>> from Boston, Massachusetts. It's the queue covering W T. G transformed 2019 by Winslow Technology Group. >> Hi. I'm Stew Minutemen. And this is the Cuban W. T. G. Transformed 2019 here home game in Boston, Massachusetts, our third year. The event happened a Welcome back to the program. Second time on the program in less than a year. Matt Kozlowski, Who's the vice president? Professional services, Winslow Technology Group. Thanks so much for joining. Thank you. Alright, uh, second tie I've had on the program, but first vest and cufflinks you like today. So, you know, showing your own individual style for, >> like, the Ted talk. Look, >> Absolutely. So we will keep this under 18 minutes. Okay? Probably be more like about 12 theirs and no slide. But you tell us a story of change and inspiration. Uh, you know, in all seriousness there what? I actually want to hear the story of change that we're seeing inside of Winslow attack. So, um, you know, question I asked, You know, some of your peers in the company is, you know, if I thought about Winslow attack, you know, just a couple of years ago, it's like, Oh, hey, great deal, partner. No, the pellet side, you know, picking up the servers and some of the other pieces. Yeah, Here, you bring it on Brook board on board. You know, professional services security. Uh, you know, tell us a little bit about you know what? What were you doing since last time we caught up? >> Sure. So if you think about years ago where we had not just winslow but like bars as a whole came from it was, like, way sell boxes and we sell things. And now we're transitioning where people are using cloud or the hybrid cloud models. And they're actually using software in infrastructure as services and way need, like professional services and consulting to help people on that journey. That's like the simplified version of it. >> Yeah, and just, you know, I want to play something back for you and see if it resonates with you. You know, if I go back, you know, let's say 5 to 10 years ago, it was, you know, we get the boxes and the bar gets it, and they've got to spend a lot of work to configure it and do all the pieces. And, you know, that kind of day. One roll out when we talked about OK, how many months from when the equipment got to the bar versus when we're up and running? When we rolled out converged infrastructure, hyper converged infrastructure and all this cloudy stuff, it actually shifted things backwards. Now, before it gets there, there's a lot of work that either the customer or the partner with the customer needs to do so. It shifted it because once it gets on site, well, there's less wiring and cabling. You configuration I need to do. But it just shifted where that engagement service happened. It did not eliminated that what you're saying? >> Yeah, so there's a lot in terms of like planning. I mean, even, like integration work that we do ahead of time. >> I would say things that have changed even over the last, like three or four years is like the complexity of everything is gone up like we're trying to simplify it. We're simplifying maybe the delivery of it and users. But behind the scenes, certainly it's It's more complicated, I would say, than than ever. >> Yeah, you know it. We're no longer just, you know, let's lock the door and Hafiz of Security and put the firewall in place. Right now, it's like, Oh, well, it's micro segmentation in all the places and my application spread out across. You know how many locations, how many services from and therefore write everything has become a little bit >> more and more >> complicated, eh? So how do we make sure we stay secure in 2019? >> So I think there's a couple areas they're so first is, like maintaining that same kind of sense of securing people, infrastructure and things along those lines that we've kind of been doing for a while now that your basic like firewalls and even vulnerability assessments and things like that. But I think over the last couple years and this as we move to like more of like distributed workforce, like people working from home, people working remotely, finding like the right people, there's gonna be more of a focus on like and point protection and, like protecting users at, like the end point >> or the mobile level on them than ever before. >> Um, >> a lot of talking the keynote this morning, amount cloud. Yeah, and you said, you know, where does that put things so, you know, give us from your standpoint. You know, obviously services were hugely important piece of it, you know, a CZ the box. And the location becomes a little bit less important, despite the fact that even when you have things like server list, we know that there's ultimately hardware sure runs underneath it somewhere. You know, what were those Winslow play today and in the future? >> Okay, so I'm gonna give you two kind of conflicting answers to that. So the 1st 1 is, if you look at reasons why people don't go to the cloud, it's there not comfortable in the security of it. I'll say in like the my like, real world, not in the academic or statistical version of it. One of the reasons people do go to the cloud is for security, right? Look a like a lot of health care organizations are goingto like cloud based electronic medical record systems. I feel like that in some ways has insulated or shifted >> some of the burden of the risk and keeping those systems secure to the provider that's hosting them. >> Which is probably better for us, his patients, right, And for the health >> care providers in general. In that case, >> yeah. You know, one of the things we know is that what you need to do as user is you can't just keep doing things the old way because your competition will move faster. Right? And we know from a security standpoint, my friends that aren't even security is like you need to be able to move fast. One of the great things about the cloud is you know, if I'm running on Azure eight of us Hey, that latticed latest patch in that security vulnerability did that get rolled out? Well, I'm not responsible. Yes, they absolutely right. I didn't have to wait for that roll out, you know? So So there's that piece of it. So you know, just how do I keep up obtained? I need to, as as user, do some updates, and therefore, I'm not saying everything