>> Speaker: From around the globe, it's theCube with coverage of SUSECON DIGITAL brought to you by SUSE. >> Welcome back, this is theCube's coverage of SUSECON DIGITAL '20. I'm Stu Miniman and really happy to welcome to the program. We have one of the keynote speakers, Alexander Kocher. He is president and managing director of Elektrobit, really excited to dig in and talk about autonomous vehicles. Alex, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you Stu Miniman, I'm really excited that you pronounced my family name correct because this is quite difficult for you. It's a German name, thank you very much. >> Well, luckily on theCube, we do have lots of global people we have on the program. I try to do my best. My [mumbles] is all I can say really [mumbles]. >> Very difficult to pronounce it. >> Alright, so Alex, obviously autonomous vehicles is one of those use cases that talk a lot about everything from edge computing, to AI, you know, software eating the world, really one of those transformative technologies. Why don't we start with first, Elektrobit, give us a little bit as to, where Elektrobit fit in kind of the global auto landscape. >> Yeah, thank you Stu. So Elektrobit was founded in the late eighties, 1988. And since then, we are really doing embedded to be a pioneer in the embedded software and, providing solutions, software technologies, for the automotive industry. Since then we are powering more than 1 billion devices in much more than 100 million vehicles worldwide. And we are serving the automotive industry since then. So software is really becoming the single biggest enabler of innovation in the car, and software creation is our passion. So we enjoy solving challenging problems, and providing solutions that drive the mobility ecosystem of the future vehicle, where mobility causes zero fatalities, produces low emissions, and is perceived as quality time. This is also our mission and with that, we are providing services, software technologies, and tools for the automotive industry. >> Yeah, it has been fascinating to watch software in the automotive world. You know, I'm old enough to remember that, when you used to take a car in, the first thing they did was put it up and look under the hood and everything. And now pretty much, they plug a cable into the computer and, go to the diagnostic screens before they do anything else. When we talk about autonomous vehicles, I think many people would be familiar. There's really that five stage model of going from helping to fully autonomous. Give us a little bit as to what you're seeing in the trends out there, and how this market has been mature. >> Yeah, I think, the trend in the autonomous vehicles, we are at the moment at level two level two plus to where you still assisting the driver's behavior with various functions. We are starting to be, to go towards a level three hands-off. In the next, couple of, yeah, hopefully just months or single years, and then going from there to a fully autonomous vehicle, where you not only have hands-off, but also eyes off and then hand over the complete control to the car. But since then, it will still be a path. We just heard recently the announcement of all the, that, not only the functionality within the car, but also then the legal environment needs to be in place, so that you also can check that all of the various functions can be approved. I think the first step, which we will see is that we have it in a kind of a clean room environment, which means highways so the hybrid pilot, where you have to have a kind of insured environment and you can predict certain use cases. And with that we are targeting at, with the next generation of the cars, which can help in one or two years. >> Yeah its really interesting stuff, because of course, you know, it would be really simple if we had nothing, but the autobahn with nothing but autonomous vehicles. I'm sure you can have that running perfectly today, but number one, you start going on different roads and number two, you add that ever unpredictable human element when you have the cars that aren't, on the same system that can cause some issues there. I'm curious, anything from a European standpoint, you know, what's the partnership between government and industry on that, and I guess anything else that's different about Europe then maybe what we'd see in North America? >> Yeah, I think the, one of the biggest differences here is as soon as authorities approve cars, then the liability goes to the authority. And America's there is a complete different behavior in that perspective, liability is taken completely by the companies and the debt, of course. Although there are authorities to control certain environment, but the main liability issue stays with the company itself. And this per se is a complete different approach for that. I think technology-wise, we are here and there, on the same level as on the same technology level. And as you can see already in today's drive assistance functions, technology-wise, we are not far ahead. You can already try certain of those functions, for at least a couple of seconds, but in order to really accept and, calculate all the use cases, you need to start step by step. A highway is one of the perfect measures for that. But when you just go, I'm living here in the in Southern Germany, when you just go to an ancient city, city center, like we do have here Nuremberg, it can be really, really tricky that you consider all the specific use cases. So, here we need to optimize algorithms. The technology are also the horsepower in terms of processing load and of course, security of the census. So here is still for full autonomy still a path to go. >> Alright, so Alex, see, you're part of the keynote, here at SUSECON, obviously, you know, innovation, is a key topic as well as open force and community is a big topic of the show overall. Tell us a little bit about the partnership between Elektrobit and SUSE. >> Yeah, thank you very much for this question. This is really an exciting thing. So two companies like SUSE and Elekrobit, by