>>from around the globe. It's the Cube covering HP. Discover Virtual experience Brought to you by HP. >>Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of HP Discover. 2020. The virtual experience. The Cube. The Cube has been virtualized. My name is Dave Vellante. I'm here with Stuart Minuteman and our good friend Tim Crawford is here. He's a strategic advisor to see Io's with boa. Tim, Great to see you. Stuart. Thanks for coming on. >>Great to see you as well, Dave. >>Yes. So let's unpack. What's going on in that Discover Antonio's, He notes, Maybe talk a little bit about the prospects for HP of coming forward in this decade. You know, last decade was not a great one for HP, HP. I mean, there was a lot of turmoil. There was a botched acquisitions. There was breaking up the company and spin merges and a lot of distractions. And so now that companies really and you hear this from Antonio kind of positioning for innovation for the next decade. So So I think this is probably a lot of excitement inside the company, but I want to touch on a couple of points and then you get your guys reaction, I guess, you know, to start off. Obviously, Antonio's talking about Cove in the role that they played in that whole, you know, pandemic and the transition toe the the isolation economy. But so let me start with you, Tim. I mean, what is the sort of posture amongst cios that you talk to? How strategic is HB H B two? The folks that you talk to in your community? >>Well, I think if you look at how CIOs are thinking, especially as we head into covert it into Corona virus and kind of mapping through that, that price, um, it really came down to Can they get their hands on technology? Can they get people back to work working from home? Can they do it in a secure fashion? Um, keeping people productive. I mean, there was a lot of block and tackling, and even to this day, there's still a fair amount of that was taking place. Um, we really haven't seen the fallout from the cybersecurity impact of expanding our foot print. Um, quite. But we'll see that, probably in the coming months. There are some initial inklings there when it comes to HP specifically I think it comes back to just making sure that they had the product on hand, that they understood that customers are going through dramatic change. And so all bets are off. You have to kind of step back and say, Okay, those plans that I had 60 9100 and 20 days ago those strategies that I may have already started down the path with those are up for grabs. I need to step back from those and figure out What do I do now? And I think each company, HP included, needs to think about how do they start to meld themselves, to be able to address those changing customer needs? And I think that's that's where this really kind of becomes the rubber hits the road is is HP capable of doing that? And are they making the right changes? And quite frankly, that starts with empathy. And I think we've heard pretty clearly from Antonio that he is sympathetic to the plight of their customers and the world >>on the whole. >>Yeah, and I think culturally 10 minutes do I mean I think you know HP is kind of getting back to some of its roots, and Tony has been there for a long time. I think people I think is very well liked. Andi, I think, ease of use, and I'm sure he's tough. But he's also a very fair individual, and he's got a vision and he's focused. And so, you know, I think again, as they said, looking forward to this decade, I think could be one that is, you know, one of innovation. Although, you know, look, you look at the stock price, you know, it's kind of piqued in November 19. It's obviously down like many stocks, so there's a lot of work to do there, and it's too. We're certainly hearing from HP. This notion of everything is a service that we've talked about green like a lot. What's your sense of their prospects going forward in this, you know, New Era? >>Yeah, I mean, Dave, one of the biggest attacks we've heard about H E in the last couple of years, you know the line Michael Dell would use is you're not going to grow by, say, abstraction. But as a platform company, HP is much more open. From what I've seen in the HP that I remember from, you know, 5 to 10 years ago. So you look at their partner ecosystem. It's robust. So, you know, years ago, it seemed to be if it didn't come out of HP Labs, it wasn't a product, you know. That was the services arm all wanted to sell HP here. Now, in this software defined world working in a cloud environment, they're much more open to finding that innovation and enabling it. So, you know, we talk about Green Lake Day. Three lakes got about 1000 customers right now, and a big piece of that is a partner. Port Police, whether it's VM Ware Amazon Annex, were H B's full stack themselves. They have optionality in there, and that's what we hear from from users is that they want flexibility they don't want. You know, you look at the cloud providers, it's not, you know, here's a solution. You look at Amazon. There's dozens of databases that you can use from Amazon or, if you use on top of Amazon, so H p e. You know, not