goes in the public cloud, but how do I make sure that it's not? Oh, I update my software every two years, or it's I need to make sure that I'm closing those gaps and vulnerabilities of taking advantage of words. I >> think there's going to be like a shift in changing from like normal. CIS admits they're thinking about like patching Windows and patching Lennox and operating systems. But, like once we move information to the cloud and you think about it, more is like information security. So now data is in the cloud. I'm not patching the system's anymore because we'll just assume that, you know, eight of us Microsoft. They're doing a great job with that. But like once data say is in one drive like how my governing, like where that data's going, who's accessing it, who it's being shared with, how it's being backed up things along those lines. It's just a different mindset that people need to adopt, you know, in relation to securing information, not systems. All right, >> man, I'm trying to figure we gotta replace Patch Tuesday with some celebration or some battering event where we can try to tackle some of the some of these new challenges there, You know? What does that mean to some of the changing roles that you're seeing in the customers, though? I guess here here went to attack. You know, I was talking to Arctic wolf in a typical customer, you know, doesn't have their whole security team that runs 24 7 That's where your partner with that. So you know, we're just security fit in. The organization has said, If it was a large enterprise, you know, it's a four level discussion. You know you've got your sea. So where somebody like that, what does the typical kind of mid to small sized company security team look? >> Yeah, it looks like I'm gonna partner with someone. Or that's what it should look like because, like even if companies have like a managed provider, that's doing like patch management and things along those lines, there's something to be said for having like 1/3 party in another party party, like as your security partner, Because if the people that air like doing the patching, they're probably doing a great job at it. But, like you might not want them being the ones also doing like your vulnerability assessments. It's good to have, like different parties in there, So I feel like for smaller medium businesses, it's getting comfortable partnering on and using like professional services. Frankly, Tio to do that. All >> right, so it's really interest Matt next week. Actually, Amazon is holding a cloud security show here in Boston called Reinforced. So, uh, you know, Boston seems an interesting place, You know, the arse. A conference has always been out in San Francisco. Give us kind of the state of security here in the area. >> Okay, so I think I have a unique perspective on this because I'm not from the area. Like I'm from Connecticut. So I come up here. >> You really most people in the United States would be like Connecticut is a suburb of Austin. You know where you are? Yeah, that's that's the one you need to know. Where we are. You on the Yankees Red Sox line that goes down the middle of the state, right? Right around Hartford. >> Yeah, are are like, claim to fame is being in between both city. So yes, um, way do see, though, like Boston emerging as, like, a regional tech hub, if not like the tech hub of the East Coast. Frankly, so I feel like why not have it here? Like, why wouldn't we have it here? Compared to everywhere else? Like there's so many tech companies, and this just doesn't feel like a tech hub of the region's. >> Okay, Well, you know I'm all in favor of things where I could take the trainer drive to rather than have to fly around the president. Huge is part of you Give a session here on Talked about some branch somewhere Give give us so some of the key takeaways and thanks for the audience that they should be thinking about. >> So So in that session, I kind of invented a completely fictional account of a ransomware attack on a hospital. It was Bill on real world scenarios that I just kind of, like merged together. So I would say up front things that I would say that were important to talk about and that we're, you know, cyber security awareness training. I'm making sure people you know are understand. Like the risks involved with female security advance like modern and point protection. We kind of touched on that a little earlier. So, like older, signature based detection is just not not really effective anymore. Um, having a good tamper proof backup strategy is important, too. So let's say, like, systems get ransomware it. Everything's encrypted, like you need a way to restore that data without necessarily paying the ransom on DH like tamperproof backups >> are are the way to do that. Really? So >> all right, that I want to give you the final word. Uh, w t g transform 2019 gives a little inside some of the customers you're talking to. Some of the top of mine, diffuse or any. I don't work >> for me. A lot of the top mine issues around security seriously, but also like modernizing People's Data Center so that delivering on the hybrid cloud message of like installing hardware and software that not just provides, like data storage services on Prem but could do a lot of cloud tearing >> cloud archiving. Also >> because last, we really appreciate the updates. Thank you. Money for Sarah. We're all initiated. I want to thank our audience here. We've had a full day here. Got to talk to some of the users, some of the partners and, of course, our host for the event. Winslow Technology Group. Scott Winslow and the team. Great to see the growth. Always love to be able to dig in with the users and what's happening locally for myself, stupid. And want to thank the whole team here at the Cube for helping us to be ableto support these events and be sure to check out the cute dot net. You could do some searches there. You could find all the guests here and see previously what they've been talking about. See what future events were going out and dig their archive and is always if you have any questions, feel free to reach out myself, the rest of the team and always a pleasure to be able to share with you and thank you for watching.

(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)