the way, we have been founded here both, very, very in recent area, so no big area. So SUSE is a leader in delivering mission critical, Linux and container technologies in several industries and Elektrobit brings in the automotive experience. And what we aim for is to really provide the future software platform for automobiles that fulfills all the key requirements around openness, about reuse and, also about a huge pool of open source methodologies, and new modules so that we have a tremendous pool of, patents as well as a tremendous pool of innovation here. So this is the key topic. The automotive industry as such is changing, changing in a way that you continue to develop the technologies along the life cycle of the car in order to really enable our customers to download new functions and new services during the life cycle of the car. This methodology is already used in several other industries. And here we introduced with this partnership exactly the basis for that, in order to really, prepare our customers to focus on their differentiating technology and differentiating features. >> Yeah, fascinating thinking, you brought up, you know, the skill set of course is a key piece. Any industry that's going through change, we wonder who can come along and who's ready for that. It sounded like you were saying that, Linux and the other technologies in this space, there is a large pool of tech of knowledge out there, and that can help really kind of the growth next generation of the automotive industry. Am I getting that right? >> Yes, I mean, for sure the development methodology in open stores and embedded is completely different, but specifically when it comes to liability. So here, there, you need to comply to certain standards of cost, but this is one topic. The other thing is that really the innovation, who the innovation span you have in open source, as well as the modules already existing and the best practices from other industries. This is a tremendous advantage. And also one thing is in terms of changing in our industry, the automotive industry, the development methodology, excuse me, the reuse of, certain platforms is limited as soon as you have to jump to new generations of processes of software modules and so on and so forth. Here, we can with the partnership also leverage the experience we have, technologies which are also for a long period of time, backward compatible and reusable in the essential lower layers of the software, which you need to have by also complying to the relevant standards for a performance as well as a safety requirement. >> Yeah, really interesting mix of balancing that, differentiation in the marketplace while still being an upgradable path. I'm curious, you talked a little bit about the open source model. One of the key things, when you talk about going through a digital transformation is data. There's obviously a lot of data if you talk about autonomous vehicles. We see everybody about, you know, how many gigabytes per hour and all the maps and everything there. What is the role of data in this entire process? Is there sharing of data between some of the different players involved? >> So, yeah, data is I would say data is one is, first of all, data is in channel independent from industry the new currency. This is one thing, also realized in the automotive industry here. Of course we need to consider, certain privacy rules independent from, whether it's the car maker itself or its project or the driver. So we need to respect it, but independent from that, car's one of the most accurate sensors we do have, in our environment. And of course creating data, are we talking about one terabyte per day roundabout? And this is already now reused amongst, common factors amongst the industry. Just think about a certain, here as an acquisition of several players in the industry where they are sharing map data, because it doesn't make a difference, for a GM car, for a Ford car, for a BMW car, for a Daimler car. When you use the same road, the road stays, of course, the brand and the car changes, but the information about the road infrastructure is exactly the same. And this is the first topic which, has to be, or will be shared and is already shared. Second thing is traffic information where you have a mobile providers, in there, and this already is considered, and there are a lot of discussion and, or any business models undergoing or, in preparation for that. >> Yeah, well, you hope the roads don't change. I live in the Boston area, there's a times if you take six months off and all of a sudden you're like, wait, this road used to go a certain way. At least it's a lot easier to update, your software than it is for older vehicles that I'm driving. You talked a little bit about privacy. I know cybersecurity is one of the aspects that Elektrobit involved. Talk to us a little bit about the security aspect and, your company's experiences there. >> The security with transferring data into the car or outside of the car, data security is a key feature. It's just a must. So, in former times as Elektrobit as we are coming from inside the car has an embedded software provider. We protected really the devices within the car, for example, the automator from manipulation and, generated certain securities in the internal bus with our customers. But this is no longer enough. You need to go outside the car. So, when you transfer data from the cloud into the car, or vice versa and therefore cyber security, to predict the whole chain inside the car communication, they're all interfaces where you can connect devices or the backend, from where you transport the information. For them, recently Elektrobit acquired a company in Israel two years ago. But also we know that in the basic technology from the SUSE distribution, there is already a lot of technology in there, which makes data transfer really, really safe, sorry, secure, so that you can trust that the data and really keep the privacy you need to have for specific regions. >> Alright, well, this is a very fast moving industry. Give us a little