>> Live from Las Vegas it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2019. Brought to you by Dell Technologies and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with John Furrier covering Dell Technologies World 2019. This is our first day of coverage, two sides or, as John likes to say, it's theCUBE cannon, a cannon of CUBE content. We're very pleased to welcome back one of our alumni, Joyce Mullen, the President, Global Channel, OEM and IoT from Dell Technologies. Joyce, welcome to theCUBE cannon. >> Thank you so much. Happy to be in the cannon, it's a great place to be! >> The cannon is off the a great start! So, before we get started into all of the nitty gritty, I just want to acknowledge, you are one of CRN's Women of the Channel on Power 100 last year. Congratulations on that. >> Thank you. Thank you, thank you. >> It's always great to have strong females on theCUBE. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Talk to us a little bit about the Global Channel. There's about 4,000 partners here? >> 5,000 actually, over 5,000. >> 5,000? You've got a channel of over 150,000. Global Partner Summit kicking off today, what are some of the exciting things, news? >> Well, I'm sure you've talked about the news from this morning. I mean that obviously was dominating a lot of the discussions in terms of the solutions that we're offering and things like that. Really exciting stuff and very cool to see the collaboration between VMware and Microsoft and Dell, I mean, that's pretty powerful stuff. But also, our partners are really excited because they've been asking us for more and more highly integrated solutions. We heard about two new ones today that really span the Dell Technologies family of brands and they... You know, we have a bunch of things that we've talked about with the partners today. But we set it up last year with three strategic imperatives, and one of them is about making it easier to do more business with us. That's really, operationally, how do we improve the partner experience? The second one is around helping them enable and transform customer's environments across Dell Technologies families of brands and that one, you know, is tough to do. And so, we made some progress on that this morning, which was really exciting to hear about and then we also announced a change in our branding to our program. So we were the Dell EMC Partner Program, now we're the Dell Technologies Partner Program, which obviously carries broader significance. And then the third imperative is all around helping our partners embrace and monetize these new, emerging technologies, like IoT and AI. You heard a lot about that from Michael today, too. So we are working very hard to figure out how to help our partners do just that. >> Talk about the economics on the channel, because the channel's great leverage sales, indirect, great business models, proven over the years to be great. As new technology comes in, if it's complicated, it's hard to sell. If it's complicated, you need training. And if it doesn't throw off more profit for the partner, it tends to not work out well. You guys have really been working on this. Talk about the partner reaction to their opportunity to serve their customers, who are your customers. You're essentially going to be doing that. This has been an opportunity, because we're seeing that, with some of the services teams out there, there's more technology required in their... Skills gaps to architects. That's an opportunity for the channel partners to actually add value. >> Absolutely. >> Talk about that value piece that the partners now can add on top of it, because if it's an easy, consistent end-to-end environment that's turn-key from Dell, the partners take that and they can wrap value around that. >> Absolutely. >> Talk about that dynamic specifically. >> Well, so, when we think about these new technologies, and we think about the environments our customers are facing, or if you think about IoT, which is generally quite vertically specific, it requires new sets of skills, no doubt about it. But this complexity that we're basically facing right now in IT around more servers, more processors, more accelerators. I mean, we've gotten pretty used to a world where x86 is kind of king. But five years from now, it's going to be much different. Artificial intelligence will drive a whole bunch of specialized servers, for example. Anyway, that's an illustration of the complexity that our customers are facing, which is great news for our partners, to your point, John. So, when we spend time with our partners, we're talking about the importance of, of course you need to know the technology. Of course you need to know what AI means. You need to understand augmented reality. You need to understand IoT. But probably even more importantly, you got to get a deeper understanding of the businesses that your customer's in. The verticals, the industries. Because it's not a uniform, horizontal environment that we're deploying this stuff into now. It's a much, much more highly varied, highly complex environment, which is great news because customers need our help. That does mean that the partners have to have the certifications. We're trying to make that easier so that if they have gotten certified with VMware on VCF, they can apply that to Dell Technologies. Vice versa. >> Joyce, that's a great point. That kind of connects what Michael Dell said on stage, because the vertical specialism is where the data adds value. So where you actually bring data into the equation, which is the lifeblood of, or the heartbeat of digital transformation, to quote Michael Dell on that one. That's where the specialism is important. In the verticals. >> Yes. >> So knowing how to make data work is a partner opportunity. >> Absolutely. And that means you got to understand the business, the outcomes that your customers are looking for, and what that data looks like in those environments. So it's way different if you're in a plant or a hospital. I mean, those are pretty different environments. You got to know what you're talking about. I think it's a great opportunity for partners, but it does mean, maybe a reorientation, or a consideration of vertical expertise. >> I want to get your thoughts on IoT. So two verticals that are smoking hot right now are health care and manufacturing, machine, you know... >> Industrial Automation. >> Industrial Automation, yeah, thank you. I know RPA is high. I see people using RPA, it's really hot. In those areas, okay, OT, operational technologies, and IT have been kind of at war. Not at war, but they're different cultures. IT is about connecting internet protocol devices that have data to it. OT's, some cases, HVAC system or something else. All are