a public cloud provider, but looking more like that cloud experience. They've done so many acquisitions over the years. Many of them were troubled. They got rid of some of the pieces that they might have over paid for. But you look at something like CTP them in this multi cloud world in the networking space, they've got a really cool, open source company, the company behind spiffy, inspire. And, you know, companies that are looking at containers and kubernetes, you know, really respond to say, Hey, these are projects that were interesting Oh, who's the company that that's driving that it's HP so more open, more of a partner ecosystem definitely feels that there's a lot there that I respect and like that hp >>well, I mean, the intent of splitting the company was so that HP could be more focused but focused on innovation was the intent was to be the growth company. It hasn't fully played out yet. But Tim, when you think about the conversations that CIOs are having with with HPI today versus what they were having with hpe HP, the the conglomerate of that the Comprising e ds and PCs, I guess I don't know, in a way, more more Dell like so Certainly Michael Dell's having strategic conversations, CIOs. But you got to believe that the the conversations are more focused today. Is that a good thing or a jury's still out? >>No, it absolutely is a good thing. And I think one of the things that you have to look at is we're getting back to brass tax. We're getting back to that focus around business objectives. So no longer is that hey, who has the coolest tech? And how can we implement that tax? Kind of looking from a tech business? Ah, spectrum, you're now focused squarely is a C i. O. You have to be squarely focused on what are the business objectives that you are teamed up for, and if you're not, you're on a very short leash and that doesn't end well. And I think the great thing about the split of HP HP e split and I think you almost have to kind of step back for a second. Let's talk about leadership because leadership plays a very significant role, especially for CIOs that are thinking about long term decisions and strategic partners. I don't think that HP necessarily had the right leadership in place to carry them into that strategic world. I think Antonio really makes a change there. I mean, they made some really poor decisions. Post split. Um, that really didn't bode well for HP. Um, and frankly, I talked a bit about that I know wasn't really popular within HP, but quite frankly, they needed to hear it. And I think that actually has been heard. And I think they are listening to their customers. And one of the big changes is they're getting back into the software business. And when you talk about strategic initiatives, you have to get beyond just the hardware and start moving up the proverbial stack, getting closer to those business initiatives. And that is software. >>Yeah, well, Antonio talked about sort of the insights. I mean, something I've said a lot about borrowed from the very Meeker conversations that that data is plentiful. Something I've always said. Insights aren't. And so you're right. You've seen a couple of acquisitions, you know, Matt bahr They picked up, I think pretty inexpensively. Kind of interesting cause, remember, HP hp had an investment in Horton works, which, of course, is now Cloudera and Blue Data. Ah Kumar Conte's company, you know, kind of focusing on maybe automating data, you know, they talked about Ed centric, cloud enabled, data driven. Nobody's gonna argue with those things. But you're right, Tim. I mean, you're talking more software than kind of jettisons the software business and now sort of have to rebuild it. And then, of course, do this cloud. What do you make of HP ease Cloud play? >>Yeah, well, I >>mean, >>Dave, you the pieces. You were just talking about math bar and blue data, where HP connects it together is, you know, ai ops. So you know, where are we going with infrastructure? There needs to be a lot more automation. We heard a great quote. I love from automation anywhere. Dave was, if you talk about digital transformation without automation, it's hallucination. So, you know, HP baking that into what they're doing. So, you know, I fully agree with Tim software software software, you know, is where the innovation is. So it can't just be the infrastructure. How do you have eyes and books into the applications? How are you helping customers build those new pieces? And what's the other software that you build around that? So, you know, absolutely. It's an interesting piece. And you know, HP has got a lot of interesting pieces. You know, you talk about the edge. Aruba is a great asset for that kind of environment and from a partnership, that is a damn point. Dave. They have. John Chambers was in the keynote. John, of course. Long time partners. He's with Cisco for many years Intel. Cisco started eating with HP on the server business, but now he's also the chairman of pensando. HP is an investor in pensando general availability this month of that solution, and that's going to really help build out that next generation