bit as to what you see happening both the 24 months. What are some of the kind of major opportunities as well as challenges that are being faced? >> Yeah, I think, one of the biggest opportunities we will see in the upcoming directly next generation, is the car really becoming a part of the internet. I think with that, a lot of the business models from the common effector itself, from the suppliers need to change. So that really the common effector enables their customers to continuously update their device mobile device, namely the car. It's very similar to those devices at the moment from technology which you already have then suffocate in our pocket. Of course you cannot put the car into your pocket, but you want to have the same convenience, with new services, with new functions. And I think this is the most of, and the most exciting opportunity of the car. With that you need to have new technologies on platform. You need to have data security, you enable completely new business models. And this has changed our lives completely. Also our business compete. And I think these are the most important and the most exciting changes in the near future, as the next generation already is under preparation and will be launched really, really, really soon. And of course, second topic is the autonomous driving. It goes step by step as just as is testing the beginning. And this is the second opportunity then for many other companies making business with the time when the drivers then, have quality time and, can do something different than just hearing the car. >> Excellent, so much excitement in what is happening in industry. Definitely one we want to watch. Alex wannna give you the final word, SUSECON the partnership between Elektrobit and SUSE the final takeaways that you have for the event. >> Yeah, thanks enough. It's just exciting for us to have such a great partner like SUSECON experienced partner. It brings lots of new aspects into our industry helps us to provide the right solutions. And with that, we are sure that we can generate and we will generate the basis of the next smart cars of our customer in terms of softer platform. Thank you very much. >> Alex, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Stu Miniman, I'll have more coverage here from SUSECON DIGITAL '20. Thank you for watching theCube. (bright music)

>> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto and Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE conversation. >> Hi everybody, this is Dave Vellante with theCUBE, and welcome to this special CUBE conversation. I've been running a CEO series for the last several weeks, talking to leaders about how they're dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and really, trying to understand how they've been navigating through and communicating to their employees, and their customers. I'm really excited to have Melissa Di Donato here, she's the CEO of SUSE. Melissa, great to see you again. >> Great to see you, thank you for having me. >> You're very welcome, and you and I met last September and one of the reasons I've been looking forward to this interview, I'm a fanboy. I threw the kitchen sink at you last year, and you batted everything out of the park. We were talking about digital transformation, digital business, and you were really one of my favorite guests of the year. So, >> Thank you. >> Talk about kitchen sink. This COVID-19 thing came out of nowhere, when did you see it coming? And what was your first move as a leader? >> Well, so for us, we had a really unique position, Dave, because we have a number of people staying in China, so we've got more than 250 employees sitting in China, so for us COVID-19 is not new, we've been dealing with this for quite a long time, since December when first started becoming ill in China, realizing that there was an issue. As of the seventh of January we had to move very quickly when China went onto lockdown, we had to find a way to get our employees to be able to work from home very quickly, and taking a couple of hundred of employees that are sitting in China and being able to empower them and enable them to work from home very quickly, nearly overnight, was no short task, so we took all of that learning back in January, and then we were able to respond as the countries fell ill, and the government requirements went in place around the world since then. So for us, this is nothing new, we were really fortunate that we had the mechanisms in place to handle the pandemic first in China, now as it came across Europe, and then of course into the US. >> Yeah so, you had the canary in the coalmine, so to speak, Well before >> Kind of, something like that >> Yeah, well before you had to start making decisions about SUSECon in Dublin, which was scheduled to be in March, so that was your other big decision point, wasn't it? >> Yeah, it was really difficult for us, because obviously, we had customers, we had partners, all wanted to come to Dublin, in fact, we were scheduled to be there together as well, and we had to give them enough time to be able to make alternate arrangements, but at the same time, we had to wait to see what the government was going to do in Ireland, because obviously that has a very big impact on the structure, the cost, et cetera. But we made a early decision, as early as we could, and that was the beginning part of March, to make the decision to unfortunately move it to a digital event, which was not an easy solution. The first time in our history, bringing a big, annual conference that's physical and in person, to a virtual event that's in digital, it wasn't an easy over-the-night kind of process and decision to make, so it was a hard one, but we're really confident, and May 20th is the announcment and the start of our SUSECon digital event, so not too long away from where we are now. >> Melissa, how have you altered, enhanced, your communications to your employees, your team, and ultimately your customers and partners? Have you increased the cadence? How have you altered? >> Yeah, so much so. I do a video