getting computers on them now. So for say, for security... So the realization that it's an IT mindset, coming together with operational technology folks, are two culturally different markets but the products are blending, it's kind of becoming blurred. What is your view on this? How do you guys see that? How do you posture to that marketplace? What's the value proposition? >> Yeah, so I think it's fascinating, because we've been in cases where we're talking to customers on the operating technology side, and on the IT side, of course, given our heritage. But through our OEM group, we have a lot of experience with industrial automation, for example. And we've actually introduced people at the same company to each other. On the OT side and the IT side. >> Wow. >> Because they just you're... I don't know if I would say that they were at war, John, but they were definitely... It was parallel play going on. You know what I mean? They were not necessarily helping one another. And I would say, still, when we are in these environments, I would say roughly a third of the time, the operating technology guys say, I got this. I don't need the IT guys to tell me what to do. I'm running my plant. They do not understand. I am all about throughput, I'm all about yields, I'm all about output, I'm all about safety, I'm all about quality, whatever. The IT guy is saying, Um, well, yeah but you got to be all about security. If you're going to put this stuff on my network it's got to meet these criteria, right? So the Operating Technology guys a third of the time will say, Don't talk to the IT guys, I got this. On the IT side, a third of the time they'll say, Those OT guys really don't understand what I'm up against here. I've got to make sure this is a completely secure environment and I've got to think about all sorts of terrible data issues and things like that, privacy, all that sorts of stuff. Let me... I got this. And then, about a third of the time, we have a very productive relationship where they're working together. I expect that those... That third will become half, will become 75 percent, because it has to. >> Which half becomes 75 percent? >> I think we're going to >> The collaboration. >> see a collaboration and we will not have people taking sides because you just can't. You can't afford it. You can't afford these parallel universes. From a security point of view, or an economic point of view. >> You can't be warring, that's what you're saying. >> Yeah, exactly. >> You've got to come together and get a solution. >> Exactly, exactly. >> How can you facilitate your partners becoming that enabler of that collaboration? In terms of educating them on, a third does this, a third does that, this is my sandbox, that's yours, and then there's the third that's like, Oh, we kind of get it. How do you see yourselves as enabling your channel to be that mediator, that facilitator? >> So there's a couple of different ways. One is through Competency Development, and we have things like an IoT Competency. We have a Dell Technology Cloud Competency, as of this morning. And we will see more and more solutions-based competencies, versus product-based competencies. So, clearly, that's a trend. And that means we're helping our partners develop a level of expertise around deployment of those solutions. So that's step one. The other thing is, we're trying to figure out how to facilitate that with product offerings. So Integrated Product Offerings. You heard a couple of those today. We also have things like our award-winning, actually, IoT Connected Bundles, which are trying to facilitate that. And then the third way we're trying to do that is, we're trying to encourage our partners to take advantage of the power of this massive ecosystem we have. If you think about all of the OEMs who are building their solutions on Dell Technology, and you think about all of the partners who are trying to figure out how to offer a broader solution set to their customers on the OT side. Video Surveillance is a great example. Digital City Solutions is another one. That combination could be really, really powerful. So we have, I would say it's a very rudimentary capability right now, we call it Partner Finder. We also have something called Cloud Partner Connect, in case a partner needs service provider capability. We're going to build that out this year and include our OEM, so our partners can actually find like-minded partners who have the same kind of focus on Dell Technologies as a core component of the solutions. That means it's just going to be easier to integrate these things. >> Channels love bundles, they love turn-key because, again, that reduces their, cuts cost. >> Yeah, of course. >> They can wrap margin around that with services. >> Of course. >> Always a great playbook. >> Exactly. >> Simplicity wins. On the business side, I want to get your thoughts on the integration stuff. I love the simplicity, bundling, love that, but when you start dealing with channels within channels within channels, you get the embedded relationships. I got VMware on Azure, I got Dell Technologies with VxRail, going through this Microsoft guy. The joint sales, I mean, my mind kind of explodes. It must be really hard. How do you guys handle that complexity? Is that something you're used to? Is it not a problem? Computation programs and things of that nature? >> I mean, for sure, we got to figure out how to weed through all that, and then simplify it to a point that a partner understands what they get. If you do X, this is what you get. If you do Y, this is what, I mean, cause they have to make their own economic decisions about that. And so, yes, we have to weed through that. I think that one of the things, though, that we're very, very clear on now is, through our track system in our partner program, we've tried to ask partners to designate themselves. I am a service provider. I am a systems integrator. I am an OEM partner. The truth is, those lines are blurring, and are increasingly meaningless, and we have to meet partners where they are. So, we're working very hard this year on trying to get rid of a bunch of those tracks, simplifying the program. It doesn't really depend on what you call yourself, you want to deliver the solution how the customer wants to buy it, and we need to facilitate that. >> And be profitable, make some money. >> Of course. >> There's always that. Well Joyce, thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE cannon! >> Hey, theCUBE cannon! I love it! >> ...this afternoon, we appreciate your time. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. >> For John Furrier, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE live, from Dell Technologies World 2019. Thanks for watching. (electronic music)