>> From Boston, Massachusetts. It's theCUBE. Covering WTG Transform 2019 brought to you by Winslow Technology Group. >> Welcome back. I'm Stu Miniman, and we're at WTG Transform 2019 here in Boston, Massachusets. Happen to welcome back to the program the CTO of Winslow Technology Group. Rick Gouin spoke to the customers this morning, threw in a bunch of data points, got us all thinking about where we are today and where we're going tomorrow in the cloud. Rick, thanks so much for joining us >> Hey, thanks for having me. >> All right, so rick, you and I, we've known each other for a few years now, we have these great debates as to kind of where we are and where we're going. I attended a Nutanix event a couple years ago, and Nassim Taleb, who is the author of a number of books including Black Swan and Antifragile, he worked on Wall Street and he said look, we all try to make these predictions, but we think it's going to be a line, or maybe they'll be slow adoption, but the black swan that he said is something, just the quick thing is you've never seen a black swan, you'd think that all swans are white, and once you've seen a black swan, you're like, oh my god, everything that I thought I knew I have to think any questions. Predicting the future, especially in a never changing world where we don't have all the facts and when we can't predict, is really challenging. So understanding whether cloud will take 80% of the market or 30% in the next five years is a little bit of a complex thing. It's like trying to predict the weather here in New England where we're watching the clouds and the rain roll in and roll out. Start with us as to Winslow Technology, your customers, where they are with cloud, and how that conversation goes with them today. >> Yeah, so I think you make a great point about these statistics, these assertions, these predictions. We're getting bombarded with them without context, and I think that it leaves a lot of our customers feeling like they're behind the curve a little bit because have bandy about the, you'll hear 80% of cloud, of companies have a cloud strategy, and there's never the follow up to see did it change two weeks later, was it actually implemented. And so, I think what we can all agree on is that one, all of these technologies are going to continue to grow. Their adoption is going to continue to grow. We're going to continue to figure out different ways to extract value from those services, but the other part of this, and I think it's really where Winslow fits in, is that we want to help our customers position themselves to take advantage of that. So I want to help our customers transform what they're doing today. If we look out at that three, at that five year mark, we know that we're going to have a lot of workloads out there. I don't know what the percentage is going to be, I'm not going to throw a fake number out there, but we know that it's going to be bigger than the one today. And we also, I would assert, that there are things we can help you do in your on-prem environment today that will help you make you better prepared for that transition and allow you to attack that, hopefully, in a more strategic and well considered way. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well rick, I am very sure 87% of all statistics lie, and beyond that, I would poke and prod at any numbers that I see there because look, numbers are numbers, and as you said, things do change all the time. >> Context. >> When I look at some of the tailwinds that have been driving your business the last few years, hyper convergent infrastructure, some of the services wrapping around, help customers with their security journey, with their cloud journey. You've got a number of partners that are there. The bombardment that your customers get, it doesn't stop. If they open up, they open up the news today, it's like oh, AWS just unleased their latest on outpost, and VMware is partnering with all the clouds, and therefore you better be ready for it. The thing I'll poke a little bit at, I don't mind that customers think they're a little bit far behind because what they need to be doing is being that change mindset because the worse thing they can do is just say, well, I've got it the way I want it and I'm not going to change. And I think that that's something you would agree with and that Winslow's helping them to try to keep up because nobody can keep up by themselves, so they've got to be able to turn to partners like yourself to keep up. >> Yeah. I think one of the think one of the things that was telling that I touched on earlier today a little bit was the number three reason that we heard from our customers for why they weren't leveraging the public cloud was because they didn't know how. And I think that that's telling, I think that sort of response to the whole notion that they're feeling behind the curve, but I also feel like you mentioned hyper converged, you mentioned some of these other partners we work with. These guys all have some great stories that will allow our customers to take a first step. What we're not talking about is saying hey, customers, you've got to re-platform everything. You've got to re-write everything to leverage all these different cloud services and cloud platform. That's a big lift for a lot of our customers, but what might not be such a huge lift is leveraging some of those cloud services, cloud connectivity capabilities that are built into those platforms from those partners like Nutanix, like VMware, like Dell EMC. >> So rick, I really liked your line that most customers, many customers end up hybrid by accident. And unfortunately, I think that's where we are when you go talk to them, they might not understand hybrid cloud, multi cloud, they're just like oh, that's vendor terminology, but do you have SAS? Oh, absolutely, they've all got O365 and Salesforce, and a whole host of other ones. Three which probably IPO today. And are they using a public cloud? They definitely are. Most of them at least understand they're using it as opposed to five years ago it was like oh, wait, we actually checked all the IPs and we had three groups that we didn't realize that were doing the old stealth IT. So what is the advice, how do we make sure we get everybody talking in, what are some steps to move forward on that strategy to actually have a coherent cloud offering, not just the pieces that I put together because that's what different groups did. >> Sure, yeah. I think the hybrid by accident scenario is one that we're seeing more and more often from our customers and also just from other folks in the industry. And I guess just to kind of expand on that a little bit, what we're talking about there is when somebody that we're working with perhaps goes into a project, goes into a cycle with the notion that they're going to be all of one or all of the other. I'm going to put everything in the cloud or I'm going to put nothing in the cloud. And what happens is you find a workload that doesn't fit where your whatever your direction is. And so all of a sudden, if you're one of those people who say oh the cloud is just somebody else's computer. Next thing you know, you're on O365, next thing you know you're consuming Dropbox or who knows what. You've got all of these different public services and you have no integration between your on-prem environment and all these public services you're leveraging. And so, you find yourself in a scenario where you're in a hybrid by accident, and which means that you didn't build in the sort of management that would be able to consider these different silos of information. And so, what we kind of advocate is that when you're approaching these strategic decisions, recognize upfront that you may very well end up in hybrid scenario, at least in the next few years this is probably what it's going to look like, at least that's what I think. Recognize that upfront and build that into your plan. If you plan to end up in a hybrid end state, you're whole environment is going to be such much more cohesive, you're going to have that app mobility, you're going to have so much more flexibility than if you end up there by accident by moving half your workloads out, lift and shifting some things over here, some stuff gets left behind, different groups are managing different things 'cause they're different skillsets. If you plan to be in that state at the end, you're going to be in much better shape, but you're also going to be well positioned to continue to move things out as those services become more robust and as you can extract more value from those for your business. >> I think if you've looked at the history of IT, it's very rare that we get one thing to rule them all. >> Right. >> And it's like, well, Ethernet's done a good job at networking, and the mainframe had it's time there, but at the end of the day, five years from now, it might just be all my solutions are cloud, but it's just, as you said, that location matters a little bit less because by the way, it's not just public and private, that edge computing thing is a huge draw that most companies I talk to have some kind of IOT and censure strategy that they're picking out. How can users be data driven to get to the right things in the right place and really make smart decisions? >> Yeah. So I think that there's two facets here to being able to make data driven decisions. The first is that you have to collect the data. We have to put in the diligence, so certainly, that's one of the places that we're able to help our customers in collecting and in quantifying it, attaching dollars and cents. Here's what the services will cost, here's what the professional services, the re-platforming will cost. Let's wrap some numbers around this. If you're trying to make those decisions, if you're creating a strategy, and you haven't taken a look at what your costs are going to be, what your level of effort is going to be, that's a super incomplete strategy, and it's one of the frustrating things for me as a customer facing resource