edge. So, you know, a chip set that HP E can offer similar to what we see how Amazon builds outpost s. So that is a solution both for the enterprise and beyond. Is as a B >>yeah course. Do. Of course, it's kind of, but about three com toe. Add more fuel to that tension. Go ahead, Tim. >>Well, I was going to pick apart some of those pieces because you know, at edge is not an edge is not an edge. And I think it's important to highlight some of the advantages that HP is bringing to the table where Pensando comes in, where Aruba comes in and also we're really comes in. I think there are a number of these components that I want to make sure that we don't necessarily gloss over that are really key for HP in terms of the future. And that is when you step back and you look at how customers are gonna have to consume services, how they're going to have to engage with both the edge and the cloud and everything in between. HP has a great portfolio of hardware. What they haven't necessarily had was the glue, that connective tissue to bring all of that together. And I think that's where things like Green Lake and Green Lake Central really gonna play a role. And even their, um, newer cloud services are going to play a role. And unlike outposts and unlike some of the other private cloud services that are on the market today, they're looking to extend a cloud like experience all the way to the edge and that continuity creating that simplicity is going to be key for enterprises. And I think that's something that shouldn't be understated. It's gonna be really important because when I look at in the conversations I'm having when we're looking at edge to cloud and everything in between. Oh my gosh, that's really complicated. And you have to figure out how to simplify that. And the only way you're going to do that is if you take it up a layer and start thinking about management tools. You start thinking about autumn, and as companies start to take data from the edge, they start analyzing it at the edge and intermediate points on the way to cloud. It's going to be even more important to bring continuity across this entire spectrum. And so that's one of the things that I'm really excited about that I'm hearing from Antonio's keynote and others. Ah, here at HP Discover. >>Yeah, >>well, let's let's stay on that stupid. Let's stay on that for a second. >>Yeah, I wanted to see oh interested him because, you know, it's funny. You think back. You know, HP at one point in time was a leader in, you know, management solutions. You know, HP one view, you know, in the early days, it was really well respected. I think what I'm hearing from you, I think about outpost is Amazon hasn't really put management for the edge. All they're doing is extending the cloud piece and putting a piece out of the edge. It feels like we need a management solution that built from the ground up for this kind of solution. And do I hear you right? You believe that to be as some of those pieces today? >>Well, let's compare and contrast briefly on that. I think Amazon and the way Amazon is well, is Google and Microsoft, for that matter. The way that they are encompassing the edge into their portfolio is interesting, but it's an extension of their core business, their core public cloud services business. Most of the enterprise footprint is not in public cloud. It's at the other end of that spectrum, and so being able to take not just what's happening at the edge. But what about in your corporate data center in your corporate data center? You still have to manage that, and that doesn't fall under the purview of Cloud. And so that's why I'm looking at HP is a way to create that connective tissue between what companies are doing within the corporate data center today, what they're doing at the edge as well as what they're doing, maybe in private cloud and an extension public cloud. But let's also remember something else. Most of these enterprises, they're also in a multi cloud environment, so they're touching into different public cloud providers for different services. And so now you talk about how do I manage this across the spectrum of edge to cloud. But then, across different public cloud providers, things get really complicated really fast. And I think the hints of what I'm seeing in software and the new software branding give me a moment of pause to say, Wait a second. Is HP really gonna head down that path? And if so, that's great because it is of high demand in the enterprise. >>Well, let's talk about that some more because I think this really is the big opportunity and we're potentially innovation is. So my question is how much of Green Lake and Green Lake services are really designed for sort of on Prem to make that edge to on Prem? No, I want to ask about Cloud, how much of that is actually delivering Cloud Native Services on AWS on Google on Azure and Ali Cloud etcetera versus kind of creating a cloud like experience for on Prem in it and eventually the edge. I'm not clear on that. You guys have insight on how much effort is going into that cloud. Native components in the public cloud. >>Well, I would