alright here's the trick question at the end of the day to see what I can get out of you Dave Alanti and I.. >> All: (laughter) >> You know we're good at trick questions. >> OK this is good. >> We always fall for them, we're totally good at that. >> I shouldn't have said that on theCUBE. This is more of a philosophical question because David Alanti always thought like, "Never fight fashion." Fashion is key in success because you can ride the wave and be fashionable. So the question is what is the fashion in the market that you see? Because you guys now are at a level in my opinion where you can walk in the front door of all the thought leader theaters and say "Hey cloud native guys, we've got a great story for you." "Hey governance, we've got a great story there." So you have now a whole new level of territory that you can take down and have conversations in. So that comes to the fashion question. What's fashionable that you guys are focused on? If that's the fashion trend then what is NetApp wearing? >> Which designer, what designer? >> Are they wearing designer cloud native? Are they wearing..? >> Not my best analogy; you didn't hit my strong point. You could have used a sports analogy or something like that. >> If you were a baseball team? >> No, no, no she's all ready. >> No go ahead you do fashion. >> You do yours Brett no no no do a sports analogy. >> Go ahead, go ahead. >> West Coast offense of course. >> Yes we could totally do a fashion analogy I think that what you saw us wearing today around our data fabric momentum, around our cloud announcements, even around the digital customer experience with Elio and Active IQ. The way we're using our partnership with Watson, IBM Watson. Those are the types of things that you'll see from us in the future. The customer experience message really is around us using our own systems and amplifying those in a way that we hope our customers will in the future so you'll see a lot more of those types of things from us into, you know, into the next fashion season. >> And the old expression, if you've got sizzle a bit have the steak and again nice fabric you're wearing. >> So, since we're talking in analogies you guys are actually building up a lot of political capital. The Microsoft announcement gives you, from an optics perspective you can, that gets you into the door. "Hold on, this NFS thing is powered by NetApp?" Opens up a set of conversations with a completely different set of customers. How do you spend that capital next? What's the next level of conversations with CIOs, CDOs, CMOs? >> John: CXOs, yeah. >> Well you know we're in those conversations today right. So we've had on-tap cloud and several even pure SaaS-based products for a while and they're making great traction, there's huge growth in those new products. Obviously with the Microsoft partnership it allows us to actually reach, I'm excited about hitting new buyers that may have not seen NetApp as a vendor that that would leverage, maybe just through association or maybe their persona or the job they do wouldn't put NetApp right in front of them so now we have a new audience, right? We have a whole new audience that we can show our value. You know we, I think will have ways to work with Microsoft to bring additional capabilities into that service that they're going to provide, and how do we work with them to do that and make sure that customers see value, see additional future capabilities that they can leverage from us, it's a tremendous opportunity. It's now, it's our market, to go this is our opportunity to go show value to them. This is a great opportunity and we need to take advantage of it, and it ours to dip into. >> You guys are going to take more territory, great stuff. We're going to give you guys the final word in the segment. but for the folks who couldn't make it, they're watching this segment. Share with them what were the key things here happening that they should know about and take away from NetApp Insight? What are the key things? >> Brett, you want to take this one? >> You start and I'll finish. >> OK, we'll tag team this one. I think the big thing obviously is the Microsoft announcement. It's us moving more into that cloud native territory. That's a really big one. Also the digital customer experience the Elio and Active IQ for customer support. I think those are very big too showing us using our own capabilities for our customers as a company. >> OK, look I think you said it earlier; portfolio announce. We continue to come with multiple, with several new capabilities across the portfolio, right? And I think if you look at our focus which is hey we're building more software capability, we are building more hybrid, more capabilities in the cloud. More capabilities in hybrid; enforcing that data fabric message. I tell you, I know I'm biased, but nobody does it better. Nobody can come in and provide the position that NetApp has to help customers through this transformation leveraging cloud, leveraging new technologies, new microservices into their architecture in a way that we do it that is seamless and easy. >> And the cloud orchestrator is just one example of that's multi-cloud. >> Absolutely. >> You've got to shift to be first to market with true multi-cloud right out of the gate so congratulations and sorry to hear about all the tragedy that happened around your event you guys handled it with class and respect, thank you. >> Yeah it was definitely a tough situation I thought the entire leadership team did a fantastic job of working through that. >> Props to the NetApp leadership and the whole team. It's theCUBE here live in Las Vegas, the Mandalay Bay for the NetApp insight 2017. We'll be back with more after this short break. (technology music) >> Narator: Calling all barrier-breakers, status quo