to walk into one of those situations where a customer is dead set on their strategy, but really doesn't understand it themselves. We really welcome the opportunity to help those kind of do their diligence to be able to create more informed and data drive strategies. Leveraging information from their own environments. >> All right. Rick, last thing is we know things are changing all the time. What's the last thing you want people to know about Winslow Technology 2019 that they might not have understood if they looked at the company a year or three years ago? >> Yeah, so I think that some of the big changes that have really come to us in the last couple years is we're adding technical firepower at alarming rate. Our growth is really focused on the services delivery, and the engineering talent we've brought in high end security resources, high end VMware resources. We're able to deliver those cloud connectivity capabilities from all those different products that you mentioned. We're able to deliver a fairly robust security portfolio today, not to mention, the highest level of VMware expertise that there is out there. So we put a lot of focus into the services, into professional services, into helping our customers sort of understand and make that journey, straddle that public, private, hybrid, multi sort of thing. And we think that services is going to drive a lot of this for us going forward. And so our capabilities are growing leaps and bounds, year over year in the services and engineering talent perspective. >> All right, well, Rick Gouin, CTO of Winslow Technology. Always a pleasure to catch up. My prediction, next year I think we'll be another five to 10% in our agreement as to what the future looks like. >> I like it. >> Just because it will be today as opposed to tomorrow >> Yes. >> in the viewpoint. Be back with much more here from WTG 2019. I'm Stu Miniman. And thanks for watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)

>> 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)

>> Live, from New York City, it's theCUBE. Covering Lenovo Transform 2.0. Brought to you by, Lenovo. (electronic music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of Lenovo Transform, here in New York City. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my cohost Stu Miniman. We have two guests here on this segment, We have Kirk Skaugen, he is the president of Lenovo Data Center Group, and Brad Anderson, the Corporate Vice President of Enterprise Mobility for NetApp. Thanks for coming on the program. >> Thank you for having us. >> So the big news of the day, the NetApp Lenovo partnership, explain to our viewers exactly what this means. These are two global powerhouses joining forces. >> Yeah sure, so I think Lenovo has had an amazing year. Last year in our Transform 1.0 we announced the largest server portfolio in our history. And this year we announced the largest data center, data management storage portfolio in our history. With a partnership with NetApp, so we're creating a multi-billion dollar global alliance, a multi-year alliance and it has a place in a joint venture in China as well as we'll be distributing NetApp products in over 160 countries in the world. >> So tell us about the background to this partnership. How did it come about? >> Well, you know, for NetApp we were looking for expanding our reach, and there was two markets that were kind of underserved in. One being kind of the commercial SMB SME channel, and Lenovo has a high-velocity channel there, a strong position. So Lenovo made complete sense in that space as well as in China, where we have a strong brand but we're underserved there as well, so who is better in China than Lenovo? So for us this is all about global market and then the fact that they're a server vendor is just icing on the cake, because the other two server vendors in the marketplace are also our competitors. And then, Lenovo is so much more compatible and complementary to our entire business. >> Kirk, maybe you could spend a little more, because when you look at storage today, storage is really built on servers. You know, NetApp is, you know, at it's heart a software company, even back in the day NetApp was never, some of the other storage companies spent a lot of time and money on the hardware pieces. And of course had reliable, good, trustable hardware, but maybe explain how much, kind of, I.P. goes into this partnership. >> Yeah, sure. So I think today we have about 15 percent coverage of the overall storage market within Lenovo. We've grown our flash array business over 100 percent over the last four quarters. IDC had us at 30% quarter to quarter growth. So we've done well, but we've only cover 15% of the market. After this announcement, and shipping now today, we'll cover over 90% of the market in more than 160 countries. So we're using our global supply chain which is ranked number five in the world by Garner. Manufacturing in Europe, in China, in Mexico et cetera. Really expand this out through our channel partnership program. And in China we're taking a very unique approach to this joint venture. This isn't about taking global products and just trying to force fit them into China. China has unique software solutions, unique hyper scale requirements. So we're pooling our R and D there. Lenovo will be a 51% owner, NetApp a 49% owner. Brad's going to be on the board and there we're going to be delivering products in China for China. >> Yeah, is it, you've got a lot of experience with that. You talk about coming in the future there's an NFV software and hardware solution in China, so Lenovo has some experience doing this kind of engagement, you know. >> Yeah, I think we have a more than 50% growth now, year on year in China. We retooled a lot of the operations that we had there. We have a really nice, broad portfolio now since we launched Think System and Think Agile so it's a nice place to grow on. But today we talked about the joint venture with NetApp and also the fact that over the next year we'll be building out a telecom NFV company after having China Mobile and China Telecom with us as at Mobile World Congress. As well as new edge gateway and edge server solutions. >> Brad, I know cloud is in your title for what you are doing, when I hear NetApp talking, I see NetApp at all the cloud shows we go to. It's a very different world than when I think about NetApp ten years or twenty years ago as like, you know, the Nas Filer company. So bring us up to speed of kind of the NetApp today the momentum and what this brings. >> Yeah, I mean we are going through our own transformation where we were principally a storage company and now we want to be a data company, and increasingly to be a data company you got to be a cloud company. And so, we continue to develop what we think are the, you know, the best storage products in the world, but they are all cloud connected. 'Cause we want data to be able to flow from prim to cloud and customers be able to, you know. That's what really kind of fuels these digital enterprises is that data is the new oil. And so in doing that we have kind of expanded NetApp's charter significantly to being the data authority in hybrid cloud. Hybrid being both the private and the public. And so part of my business is really focused on providing products and solutions so customers can have the same experience in building their own private clouds that they enjoy in the public. And then on the public side we have partnerships with all the hyper scalers to put NetApp's in there so they can deliver native cloud data services. And so, this is a very different company where we're getting more and more cloudy every day. (Rebecca laughs). And that's part of our transformation intentionally. >> So, the transformation, it's the theme of this conference and you were up on the main stage talking about Lenovo's turning this corner and really accelerating its growth, and also talking about the transformation from within the company. Changing the look of the leadership team in particular. Can you tell our viewers a little bit more about that strategy. >> Sure, so we acquired the IBM system X business in late 2014 and we did some things really well and we did some things that we've learned from. So we spent, you know, basically the last 18 months transforming the whole company. New channel programs, new system integrator partnerships, new training certifying over 11,000 people in the world now. Tripling the number of our solution recipes. And we have transformed The management team as well. We have replaced about 19 executives because we wanted the right balance of external and internal perspectives from our competitors as well as from ex-Lenovo and ex-IBM employees. So we feel like we have a very customer-centric organization now and, again, Gardner now is saying we are growing 49% year on year in units, IDC said we are growing 87% year on year in revenues. So I think customers are responding to the new product line. Over the last year the Think System brand truly meant the highest customer performance, the highest reliability, the highest customer satisfaction. And as a result it does take a while to transform. And I think that over the last 12 months you've seen that and we're exponentially growing now as a company. >> And you see it in your results. I mean, they are outstanding. >> So Brad, bring us inside the products a little bit. So we've got, it's the Think System DE and DM. Of course the storage industry very much, they need to trust it, they need to understand it. Gives little to understand, I believe DE maybe has something to do with the >> The E series >> The E series there and tell us the DM series, what's underneath there and how do people understand what's different and what's the same. >> Yeah, I mean the. We're taking platforms across our E series, our FAS and our all flash arrays. So the DE corresponds to the E series. The DM will have our FAS products as well as our all flash array products in there. So that's kind of the mapping. We're putting