say that the first thing is you have to go back to the applications to truly get that cloud native experience. I think HP is putting the components together to a prize. This to be able to capitalize on that cloud like experience with cloud native APS. But the vast majority of enterprise app they're not cloud native. And so I think the way that I'm interpreting Green Lake and I think there are a lot of questions Greenland and how it's consumed by enterprises there. There was some initial questions around the branding when it first came out. Um, and so you know it's not perfect. I think HP definitely have some work to do to clarify what it is and what it isn't in a way that enterprises can understand. But from what I'm seeing, it looks to be creating and a cloud like experience for enterprises from edge to cloud, but also providing the components so that if you do have applications that are shovel ready for cloud or our cloud native, you can embrace Public Cloud as well as private cloud and pull them under the Green Lake >>Rela. Yeah, ostensibly stew kubernetes is part of the answer to that, although you know, as we've talked about, Kubernetes is necessary containers and necessary but not sufficient for that experience. And I guess the point I'm getting to is, you know we do. We've talked about this with Red Hat, certainly with VM Ware and others the opportunity to have that experience across clouds at the Edge on Prim. That's expensive from an R and D standpoint. And so I want to kind of bring that into the discussion. HP last year spent about 1.8 billion in R and D Sounds like a lot of money. It's about 6% of its of it's revenues, but it's it's spread thin now. It does are indeed through investments, for instance, like Pensando or other acquisitions. But in terms of organic R and D, you know, it's it's it's not at the top of the heap. I mean, obviously guys like Amazon and Google have surpassed them. I've written about this with regard to IBM because they, like HP, spend a lot on dividends on share buybacks, which they have to do to prop up the stock price and placate Wall Street. But it But it detracts from their ability to fund R and d student your take on that sort of innovation roadmap for the next decade. >>Yeah, I mean, one of the things we look at it in the last year or so there's been what we were talking about earlier, that management across these environments and kubernetes is a piece of it. So, you know, Google laid down and those you've got Microsoft with Azure, our VM ware with EMS. Ooh! And to Tim's point, you know, it feels like Green Lake fits kind of in that category, but there's there's pieces that fall outside of it. So, you know, when I first thought of Green Lake, it was Oh, well, I've got a private cloud stack like an azure stack is one of the solutions that they have there. How does that tie into that full solution? So extending that out, moving that brand I do here, you know good things from the field, the partners and customers. Green Lake is well respected, and it feels like that is, that is a big growth. So it's HB 50 from being more thought of, as you know, a box seller to more of that solution in subscription model. Green Lake is a vehicle for that. And as you pointed out, you know, rightfully so. Software so important. And I feel when that thing I'd say HPI ee feels toe have more embracing of software than, say, they're closest competitors. Which is Dell, which, you know, Dell Statement is always to be the leading infrastructure writer, and the arm of VM Ware is their software. So, you know, just Dell alone without VM ware, HP has to be that full solution of what Dell and VM ware together. >>Yeah, and VM Ware Is that the crown jewel? And of course, HP doesn't have a VM ware, but it does have over 8000 software engineers. Now I want to ask you about open source. I mean, I would hope that they're allocating a large portion of those software engineers. The open source development developing tooling at the edge, developing tooling from multi cloud certainly building hooks in from their hardware. But is HP Tim doing enough in open source? >>Well, I don't want to get on the open source bandwagon, and I don't necessarily want to jump off it. I think the important thing here is that there are places where open source makes sense in places where it doesn't, um, and you have to look at each particular scenario and really kind of ask yourself, does it make sense to address it here? I mean, it's a way to to engage your developers and engage your customers in a different mode. What I see from HP E is more of a focus around trying to determine where can we provide the greatest value for our customers, which, frankly, is where their focus should be, whether that shows up in open source for software, whether that shows up in commercial products. Um, we'll see how that plays out. But I think the one thing that I give HP e props on one of several things I would say is that they are kind of getting back to their roots and saying, Look, we're an infrastructure company, that is what we do really well We're not trying to be everything to