with my team that I announce and push out every Monday, so every Monday I give them a business update, I tell them what's happening in the industry, what's happening with SUSE, what's happening with our customers. That happens every week, once a week. That's for every employee, and its a video call, something like this, almost. Then what we do is weekly updates on the great things that are happening around SUSE. You know, we've got a lot of amazing employees here in the open source community, but also employees as well. We've had employees in Italy who created virtual classrooms for their employees, we had an employee in the US who dedicated 30% of his bonus to give back to his local school, he's bought lunches for all the people at his hospital locally, we've had our entire Nuremberg, Germany office give all of their lunch vouchers to the homeless in Germany, so we also like to publicize all the good work that all of our employees are doing, to give back to their local communities and globally, so the cadence has definitely been increased. We just ran a survey this last week that closed yesterday. We got very, very favorable results. And that was definitely geared towards communication, no more so than now, do the employees and the customers need to be aware of what's going on. You probably feel the same thing, and through me and probably loads of other interviews, know that we're not a magician, we're not a scientist here that could predict necessarily the future. I think the scientists themselves don't even know what's going to happen, but we're doing our best to take outlook, and take a lot of concerted approach to educate our employees and our customers with what they can expect. Now for us, I'm in the very fortunate position that before COVID-19, 38% of our employees work remotely, so working from home for us is quite easy, it's quite natural for our community and our open source community as well as a whole. So for us to make that transition, we were uninterrupted in way of dealing with our customers. I've been communicating with them as well, through emails and phone calls and other means, pretty much at least once a month, if not every other week or so, to communicate what we're doing for them, but again, you said it, being proactive and being communicative right now, it's never been more important. >> So you, it sounds like, are maintaining productivity. A lot of organizations are actually seeing a productivity hit, and they're having trouble getting work-from-home infrastructure up and spun a bit. People joke on Twitter that's the new tissue paper, you can't, I don't know what it's like in London, but you can't get toilet paper (laughs) on the shelves here, so work from home infrastructure, laptops, VDI, et cetera, But it sounds like you really haven't taken a productivity hit, it's sort of a natural progression for you. >> Yeah, you know when we met last September, we talked about the importance of open source, and we've been a business for nearly 30 years, and we've always run our business in open source community, and that is a community that's obviously geographically dispersed all over the world, so people have been working from home, working in their community, being transparent and collaborative, regardless of where they sit, so from an innovation perspective, we've had no impact to our business, so being able to work from anywhere, across any boundary, has been been uninterrupted, so that's been great. 99% of our workforce are now working remotely from home, versus up from 38% pre-COVID, it doesn't change the fact that things like hardware and software and the means that they need to actually operate from home is difficult, so we've made the concerted effort, for example, to make sure our employees in Germany have the capability to bring home their desk chairs, to bring home their monitors, to bring home their machines to set them up with the ability to be able to work from home. Building on the experience from China, we learned we needed to provision early, so what we did in the beginning part of February was to begin to procure software and hardware that enabled us to have a bench of technology that we could utilize, in case we had this pandemic run wild to support our employees to work from home, so I'm very happy to say we were well prepared. In our survey, we asked the question how prepared are you to be able to work from home? And it was extremely high, best practice in way of benchmarking for any employee survey, to be able to provide them the productivity tools necessary to be able to work from home, so we're very, very proud of that. >> I want to ask you about the recovery, nobody knows, we've never seen this >> No >> Forced shut down of the economy before. Saw Bill Gates this morning on TV, saying he thinks it's really through June that we're going to have to live with this, I know the president of the United States is saying we'd like to happen before that, but assuming there is a comeback, lets say June, start to bring back the economy in waves, how do you see open source in a downturn, some prolonged downturn, months, maybe as much as a year or even more, how do you see open source playing there? >> Yeah, that's a good question, I'm glad you asked it. I think that as the pandemic continues, and any crisis for that matter, open source adoption is going to accelerate, there's no doubt. There's a huge pressure we're all going to face, even those successful businesses like us here at SUSE, we're going to have to go under some crunch and consideration around cost. Open source adoption will accelerate digital transformation efforts, and will definitely speed up organizations to respond to the crisis, because they're able to utilize all the technology innovation, and standardization of Linux and other open source technologies, from anywhere. Whether it's on-premise, the cloud, utilizing Edge, they're going to look for innovations in constant uptick whilst gaining cost-saving at the same time. There's no better place to achieve that, besides being in an open source community, so