initially I think, ten products in there. We have the capacity to expand and I'm sure we're going to learn a lot because these are serving markets that NetApp doesn't typically serve. So I think not only is this going to give Lenovo the tools to compete, it's going to give us a lot of information to even build better products, better solutions for both NetApp and our Lenovo customers. So we're super excited about that. The second thing is, it's OnTab, it's the same core software, and all the value and performance testing and validation you get with NetApp. That all goes into the Lenovo branded products as well. And we have made it one of our hallmarks is our data fabric. All of the data services that are on top of this that you can move data and manage data between platforms, that is really important for the NetApp customer. All those values extend to the Lenovo customer. So if they also have NetApp in their environment, or vice-versa, they can share or move data between both those platforms. So that's, nowhere else in the industry is that possible across vendors let alone within. >> So how does it work when you are in the product development process. Two companies, both relentlessly focused on customers. This is part of your culture, part of your DNA. So how do you work together in terms of innovating and collaborating. >> Well, I think the first thing is you just look at the core business: our server business and NetApp branded storage, or Lenovo branded storage based on NetApp's portfolio. We're going to have a better together solution. So the first thing we're looking at is a set of solution recipes so that when you use NetApp and Lenovo together, you're going to get a better experience as a customer base. So that's why I am excited today. We've launched three times as many engineered solutions as we did a year ago. And trained these 11,000 people because we have a very solution oriented sales force and a very complementary channel. From a development perspective, we're going to be building X Clarity management into our portfolio. So the same systems management software that is mission critical for Lenovo server products will now manage the big system DE and DM products. So it's a very familiar management interface for customers, there's an engineering effort gone with that. And then on service and support, we're going to use over 10,000 people around the world that Lenovo has to go service and support these products. So we can deliver a premium customer experience. Whether you're buying the server or the storage. And back to the customer base: we're going to, especially in China, have deep engineering collaborations. Where we're walking into those customer bases and asking what's unique about the China market. >> And, and. It really helps that the two companies are very complementary. So NetApp has deep storage expertise, Lenovo has tremendous compute expertise. So they are very complementary and as customers want more and more complete solutions, we are learning, our engineers are learning from each other and it doesn't hurt the fact that we have a large engineering. We NetApp, have a large engineering population in the research triangle where Kirk's people are at. >> That's right. We're probably one kilometer away from each other in research triangle park. >> Geography matters, location location location. >> No, and our two support organizations are next door as well. So I think that proximity will only contribute to the collaboration. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Alright, so the storage industry actually has a relatively good track record of some deep, long partnerships. NetApp has had a number of them over the years. Tell us, what does success look like if we look back three years from now, what's this partnership. >> Well, what we said publicly is we plan to have a multi-billion dollar, multi-year alliance. So that's going to be fantastic as we grow in over 160 countries. We're going to use Lenovo's extensive supply chain network. So you know as one of the largest kind of procurers of componentry and things around the world, we get to leverage this global factory network to build even more value into that situation. And in China specifically, we've set a goal of being a top three storage player. So we both have probably single digit share in China but together with this collaboration we are setting sights quite high to be in the top three over the next several years. >> I think that's exactly right and I think those are all achievable goals. But right now, we want to get out the gate fast. I mean this is a partnership with two companies with a lot of momentum and I see this as a huge opportunity for both our companies to kind of amplify that momentum near term. And so while there's a lot of excitement on the future, I think success is going to look like, you know, some very exciting results that Kirk can share at Transform 3.0 next year. >> That's right. And for our customer base, we have already gone into production. Taking orders, as of today and tons of engineering, tons of manufacturing development. So we'll have a whole host of seed units and early access units. Our customers can get their hands on this stuff right away and start testing it in their environment. >> As you said, it is an audacious vision. You announced an audacious vision last year, you did another one again this year. So when you think about what you want to be talking about next year. You said what success looks like. What are some other things that you're working on? You said, this is a process, Lenovo has turned the corner and it's got a lot of momentum. But what else are you, what else do you have on tap that you're... >> Well, if we tell all of you that, (Rebecca laughs) we won't have this here next year. >> Yeah >> But I think today is about entry and midrange. About expanding Lenovo's breadth from 15 to 90% of the market and being very aggressive against our top competitors that have a combined server storage portfolio. And I think as I've gone around the world, I've been in Latin America, in India, our channel partners are incredibly excited about this. So I think while other customers might be taking business more direct, we've traditionally been very channel-centric. So, I've seen a lot of pull for choice in the market and I think that's what we're going to deliver to our channel partners. But we will have a lot more in store, that I can promise you. This is phase one of a multi-phase, multi-year plan. >> I think there's a lot of things, there's a lot of possibilities on the product development side and how we can do better products, but I think a lot of success is going to look, it's going to come in our global market. Already, Kirk, since I've been here, I've had a channel partner come up and said "Hey, this makes me rethink my channel partners all over again", because now that channel partner who's a Lenovo has the full breadth of the storage portfolio. So I think this is going to be really good for both of us. Particularly when, you know, Lenovo and NetApp are both very channel friendly partners and companies and I think this I going to be a catalyst to have more people on our side than ever before. >> Kirk, just last thing, just give you the opportunity to talk about some of the other breadth and choice and other things that Lenovo has going on. We're going to talk to some of your team about, you know, hyper converge and hyper scale and other hyper things, but yeah. (Rebecca laughs) >> Well I think the good news about our growth now is that we're doing it across multiple segments in the industry. There isn't just one part of the market that growing. So last year we set an audacious goal of being the largest supercomputer company in the world by 2020. We've now crossed that actually this year. So we are the largest supercomputer company in the world. About one in every four supercomputers now are there. And we're expanding that into a lot of AI offerings as well with our four artificial intelligence centers, from China, Germany, Taipei, Beijing. All having customers bring their AI workloads into a controlled environment with our partners where there's intel and video or the FGBA vendors. So super-computing is alive and well and we continue to innovate with our warm-water cooling technology that's going to be here on display. We think we're building one of the largest supercomputers in Europe right now using that technology. So not just helping solve global warming but being more energy-efficient while we are computing on that as well. In hyper scale we've grown to about delivering six of the top ten hyper scalers products. And we're doing that through, basically starting with a white sheet of paper with our customers and building more than thirty customized products. In the motherboard, in the system, in putting it through our entire supply chain. Versus just, in the past maybe two years ago, maybe just leveraging ODM products, so. Significant growth in hyper scale where we're bringing on new billion dollar customers on a regular basis now. And then in flash arrays, our traditional business, we were over 100% growth year on year. So we're building off of momentum. We had great products but only covering 15% of the market, now much larger. Last but not least, we did announce since Transform, new divisions in embedded and IoT as well as in telecommunications NFVF software. We think each of those can be billion dollar groups within Lenovo, so that's probably a lot of what we would be talking about next year is announcements and innovations we've had. Would be Transform 3.0 probably. (Rebecca laughs) >> Well, we're already looking forward to the next Transform. >> 3.0 will be CUBEd so we look forward to that. >> Stu, very nice. Very nice. Excellent. Well thank you so much Brad and Kirk for being on the show, I really appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Miniman. We will have more from Lenovo Transform and theCUBE's live coverage, just after this. (intense electronic music)