everyone. And so let's try and figure out what are customers asking for? How do we step through that? I think this is actually one of the challenges that Antonio's predecessors had was that they tried to do jump into all the different areas, you know, cloud software. And they were really X over, extending themselves in ways that they probably should. But they were doing it in ways that really didn't speak to their four, and they weren't connecting those dots. They weren't connecting that that connective tissue they needed to dio. So I do think that, you know, whether it's open source or commercial software, we'll see how that plays out. Um, but I'm glad to see that they are stepping back and saying Okay, let's be mindful about how we ease into this >>well, so the reason I bring up open source is because I think it's the mainspring of innovation in the industry on that, but of course it's very tough to make money, but we've talked a lot about H B's strength since breath is, we haven't talked much about servers, but they're strong in servers. That's fine We don't need to spend time there. It's culture. It seems to be getting back to some of its roots. We've touched on some of its its weaknesses and maybe gaps. But I want to talk about the opportunities, and there's a huge opportunity to the edge. David Flores quantified. He says that Tam is four. Trillion is enormous, but here's my question is the edge Right now we're seeing from companies like HP and Dell. Is there largely taking Intel based servers, kind of making a new form factor and putting them out on the edge? Is that the right approach? Will there be an emergence of alternative processors? Whether it's our maybe, maybe there's some NVIDIA in there and just a whole new architecture for the edge to authority. Throw it out to you first, get Tim Scott thoughts. >>Yeah, So what? One thing, Dave, You know, HP does have a long history of partnering with a lot of those solutions. So you see NVIDIA up on stage when you think about Moonshot and the machine and some of the other platforms that they felt they've looked at alternative options. So, you know, I know from Wicky Bon standpoint, you know, David Foyer wrote the piece. That arm is a huge opportunity at the edge there. And you would think that HP would be one of the companies that would be fast to embrace that >>Well, that's why I might like like Moonshot. I think that was probably ahead of its time. But the whole notion of you know, a very slim form factor that can pop in and pop out. You know, different alternative processor architecture is very efficient, potentially at the edge. Maybe that's got got potential. But do you have any thoughts on this? I mean, I know it's kind of Yeah, any hardware is, but, >>well, it is a little hardware, but I think you have to come back to the applicability of it. I mean, if you're taking a slim down ruggedized server and trying Teoh essentially take out, take off all the fancy pieces and just get to the core of it and call that your edge. I think you've missed a huge opportunity beyond that. So what happens with the processing that might be in camera or in a robot or in an inch device? These are custom silicon custom processors custom demand that you can't pull back to a server for everything you have to be able to to extend it even further. And, you know, if I compare and contrast for a minute, I think some of the vendors that are looking at Hey, our definition of edge is a laptop or it is this smaller form factor server. I think they're incredibly limiting themselves. I think there is a great opportunity beyond that, and we'll see more of those kind of crop up, because the reality is the applicability of how Edge gets used is we do data collection and data analysis in the device at the device. So whether it's a camera, whether it's ah, robot, there's processing that happens within that device. Now some of that might come back to an intermediate area, and that intermediate area might be one of these smaller form factor devices, like a server for a demo. But it might not be. It might be a custom type of device that's needed in a remote location, and then from there you might get back to that smaller form factor. Do you have all of these stages and data and processing is getting done at each of these stages as more and more resources are made available. Because there are things around AI and ML that you could only do in cloud, you would not be able to do even in a smaller form factor at the edge. But there are some that you can do with the edge and you need to do at the edge, either for latency reasons or just response time. And so that's important to understand the applicability of this. It's not just a simple is saying, Hey, you know, we've got this edge to cloud portfolio and it's great and we've got the smaller servers. You have to kind of change the vernacular a little bit and look at the applicability of it and what people are actually doing >>with. I think those are great points. I think you're 100% right on. You are going to be doing AI influencing at the edge. The data of a lot of data is going to stay at the