we're very fortunate, I never would've predicted a pandemic, if I had I'd be a multi-millionaire, would've played the lotto by now, nonetheless, I think there's no place I'd rather be for sure, and I wouldn't want to run any other company besides an open source business right now, because we're seeing an uptick rather than having a decline. >> You know, I want to ask you about culture, because you've been in SUSE as the CEO less than a year, inside of a year, and you really have always focused on culture, you know, CEOs obviously got to worry about growth, you got to worry about profitability, productivity and the like, but I want to actually pull up something that I found on LinkedIn, it was from one of your newer employees, new to SUSE, he said "my first month here, amazing colleagues, high amount of trust, lots of collaboration, willing to help each other succeed, giving back to the less fortunate in the community, high amount of respect for diversity, amazing values, leadership is open, honest, trend-setting, industry defining, really smart, and genuinely superior." Wow, I mean >> (Melissa laughs) >> He said, "in short, best organization I've ever contributed my efforts to and been a part of." Your leadership, whether it's diversity, openness, transparency, you really have set from day one a cultural foundation, which I think is playing out well for you right now, but I wonder if you could talk about the culture that you're trying to drive with SUSE. >> Yeah I mean, wow I did read that post, and that's life -changing I think for leaders like myself, when you have employees that feel the sense of urgency around the criticality that they play, and the role they play in the company, you can't ask for more than that, really genuinely, and I think that when I came, I took it personal to make sure that we led the company leading with people first. We're probably one of the very few companies in the world that have one trademark, and our trademark is our SUSE Chameleon. We don't have any other trademarks or patents on any of our technology, because it is open. So the only thing I have is the people. The link to the world, and this business being successful, is our people, and there inevitably lies the importance that's pertaining to their culture. And I think that because we're community-based and open source, it's really important that we continually collaborate, that we're constantly giving back and giving insight and giving support in the community, and that needs to transcend the community and be living every single day in our company. You mentioned something in that post, which is the philanthropic side of who I am, I believe very whole-heartedly in the responsibility we carry as CEOs, executives, as companies, to give back to our community. When I started nearly year ago, I instituted the Month of Giving, which happens to be May, in conjunction with one day off every year for every single employee to give back to their local communities, or a charity of their choice. Now that's proven very well, particularly now. Folks are taking time off, they're donating their time to local hospitals, they're creating that sense of community giving and care that again, bleeds itself into the fabric of what this culture is. On top of that, recently you may have read the press, I'm sure you have, about us giving any medical device supplier, or any medical device, and not just manufacturer, but institution for research of COVID-19, we're giving them free software and support to run and develop technologies associated with solving this pandemic. And that is truly a gift, I feel incredibly privileged to be able to give back because you again well know we supply all the operating systems to many of our really important medical devices, like CAT scan machines and mammogram machines, in fact, probably most of the machines being used in the US today to combat many diseases are running on a SUSE operating system. We want to offer that back, again, to the community. The employees went wild over the fact that we were being able to give back on a big scale, to solve a problem like this, so I think when it comes down to who we are and what our culture is Dave, people are the most important thing to me. I did an interview recently, and they said you know, going from a CEO that's very focused on sales and like you said earlier, very focused on outcome and deliverables and forecasts and budgets and EBITDA, is that still the case? And I have to say confidently, no that's not the thing that keeps me up at night now. What keeps me up at night now, and how I wake up every morning is wondering about the health of my employees. We had a couple of employees, one that was quite ill in Italy, we were phoning him and calling and emailing him from his hospital bed, and that's what's really keeping me going, what's inspiring me to lead this incredible company, is the people and the culture that they've built that I'm honoring and taking forward, as part of the open source value system. >> Well I think those metrics, those business performance metrics, what I've learned is they're actually a symptom of a great culture, and so I'm really excited and amazed at what you're building there, and thank you. You know, in this day and age you hear, at least prior to COVID, you heard a lot of attacks on technology companies and big tech, on billionaires, and it's really refreshing to see technology companies stepping up, you mentioned the example of medical device, there are many, many examples, and so thank you for that, really appreciate it. >> Thank you too. >> Dave: All right Melissa, great having you, I hope we can talk again leading up to SUSECon virtual slash digital, thanks so much >> (Melissa laughs) >> For coming on theCUBE, great to see you again. >> It's been great to >> Stay safe. >> Thank you very much for having me again as well and inviting me back, I look forward to seeing you next month. >> All right ditto, and thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE, and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)