from Boston Massachusetts it's the cube covering wtg transform 2018 brought to you by Winslow technology group you're watching the cubes coverage of wtg transform 2018 happy to welcome back to the program fresh off the keynotes page where he discussed the specter of clouds Rick Cowan who is the chief technology officer of window technology group Rick great to talk to you thanks for having me - all right yeah thank you for having us here so we're talking about this whole cloud thing and you and I've been talking about this for a couple of years gives it gives your viewpoint you talked a lot of customers we can talk about architecture but you know the average customer when they hear you know cloud you know there's some puffy things up in the sky but you know what what does it mean to them sure yeah so I think one of the things that we're advocating as it relates to sort of starting that cloud journey is to do some homework ahead of time make data-driven decisions and we don't want you as our you know customer base to get into a situation where you're kind of backed into a corner right where you move something you decide you need to bring it back or or or anything like that so we're a big advocate of you know running some analytics and making some intelligent decisions you know try and start with that low-hanging fruit where you can kind of ease your way in and and the stuff that doesn't require re-platforming and you know get your toes toes in the sand a little bit before you wade all the way out there yes so if I step back for a second just immersed and point one of the things I liked in your keynote is so many times we think about technology it's like oh well it's a new server or it's you know something I swipe a credit card and I go using the cloud cloud really we need to think about the operating knowledge as it's the policies and the people that are as important if not more important than the okay what's the pipe price per CPU and things like that right right yeah yeah and one of the things that we talk about a lot is that when we're talking about cloud we're not talking about a place we're not talking about who owns it we're not talking about any particular public cloud provider we're talking about a way of doing business a way of bringing your services to your internal customers and a way of kind of transforming your IT infrastructure to more efficiently consume those resources right and that's that's a change in operating model that's a change in sort of way of thinking not just from you know this whole cloud thing but also towards delivering IT more as a service yeah and you spent a lot of time talking about applications which I really like because I'm an infrastructure guy by background when we talked about virtualization when we talked about converge and hyper-converged a lot of times we're talking about you know boxes and cabling and networking and things like that the role of infrastructure is are on my application they're all the applications to run my business right that's the big theme we've been hearing for years is you know IT your role isn't to be this thing off on the side and it's not necessary you know dollars in headcount and all that are important but if you don't serve the ultimate business and what they need to do to keep us running we're all out of business right yeah this whole transformation is all about aligning right those business requirements with IT and starting to deliver services that are tailored towards what the business needs as opposed to what I can offer what my capabilities are right those need to be more in synced and that's what this whole operating model is all about right is aligning those services to the business and and creating the infrastructure so that the business can consume it more easily yeah and you gave some really good pointers I want you to give us the you know your customers because when I heard things like oh well you know let's say I'm using a public cloud well I need to understand how availability zones work and how I spread things out which you know if I'm used to you know H a on VMware or you know your hypervisor Troy some of those things I got used to it because things work they were built for the enterprise now it's you know well it's distributed but you need to think about things from that application level a little bit more right yeah and so that's something that we're trying to educate our customer base on is as we move forward and as we start to move workloads into various you know clouds public/private what-have-you we have to start considering some of those availability aspects that today we don't even think about right almost everybody who is still sitting in that traditional infrastructure they're all having their availability provided probably at the hardware level they have you know multiple controllers and clusters and all this stuff so they put a they drop an application into their environment and it's already gonna have pretty good availability when we as we move forward we have to start pushing that availability up the stack and thinking about it more at the application level and so when we're deploying workloads into different cloud environments we may be sponsible for providing our own high availability and that's something that in some cases requires a fair amount of expertise to to you know get that architecture right so that we do have the same level of high availability out in these cloud environments that we have in our on-prem infrastructure all right so Rick inside your customers you know who are the people you're talking to that kind of get this you know we lived through the transformation of like well you know the storage guy was doing this thing we need to kind of have the virtualization person own more you know cloud architect has been a title that's been you know expanding quite a lot over the last few years who are you getting at the table who's making these architectural decisions when you're working with your users yeah so we feel like it's something that we have to get the entire team on board with it's something where it might be an initiative that we start to address with the CIOs and the IT directors but it's important to get the entire organization's IT staff on board with the transition because each one is going to have a part to play and in sort of moving forward into that IT as a service sort of an organization great so you know when it looked at some of the things that wtg is doing you know obviously you know Dell EMC Nutanix VMware your biggest partners you know what's what's kind of you know the the big you know big push team today from the majority your customers and what are some of the you know more advanced customers getting excited about yeah so I think you know you listed off those those partners and when we look at them a common theme there is adding this built-in sort of cloud interoperability connectivity and feature set so when we're thinking about all the characteristics that we look for in a cloud operating model we're seeing things like self-service portals things like you know the ability to measure multiple tenants and things like this and so what we're seeing across all those partners is more and more of those features come as parts of the infrastructure solutions and that's reducing the burden on our customers to be able to deploy something that you know operates in that cloud sort of IT as a service offering and so you know some of these customers are getting really excited about that capability to write out-of-the-box deploy a self-service portal deliver these these capabilities straight to their in colonel customers without having to do a bunch of development or or you know build complicated systems to deliver them so it's a self-service portals it's the built-in cloud connectivity to be able to archive things and and send dr out to you know third-party service providers so those are some of the things that our customers who are on this journey and you know maybe they started last year the year before they're moving forward those are the sorts of things that they're starting to point out you know one of the big challenges when we talk about this rather dispersed world we're moving towards you spend some time talking about SAS absolutely SAS is the biggest piece of you know if you call public cloud some of it doesn't live in one of the big clouds or can live lots of places data right data protection a security are something that no matter where I go I need to worry about that it's there's there's no way actually in your definition you're like oh if I do SAS I don't need to worry about the data no no no great - well I think you took somebody's slide there but you know there are some people that mistakingly oh well I ran on a pass I don't need to worry about security no you do containers any of these things data protection my data and you know security I need to worry about that everywhere and that brings a whole new set of challenges yeah and and you know so you make a good point because on for example I'm a security side of things it's continues to be just as much of a concern as it ever was but it's an entirely different way to think about it you know likewise with data protection it's just as important as it ever was but it's an entirely different way to think about one of the things though that I thought was really interesting about security is that when I'm talking to these CIOs and IT directors across our customer base in the past you know if I go back rewind this thing three years they would say I can't go to the cloud because of security right now we're you know were a little bit more mature and in our cloud understanding and and starting to you know transform a little bit and they now that lists that as one of the reasons they want to move to the cloud and I think that was one of the most startling sort of realizations as that shift in my chair yeah absolutely we actually did did some surveys there was a big survey we were attached with called the future of cloud computing and you're right