edge and I personally think and again David Floor is written about this, that it's going to require different architectures. It's not going to be the data center products thrown over to the edge or shrunk down. As you're saying, That's maybe not the right approach, but something that's very efficient, very low cost of when you think about autonomous vehicles. They could have, you know, quote unquote servers in there. They certainly have compute in there. That could be, you know, 2344 $5000 worth of value. And I think that's an opportunity. I'd love to see HP Dell, others really invest in R and D, and this is a new architecture and build that out really infuse ai at the edge. Last last question, guys, we're running out of time. One of the things I'll start with you. Still what things you're gonna watch for HP as indicators of success of innovation in the coming decade. As we said last decade, kind of painful for HP and HP. You know, this decade holds a lot of promise. One of the things you're gonna be watching in terms of success indicators. >>So it's something we talked about earlier is how are they helping customers build new things, So a ws always focuses on builders. Microsoft talks a lot. I've heard somethin double last year's talk about building those new applications. So you know infrastructure is only there for the data, and the applications live on top of it. And if you mention Dave, there's a number of these acquisitions. HP has moved up the stack. Some eso those proof points on new ways of doing business. New ways of building new applications are what I'm looking for from HP, and it's robust ecosystem. >>Tim. Yeah, yeah, and I would just pick you back right on. What's do was saying is that this is a, you know, going back to the Moonshot goals. I mean, it's about as far away as HP ease, and HP is routes used to be and that that hardware space. But it's really changing business outcomes, changing business experiences and experiences for the customers of their customers. And so is far cord that that eight p e can get. I wouldn't expect them to get all the way there, although in conversations I am having with HP and with others that it seems like they are thinking about that. But they have to start moving in that direction. And that's actually something that when you start with the builder conversation like Microsoft has had, an Amazon has had Google's had and even Dell, to some degree has had. I think you missed the bigger picture, so I'm not saying exclude the builder conversation. But you have to put it in the right context because otherwise you get into this siloed mentality of right. We have solved one problem, one unique problem, and built this one unique solution. And we've got bigger issues to be able to address as enterprises, and that's going to involve a lot of different moving parts. And you need to know if you're a builder, you've it or even ah ah, hardware manufacturer. You've got to figure out, How does your piece fit into that bigger picture and you've got to connect those dots very, very quickly. And that's one of the things I'll be looking for. HP as well is how they take this new software initiative and really carry it forward. I'm really encouraged by what I'm seeing. But of course the future could hold something completely different. We thought 2020 would look very different six months ago or a year ago than it does today. >>Well, I wanna I want to pick up on that, I think I would add, and I agree with you. I'm really gonna be looking for innovation. Can h P e e get back to kind of its roots? Remember, H B's router invents it was in the logo. I can't translate its R and D into innovation. To me, it's all about innovation. And I think you know cios like Antonio Neri, Michael Dell, Arvind Krishna. They got a They have a tough, tough position because they're on the one hand, they're throwing off cash, and they can continue Teoh to bump along and, you know, placate Wall Street, give back dividends and share buybacks. And and that's fine. And everybody would be kind of happy. But I'll point out that Amazon in 2007 spent spend less than a $1,000,000,000 in R and D. Google spent about the back, then about the same amount of each B E spends today. So the point is, if the edge is really such a huge opportunity, this $4 trillion tam is David Foyer points out, there's a There's a way in which some of these infrastructure companies could actually pull a kind of mini Microsoft and reinvent themselves in a way that could lead to massive shareholder returns. But it was really will take bold vision and a brave leader to actually make that happen. So that's one of things I'm gonna be watching very closely hp invent turn r and D into dollars. And so you guys really appreciate you coming on the Cube and breaking down the segment for ah, the future of HP be well, and, uh and thanks very much. Alright. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Volante for Tim Crawford and Stupid men. Our coverage of HP ease 2020 Virtual experience. We'll be right back right after this short break. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.