if I hadn't dipped my toe in I was worried about it but once I got there I realized I kind of looked in sighed and said oh my gosh what did I be doing interesting analogy I've paired sometimes is you know the autonomous vehicles and things like that I'm worried about this self-driving or even the braking or things like that that challenging have you looked at most drivers most people you know oh my gosh they're checking their tax they're you know doing all sorts of stuff there it is a bit of a mind flip as done how you think of these things doesn't mean it changes overnight or that there's there's never a silver bullet night day but you know it's some of these viewpoints that we need to change and think a little differently yeah yeah I think that's a great analogy I'm probably SD laughs all right Rick what's exciting you these days your CTO you know you're here there's you know Boston area love if you've got you know anything about you know cool things in the area or just cool tech in general yeah I think you know and and I dressed a lot of this in my keynote earlier today but I'm really high on an analytical approach to a hybrid cloud I want to start to get customers thinking about you know how we can make this a transition as opposed to a you know just jump in right in the deep end it doesn't have to be this this big jarring event as we sort of transform this is something where we can take baby steps and and start to move ourselves forward and so you know we're getting really excited about those technologies that allow us to integrate our existing infrastructure with various other you know cloud services whether they be you know platforms infrastructure and software offerings things that allow us to take the investments that we already have and you know sort of integrate and make use of these cloud services that we know can deliver value to our organization that's what we're most excited about is you know getting more out of what we have yeah you mentioned analytics I mean here in Boston you had in the opening video there was some of the I think it's the Boston Dynamics robots you know right across the river here yeah in the area when I talk to people like in the storage world we talk about intelligence but their eyes light up because we've been talking about intelligence storage for decades but no really now that with all the cool technologies yet we can really put this in here and it's not about you know getting rid of the admins it about really supercharging and be able to deal with you know we've got way more data we've got way more devices we've got way more things I'm going to have to do so you know we need some help with all of these machines to be able to pair the machines with the people to make them do their jobs better yep yep couldn't agree more all right we're going pleasure to catch up with you and thanks again thanks so much for having us here be sure to check out the cube net for all of the content here and all the shows will be back with lots more coverage thanks for watching the Q

from Boston Massachusetts it's the cube covering wtg transform 2018 brought to you by Winslow technology group hi I'm Stu minimun and this is the second year of the cube at what is now wtg transform 2018 and happy to welcome to the program Scott Winslow who is the president and founder of winslet Technology Group Scott always great to see you good afternoon still happy to be with you hey and Scott thank you so much you you not only brought us back a second year we've got a nice table here but I'm not tripping over myself saying that it's the you know 14th anniversary Winslow technology group Dell EMC user conference and lovely Boston Massachusetts in the background it was like ha it's literally wtg transform rolls off the tongue so thank you you were the inspiration for us to you your comments last year precipitated to change our name III know your team just looked at it and felt sorry for me because it didn't roll off the tongue quite as easily as as the new it was a mouthful yeah so Scott you and I did we bump into each other a bunch we'd say we tend to go to many of the shows the Dell show the Nutanix show let's talk about your show first here you said it is the 14th year its users one of the reasons Idol of coming here besides getting to talk to you and Rick and some of your partner's is users I will speak to more users in one day here than I do it some of the big shows I go to yeah I mean it's it's a great opportunity to thank our existing customer base you know we have a fourfold purpose for this event we like to educate our customers we hope that they can pick up some knowledge and maybe an aha moment that they have with they're looking at a hyper-converged solutions or all-flash solutions we've got a new Dell client display here this year that we've never had in the past so we're looking to educate we love to give them an opportunity to collaborate with other practitioners to compare notes the feedback I get from them is they really enjoy that piece of it we want to have some fun and you know it's a tradition that we want to keep rolling and they're helping you know to make it very successful so it's been a great it's been a great venue for us and a great event for so over 14 years now and Scott you couldn't have ordered a better day I mean New England you know it might change in an hour but right now temperatures in the low 70s it's mostly clear you know gorgeous backdrop here as you mentioned in the you open you know Sox have their ace pitching tonight and there are still in first place so yeah it doesn't doesn't hurt well you know we're in the customer service business right so you have to think of everything temperature starting pitcher and you know we try to make sure we've got a good agenda and there's a lot of good information for them here there to get customers to come out and spend a day with you like this is why there's a great event has going to be so biggest because year after year after year I feel like we've delivered and then we have kind of a continuous improvement process and we try to improve it every year here we are Scott one talk about your business you know first time we met you know winslet technology was one of the it was it was the Dell Partner of the year so you know been a long time dell partner the dell you know acquisition merger with emc it's been interesting to watch i know you've got some viewpoints but before we get into kind of the dell piece of it talk about your business as you know because we call you a channel partner and they're you know what's driving your business how's growth going how are things up here in new england and Beyond because yeah you're much more than New England yeah I mean well we've certainly evolved our business over the years with acquisitions being a big part of that initially we started out as a compelling partner then Compellent was acquired by Dell and then you know five or six years later after that we've the Delhi you see consolidation so I think we've had to learn to be flexible and and one of the things we've seen with that is we just each time there was an acquisition it allowed us to increase the size of our portfolio with more solutions that we can offer our end-users more services that we can provide you know along the way we've added a lot of other solutions too like the Nutanix solution and the hyper-converged space so our business is going great we're you know the highest employee count we've ever had our revenues were as high as they've ever been last year we had a record q3 record q4 in q1 we grew our Dell business by over 30% that makes Dell very happy and makes us very happy as well so you know as as this whole industry evolves and you know the digital economy progresses there continue to be the need for the services that we provide all right so let's talk about Dallas you said you've come from the compelling piece the the delicacy which the Nutanix OEM is something that I know your team is you know very involved with you know how is Dell and LEM see how they do and for the channel these days I think they're doing very well I think they you know tell likes to save they big ears and they listen well I think that they have proven that they put together a very good channel a partner program under the leadership of John Byrne initially and now Joyce Mullen you know I think that they incent you to work with them they try to incent the salespeople and sent the companies but they also put together very good programs for you to run marketing events like this so an event like this we couldn't do it without the support of Dell technologies and they've been you know very supportive of us you know they're providing speakers like Dave singer you've got all kinds of subject matter experts here we've got lots of hardware and software for folks through you know demo so I think I think overall the partner programs been very good great in Nutanix is this a you you get it through the Dell so I'm curious has it has the move as Nutanix is shifting more to really that software model does that have any impact on on your business or are you isolated from that since you've been using the Dell xcs yeah well I mean first of all we've been involved in Nutanix for you know three plus years now right before Dell acquired EMC our hyper-converged solution was Nutanix we've built together you know a very nice base with customers many of whom you know are here today so as they evolve to a software model I do think they're going to be less concerned about what or where platform it goes on because they're truly creating all their revenues you know from the software side so they're very they're they don't care really what you know what hardware platform is being used so you know we feel like we've got the best two solutions in the hyper-converged marketplace between the portfolio of Dell solutions you know visa and VX rail vce and then Nutanix with the Nutanix solution typically with Nutanix we tend to put that on a Dell server platform that's where we lean we think Dells got the best server technology in the industry that's a nice way for us to bridge that gap between the two companies so a lot of times our customers are putting a new tannic solution on a dell platform you know key themes I heard your talk rick's talk david singers talk this morning and what i hear from customers digital transformation and hybrid cloud are those top of mine with your customers today absolutely yeah I think you know Rick alluded to it in his talk a lot of customers are coming to us saying hey help us with our cloud strategy and so we're going in and saying tell us about your applications you know these are applications that we think belong in the public cloud that makes sense and the public cloud and you know that could be disaster recovery could be backup it could be office 365 and these are other applications that we think might be more well suited for an on-premise solution so that could be active file transfer and so you know we think that leads naturally to a hybrid cloud discussion we've got a customer here today a financial customer from New Hampshire and their CIO called me I had known him previously at a famous sneaker company in town he went to a financial institution and he said hey we wanna we want to move everything to the cloud can you come up and consult with us on that and we ended up putting in a hybrid cloud for him you know featuring a hyper-converged solution that had the cloud integration that he needed so I think that's the kind of activity we're involved in today yeah you use the word conversation that and the customers I've talked to they like they they need advice and they want someone that's not just oh well here's the solution that you're going to buy it no no it's a conversation there's lots of decision points and as you build out that hybrid cloud yes it's going to be made of by definition multiple pieces it's not necessarily going to be one company that's going to do it all but you know your team helps them that journey absolutely I mean you can't go in with a cookie cutter approach at sea you know you've got two years in one mouth we tell other salespeople you got to use them in that portion so you really kind of listen to the customer as I said try to understand what their applications are you got to understand what their biases are if it's a Microsoft shop you know as your might be their choice for you know public cloud or they might be interested in AWS so you got to kind of work through those you know scenarios and then build out a solution that's gonna work for them we and we rely on our solutions architects Brian veenu runs our sa team and he's got a group of five essays that we think are very adept at you know putting those solutions together yeah Brian's actually not not far from I said here you've got the new hands-on lab is one of the new things that you added here and anything from that or from other things at the event that you won't want to highlight as we wrap yeah I think I mean the hands-on lab gives you know customers the opportunity to come in and play with kind of structured and scripted demos and I see a number of customers in there using that so I'll talk to our team after the event and find out how it went we always try to look for you know improvements along the way but you know there's opportunity in there to play with those demos in terms of storage in terms of hyper-converged in terms of Dell OpenManage essentials which is the software that manages your entire server farm so I think that's been a good addition I'd say the other addition is this year is we were planning it we said hey our people are really good we need to get our people up in front instead of relying so much on the OEM and they're great and they provide great resources but I know that our people have so much to offer as well particularly because you know we're out there you know you're putting solutions together for customers and I think that breadth and depth you know comes through so that's been a nice addition this year where it's not just been Rick out on myself but we've utilized a number of members on our team Ed Palmer is the moderator for a customer experience as an outcome session this afternoon that we're really excited about because at the end of the day is a solution provider that's our job is to produce results and outcomes for our customers that's how we're going to be judged that's how we want to be judged so I'm really excited about that session because we've got em privada and Boston Architectural College they're going to present up their respective deployments and they were different of hyper-converged technology so I think the voice of the customer we really want to make sure we're continue to bring that back to this event so well Scott always a pleasure to see you thanks so much for taking the cube back to this event and thank you for all the customers we get access to we always loved to talk to the customers by the way if you're looking to get a customer on the cube that's we were always looking for customers so we look at the events or we do have a Boston area studio and a lovely Palo Alto studio so reach out to the team be happy to talk mom's to minimun thanks so much for watching the Q

>> Announcer: Live from Nassau in the Bahamas, it's theCUBE, covering Polygon 18, brought to you by Polymax. >> Hello, welcome back to our live coverage of this exclusive Cube coverage in the Bahamas for PolyCon 18. It's cryptocurrency, it's token economics, its de-centralized world, it's all about the future of the Internet, Dave. I'm with Dave Vellante here, our next guest is Margaux Avedisian, EVP of Transform Group, and partner and co-founder of Cool Pool Fund. Great to have you on. Thanks for joining us. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> So you're on the Women's Panel. I saw you up there: Women in Crypto one of our big focus areas this year, as well as Crypto for Good. So super excited to have a conversation with you, but first take a step back. Introduce yourself, what are you workin' on? What's cool? What's gettin' you excited in the space, in life? What is the crypto thing? What does it mean to you? >> Sure, so I lived in San Francisco in 2011, so I had a bunch of nerd friends, and you know, I heard about this crazy crypto currency called Bitcoin. I had free office space for my startup, so that meant free electricity, so I was like, oh, let's start mining, 'cause we have free electricity. You know, we're not really raisin' money with this thing. (laughter) And I ended up not doing that. I thought that'd be a jerk thing, but I'd be retired by now, so kind of regretting that decision. So 2012, I met the people who were re-launching the first American bitcoin exchange, Trade Hill. I ended up joining that, and at that time, I used to say, oh, I'm the leading woman in bitcoin, but I was also the only woman in bitcoin. (laughter) And then after that, I ended up co-founding another bitcoin exchange called Alpha Coin, which pivoted still around, and then I co-founded another exchange called Magnetico, pivoted also still around, and then I joined Transform Group as EVP, and we're the leading PR firm in the bitcoin and blockchain ICO space. So we've done most of the big ICOs. We did Ethereum, Auger, Made Safe, Gollum, Nosis, Quantum, Unicoin, Wax, Bancor, et cetera. We've done over 70, 60 at this point, so I have a lot of experience seeing ICOs, how they've kind of changed and evolved. Then I started a pre-ICO syndicate, so getting in before the public sale, getting a super discount, which then turned into a fund, because people were like, can I just give you money? This is really complicated, like I don't know what I'm doing, so I was like forced. My hand was forced. (chuckling) >> Yeah, I'll take your cash. Just send it to me. No contract. >> Well no no no, actually the space, you really have to have a team of lawyers. It, you know, they're not too big to fail. >> Just take the cash and say you were hacked, and then disappear, right? >> Yeah you know, that's getting a little more difficult to do that. It looks like they're tracking now. >> Margaux wouldn't steal electricity. (laughter) She's not going to do that. >> That's actually true. >> Of course, I'm being facetious. I'm a comedian, for crying out loud. I'm trying to get her on a roll, here. Okay, funniest story in crypto for you right now that you've seen, could be back in history in time. >> Yeah. >> What's the funniest thing you've seen? Or the most outrageous thing? >> Is this PG? Or like, what can I? >> It's Internet, it's unrated. It's NC-17 or unrated. >> Alright, you mean the time when one of the crypto, hedge fund people took a ton of liquid acid and then I had to take care of him, and he ended up eating all of my birth control pills, and I had to take him to the hospital because I thought he was going to die. (laughter) So that was pretty crazy. >> Anchor: OD'd on birth control pills. That's a first. >> That would be a first. >> 'Cause the only person that was awake at the time that I could ask who was a chemist and who was an EMT said his body temperature, but when I took him to the hospital, the nurses, I thought he was going to die, and then the nurses are all like, well, he's not going to get his period. (laughter) >> That's for sure. >> I'm like, is he going to die? They're like, bring him back if he's spotting. (laughter) I'm like, so he's okay? He's alright? And so, yeah, it was fun, they were like, we're more worried about the acid. So, yeah that's I guess maybe up there in the top five. >> So you've seen 60, 70, you've seen a lot. You've got a good observation space. Tell us what that's like, I mean, public relations for me is hard, like messaging, I don't have that gene, as you know, John. So, how have you been able to shape it. Do you get a lot of 'em and just go oh no, these guys really need tons of help, or take us through some of the examples, maybe not specifically but just generally how you would approach that problem. >> Sure, so first of all, we don't just take anyone. We do vetting and it has to have a story we can sell. Luckily at our firm, we have a lot of people, including the founder Michael Turpin and myself, who have a background in this space, so we understand really what they're saying. And our job, really, is to break it down so regular people understand what the heck we're talking about and why it's important. So I think a lot of, part of the problem with people not getting into crypto currency is that they get too hung up on the technical details. You know, I don't know how my television turns on. I don't know how my debit card works. There's so many things we do without knowing the technical backgrounds of it, and we don't get hung up on that. And for some reason, this industry, people get really hung up on the technology instead of understanding the uses and the purpose of it, and so that's what we really do. We talk about what is the purpose of this? How is this important? How is this changing an industry? And relating it, maybe, to news that's going on right then. So it's really just making it understandable to regular people. >> Yeah, some of the women in crypto conversation, women in tech >> Sure. >> Dave and I have a passion for this because we have a lot of women friends that are either executives and or in good positions, and we interview them, like they were a guy. So we never really got into that whole thing. Turns out we got a big library of women in tech, and it's been so politicized and it's so important. And certainly we agree that, you got to do all that, but if we're even having the conversation, that makes it a problem. So at what point, then, do we need to do kind of keep the vibe going to saying, okay, let's focus on positive, and what's your just view of how to make it engaging, 'cause women make up 50% of the population. >> Yeah. >> And so, what do we do? >> First, I want to say, there are actually some badass women in crypto. Two of the biggest ICOs had female founders. They're Bancor and Tezos. I would say more than you would expect, but they're not as loud and brash as I am, so it might be harder for you to see them. Conferences definitely need to be putting more women on these panels. >> This conference here has a lot of representation, by far, really strong. >> Yeah, well, to be honest, like putting me on a Women in Blockchain panel. I love talking to women, and it's inspiring them, and telling them you can do it, 'cause part of the thing is, nobody's a blockchain expert, alright? There's no such thing because it's just changing so fast. There's too much information out there. And I think sometimes women get hung up on needing to know everything before they do something, and I like to say, you know, probably 80% of the men here have no idea what they're talking about. So, you don't have to >> John: I mean, always be learning in this space. This is an evolution. >> Yeah, and in doing, when I first got into this space and started the first American bitcoin exchange, I didn't even know what an exchange was, you know? But I met one of the co-founders of YouTube, who was into bitcoin, who had a fund, and I ended up leveraging that to get into this, and I learned as I went, and what's so exciting right now about blockchain is that it's really integrated in pretty much every industry you can imagine. I mean, people are doing ICOs in health care, in fashion, in anything you can think of. So if you have experience and skills in one industry, you can then leverage that in another. So if you're a woman in finance, guess what? If you join someone's ICO, and they have someone from a traditional finance world, you're lending credibility, and that's valuable. And that kind of experience, and we need to bring more mature industries into blockchain. >> This is what I think, I mean, you've heard me say this, like never before, you could see, because it's digital, because it's data, as blockchain is, people can traverse industries like never before. >> Yeah. >> It used to be, if you're in health care, you're in health care for life, that's it. >> Yeah. >> But some of the digital skills that people are learning are applicable to other industries. Do you feel like, I think you just said it, that that will promote more woman involvement. You're saying it's disproportionately high here. I don't know. >> I thought it was a little interesting that they put me on a Women in Blockchain panel instead of putting me on a panel that I could talk about my experience, since I have a lot. >> Dave: That's my point. >> Instead of that. >> Winning Women, or whatever, I mean. >> Well, I wouldn't segregate all the women into one panel. I would want to put them on other panels, I mean. >> Yeah, I mean you want to put them on panels where there are pros, and they can do the job independently. >> Exactly. >> Just being a player. >> Alright, Margaux. >> A lot of women say that though. They say, let's not make this about women in tech or you know Lara Logan, and that crew, Naomi Tutu. It all depends >> And so their social justice gene >> but I'm curious how do you feel about that? It was shining a light on whether it's women in tech or women in crypto, does that, is that offensive to you? Do you welcome that? Some welcome it, others? >> I think it's weird because I've been in this industry for so long, and now I think it's good that it's becoming a topic, but it was never anything that I even paid attention to. In fact, I'd rather focus on the positives, 'cause being a woman in this industry is great because, guess what, I can just say whatever I want. I can get away with saying things and calling out the elephant in the room where most men can't. But it's, I think part of the problem is these guys here want to hire women, but how do they find them? And I just had someone come up to me from Zedd saying, we want to hire a female CMO, like how do we find that? And the jobs are out there, it's about being able to get these women who want to do this and connecting them to opportunities. bUt on the other hand, women really need to be more assertive and be like hey, I don't know anything about blockchain, but I want to learn. So I'm going to go to a conference instead of being like I don't know anything, and I'm scared, so I don't want to go to a conference, you know? Like I said, most men don't know what they're talking about here. >> Well I mean, everyone's learning. We're trying to figure it out. Margaux, thanks for coming on, appreciate it. >> Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. >> We're looking for the stand-up comedian act. We'll get that on our next episode Thanks for comin' on. >> Yeah! And check out my videos, too, if you want. >> Alright, what's your YouTube address? >> It's youtube.com/margauxwithanx. Thank you. >> Alright, we'll put it on the blog. We'll be back with more live coverage after this short break. (electronic music)

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. >> Hello and welcome back to theCUBE's exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound. This is where global event from Silicon Valley, New York, all around the world, investors, entrepreneurs, all coming together to build this industry. A lot of great conversations, a lot of conversations around Puerto Rico as a place to domicile all these great investments and companies. Obviously post-hurricane, lot of action here, lot of interest. Blockchain for good, crypto for good, also for money making. Our next guest is Scott Mize, who's with Network Society Labs. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Scott: Thank you. >> John: Good to see you again. >> You, too. >> You have a knack for being in real inflection-point markets. When we first met, almost 15 years ago in Silicon Valley, nanotech was a field that was a great track, it's doing great work, has great impact. We see each other around. Hey birds of a feather flock together. You're doing crypto, doing some work. Take a minute to talk about what you're doing Scott. What's the work? Network Society Lab, what's that about? >> Right. I guess we're both living on the bleeding edge. I'm the C.E.O. of Network Society Lab, and we're a venture development firm, so we provide the same services as an incubator or accelerator, but primarily for the portfolio companies of Network Society Ventures, which is another company that's in the Network Society keiretsu, which is headed by David Orban, who's speaking here today. >> Is that a investment group? Or is that more of an advisory service? >> The fund is a seed stage venture capital fund. >> John: The deploy capital. >> Yeah, that focuses on exponential technologies in decentralized networks, companies that are driven by that. We work with those companies to help them be successful. >> Great, so two different groups. >> Scott: Two different-- >> The lab team is get down and dirty help advisory, accelerate the mission? >> Right. And in that same keiretsu there's also Network Society Research, which is a think tank, and Network Society Media, which is a media company. >> All right so what are the things you're working on? Give us a taste of the kind of ventures and projects you're working on right now. Most of the work we're doing right now is what we call token sale management, and that's basically taking responsibility for executing a token sale from beginning to end, all of the activities, and bringing together service providers that are world-class in each one of the responsibilities that you need to be executed, in order to have a successful token event. We manage them the same way a general contractor in a construction environment manages subcontractors. >> Is that because there's too many moving parts? There's a lot of lawyerly going on, you got tax advice. Is that the reason? Or-- >> Why we structure it that way? >> Well we want to keep a lean internal staff, so we don't want to have a huge head count, and also this allows us to work with world-class people, like for instance, on two of the projects we're doing now, Michael Turpin's the P.R. guy, so that automatically means that among the team, there's over 50 ICO's under the belt, and it's the same for every service provider. They've done some significant number of these, and the combined experience, the combined capability, is really the best team you could get together in the world. >> So talk about the global impact of this, cause we were talking last night, we were saying, "Hey, you know, killer app is money." And that's what Blockchain, cryptocurrency, essentially decentralized apps are all going to have flowing through them. >> Scott: Right. >> Value creation, value capture with money is the killer app. What kind of projects you working on that go outside the U.S? And is it a global phenomenon? And what's your take on that? >> I'll give you a specific example, one example, which is called Wealth Migrate, and they have a coin called the WealthE coin, wealth with a capital E on the end, and what they are is a fractional real estate ownership company. So if you're someone who's in the emerging developing world, and you want to begin to build wealth, and you'd like to own a piece of first-world real estate in the U.S. or Australia or UK, you can go to this website, and today the minimum is about $1,000, but by implementing the Blockchain further, they want to eventually get down to $1, you can buy a piece of real estate and enjoy the returns on that. So this is closing the wealth gap, it's giving people who are just getting into the middle class the ability to own real estate and build wealth. >> What's going on in Puerto Rico here? If folks couldn't make it here, what's the dynamic here? Obviously the hurricane pretty much crushed the island. It's well documented, but the entrepreneurial culture here is coming together with outside ecosystem communities. What are you seeing here in Puerto Rico? What's your observation? >> Well it's actually a pretty fascinating experiment. Michael Turpin of the Transform Group has been living in Puerto Rico for quite some time, and he was kind of the Pied Piper, evangelizing this place, and saying, "Hey, this is a great place to come live, it's got a favorable tax structure, etcetera." And I think it's fantastic that the crypto community is essentially adopting Puerto Rico, and also moving here. All this activity is really going to give a shot in the arm to the Puerto Rican economy, and people are doing that very intentionally, as a way to give back and help to rebuild the island. >> So what do you say to the folks out there that say, "Well it's not just Puerto Rico, there's other domicile digital nations out there." I mean today the U.K. announced, or yesterday announced, that they are going to convert to Fiat currency, with a faster payment system, with Coinbase. It's a significant, radical move. So can Puerto Rico maintain a position, and countries like Bahrain which Amazon works with, you got Armenia, you got China, you got all these, Estonia. You have people who are jockeying for similar positions. Is it going to be a new digital nation sovereignty structure? >> I think Puerto Rico has a particular advantage in this part of the United States, so if you're a U.S. citizen, then this is the only place where you can go and stay in the U.S. and get this special treatment. So I think it's always going to have a little bit of a niche there, but this is truly a competitive environment. It's global, it's very competitive. There are certain nations that are very anti-crypto, like the United States for instance, and there are certain nations that embrace it. The one that we like best, and we're doing a couple of token sale events or ICO's, is Malta. And Malta has a history of creating a regulatory environment that's very favorable to things like financial services and iGaming, so doing digital currency is something that's a natural for them, and the government and the regulatory agencies are all in. So they're a competitor, and there are many others as you said, but I think that's all good because competition will bring down prices, spur innovation, etcetera, and that's fantastic. >> John: But regulatory posture and policy will be the gating factor for competitiveness for nations. >> Yeah, that's one of the major factors, It wouldn't be the only one, but absolutely. When you've got a situation where the regulators are saying, "Our mission in life is to have a light touch. We want it to be regulated, we don't want a lot of fraud going on, but we want to make it easy for you guys to be doing these things." It makes a huge difference. >> So what do you say to the folks out there that would say, "Okay you know, Michael Turpin, he's got so many ICO's, he's just pumping and dumping these things, he's got so many ICO's." He's a promoter, basically. He's not really-- >> Yeah I mean he started out as a P.R. firm. >> Yes. >> John: He's a P.R. firm. You got a P.R. firm as a leader in the industry. Some people will say, "Hey, I want to see Goldman Sachs come in. I want to see real players come in, I want to see more validation." The P.R. messaging is not going well, look at Brock Pierce, he got taken down by John Oliver. New York Times wrapped it up-- >> Scott: Bad timing. >> So you have a lot of kind of thud out there. >> Yeah, yes. >> So what do you say to that? What do people say to that? I have my own opinion, but I'll share it after you share yours. >> I mean just one observation is, you can tell a lot about a person's personality type by what their initial reaction is to cryptocurrency. It's almost like a Meyers-Briggs, right? >> Explain that. >> Well just in my experience, I've introduced the idea of crypto, or now that I'm in the field, a lot of people have approached me, friends. >> John: Who want to learn. >> Who want to learn but they come into it with certain biases, and for some reason, crypto really pokes at people's biases, and some people can't get over the fact that well, "Why does it have any value?" And I go, "Well, why does the United States dollar have any value?" I mean you've got full faith in credit of the government that's in debt by 20 trillion dollars, is that a good idea? But they don't understand-- >> What are some of the reactions you get? across the board what's the spectrum of reactions? You've got the one end which is fraud, it's bad-- >> Scott: It's got to be a scam. >> John: The next revolution is here. >> It's the entire spectrum. Again like I said, it has a lot to do with what people's personalities, If people are very conservative and skeptical, they're going to be conservative and skeptical about it, and look for the negative. If they're very innovative and cutting-edge and open to new ideas, they're going to think it's cool and interesting, and is an agent for change. >> Well a lot of people I talk to, and here's my opinion, I personally believe that you can't P.R. your way to industry momentum. That's the old way, so I'm down on the whole press release model, just pump and dump, and you're seeing a lot of that, and it's not just the Transform Group, it's just P.R. in general. There's also people misrepresentation. So to me that's a communication vehicle, not primary. The key is value creation. Which companies are creating value? Which one's communities are endorsing? Who has real communities? Who doesn't? So I think as investors come in, the thing that I'm hearing is, smart money saying, "I want quality deals, and I got to peel away the promotional layer, and look at the core data." >> Scott: Right. >> That seems to be a flight-to-quality right now in this market. >> There's a major flight-to-quality. We're probably in the third or fourth era of ICO's, and there is a flight-to-quality because people realize, what I call these deals are vaporware or field of dreams. These are the ones where there's really nothing there and it's, "give me $30 million, and I'll build this, I'll boil the ocean for you." That's why we like to work with companies like Wealth Migrate, because what they've done is, on relatively small capital, proven a business model and started a business, and now what they need is money to scale that model, and those are the ones that we prefer, and that's when people can look and say, "I can see that this business model's working, and that's where a lot of the risk is factored out, and now it's just about making that a bigger business." >> The thing I tell people is when you look at selecting service providers or partners, whether it's P.R., strategy, advisory, it's not so much the function. I'm against a P.R. angle, but let's take Transform Group, They have a great social network, so the signaling is, if they are involved, so it's about the network you're choosing, right? So to me it's not so much the functional P.R., or the functional advisory, it's really who's bringing the network effect, investors to the table, partners to the table? >> And that's good and bad actually, because you're talking about hype. There's no more fertile hype environment than social media. One of the things I find to be really scary, is that a proxy for the quality of the ICO is how many telegram followers does the chat group have, which I think is just insane. >> John: You can game that. >> Yeah. >> Well Scott, what are you working on now? What's next for you? What's some of the things that you see happening in the next year? >> Well we're just staying heads down, executing several of these token sales or ICO's, and that's what we're going to do. We're also going to get back to the original knitting, which was our mission, which is expand our venture-development services, so have a full palette of things that the startups from Network Society Ventures can choose from, so that we can help them make successful. >> Token economics is a critical decision every company has to make, >> Scott: Yes. >> And having advisory help is great. Thanks for sharing your opinion here on theCUBE. I'm John Furrier. Puerto Rico, for theCUBE's exclusive coverage of BlockChain Unbound. Back with more coverage after the short break. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)