>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of Convolt future. Ready? 2020 brought to you by Convolt. >>Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and this is the cubes coverage of Convolt future. Ready to help me wrap up our coverage of the event? Happy to welcome back to the program. Trump Geraldo key is the vice president of strategy and chief of staff with Convolt. Tom. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks to glad to be here. All right. So before we get into the news, Tom, and I love when I get to talk to strategy people, cause you know, you have your 90 day plans, you have your quarterly plans, you have your yearly plans. You're a, you know, year, year and a half into the new regime, of course, Sanjay you're chief of staff for and yourself. So, um, I'm sure coming into 2020, um, a few things probably hit in 2020 that weren't on your initial plan. So, you know, global pandemic and the like tell us a little bit about, you know, how current events, uh, have been impacting, you know, both, both, both of your plans and, and, and, and led to what we saw today. >>Yeah, sure. Great, Stu um, good question. You know, you know, what's interesting is, um, obviously we're in a different world today than where we were last time we spoke at the, at our go conference in the, um, in the fall and, uh, and like everyone else, you know, we're, we're dealing with this new reality. And, um, you know, we're fortunate because we are a software company, which means, you know, from an operational standpoint, um, you know, we're, we're able to, we're able to continue to build products, deliver great software to our customers. And the, like I'd say from a strategy perspective, you know, we're still on course, we, uh, as you saw at the go conference last, last fall, and as you see today, um, we've been building new products, new capabilities, um, you know, under the mantra of intelligent data management, which really is a new direction for the company or a new way that we're framing, uh, the, the, uh, what we're bringing to our customers. >>And while we've had to make some tactical changes inside our business, the fundamental strategy is strong. In fact, I think in a lot of ways it's actually sped up, sped things up. Uh, I think it was a, as we talked about today, um, quite a bit the, uh, digital transformation for organizations is happening, even pastoring them, or people are saying, Hey, you know, where I thought I might've had five, 10 years to, you know, to on this journey, it's actually compressing quite a bit. And we feel like we're in a really good spot. And we feel like we've been building towards, um, the delivering the kinds of capabilities that customers need. So, um, fundamentally things aren't changing for us. And I think, um, I think we're in a good spot today. And hopefully, you know, that is gonna resonate with the marketplace with this series of announcements that we're making, uh, making today. >>Yeah, absolutely. Tom huge forcing function in the marketplace, by what we're seeing today. Um, you, you mentioned, uh, the user conference go from last year. One of the big themes at the show last year was the intelligent data management. So help us understand, you know, connect the dots if you would, uh, between the, the vision and now really it's a whole portfolio refresh, uh, that we're seeing from Convolt today. >>Yeah. So we're, you know, we're building off of 20 years of development in this space, right? We it's so much more than backup. And, uh, you know, I think traditionally Combolt may have gotten a little bit pigeonholed as a backup provider, but really when you look under the covers and you look at our platform, right, it provides true data awareness, automation, agility across your entire estate. And we have almost a thousand patents in this space. So, um, you know, what that platform offers for us is the ability to support lots of different data management services that can be consumed in different ways. And so when we think about intelligent data management, right it's data management services that are delivered in that intelligent way, right through that awareness automation and agility, you know, obviously to the way that we deliver it to customers is, you know, either it's flexible traditional software, right downloadable software, or, um, as an integrated appliance. >>Um, and now even as software, as a service through our metallic offering, because when you look at it, you know, that foundation that metallic is built upon is that same core platform that, you know, our current customers know and enjoy. So, um, you know, when we talk about intelligent data management, that frames the whole story for us. So when we think about, you know, our roadmap going forward as well, it's about what are the new types of data management services that customers are demanding and how can we build that right on that platform, that core platform that we've already been, uh, had developed for so many years, >>You know, Tom, Tom, I'm glad you brought up, uh, some of those different models, uh, the way that people can consume, uh, and purchase, uh, these solutions. Uh, if we look at, uh, you know, the overhaul of the portfolio, they are, uh, one of the pieces I like to understand from you is if you look at pricing, uh, if you look at licensing, um, you know, obviously Convolt has been going along this journey, uh, from, uh, T to be more in the, uh, uh, that subscription model, if you will. So help us understand how the, how the updates fit there. >>Yeah. I, you know, it it's, I'll tell you, it starts with, if you, if you had a chance to see, I'm sure you did see Sanjay's presentation today. You know, a lot of what we're talking about here is simplification and simplifying, not just the user experience, but also the commercial experience, right? So simplifying the usage of the product, but also simplifying the usage. So when we think about it, um, you know, and customers are demanding this more than ever right now, right? Um, obviously this goes back to the new world that we're living in. And, um, if you take that and also consider our expanding portfolio, we need to make sure that we're doing it in a way that makes it easy for customers to consume, um, the different elements of it. So we've taken an approach that makes, um, licensing simple. So first we're, we're aligning licensing to the workload that's being either protected or managed in some other way. >>Right? So for instance, if it's a virtual machine workload, the licensing is by virtual machine. If it's mailbox oriented, it's by user, right. It's aligned to the workload and the procurement methodology that organizations are used to buying for that particular workload. I think in the past things that might've gotten a little bit convoluted, is this terabyte based, is it VM based? Is it user based? Is it instance based? Does it right. And what we've done is we've taken a drastic simplification approach. Uh, I'm looking at that and looking at that, so that as organizations think about their workloads, uh, they don't have to do like math derivatives to figure out what their cost is going to be. The second thing is we wanted to make it more predictable. And so, um, you know, we've had subscription licensing as an option for a few years now, but it's really just been an option, right? >>And now we're going to be more aggressive in terms of how we're offering that. We want to incentivize prescriptions even further. You know, if a customer wants a one year term, we'll provide a one year term, right? If they want a multi year term, we'll provide a multi-year term, it's up to them, but whatever it is, it's going to help them buy what they need rather than be forced to make some sort of massive upfront perpetual license decision. Right? Well, we'll incentivize that sort of predictability. And then lastly, you know, we want to make sure that we're being aggressive and flexible in how we're providing these options to customers. So, you know, if you go back to the intelligent data management comments and being able to deliver different data management services, we want to make sure that we're aggressive when it comes to the solitary use case. >>If I want to back up the thing, I'm going to be very aggressive, right? Combolt's going to have aggressive pricing, uh, for that particular use case. Um, but then what we also want to do is we want to make it attractive to customers to bring their data in environment, even further with, you know, other types of data management capabilities. So we're going to make it easier for customers to do that. And you see that through the portfolio approach that we've announced today. Um, we've really rebuilt our portfolio, I think for, you know, uh, the more modern enterprise and, uh, and we're incentivizing and making it worth customers while to really look at all the different offerings that we have. >>So, Tom, I wonder if you could speak a little bit to the ripple effect of that change that you have to, to the pricing and, and, and the like, um, I thinking about go to market your channel, uh, and you know, compensation for, for along the value chain there, how does that happen? >>So, um, obviously, you know, as we make any kind of change to our portfolio, be it, um, you know, be it adding products or changing the licensing. There's a lot of work that has to go into it behind the scenes. And, you know, this frankly is a big part of what we've changed in the last 18 months. Um, the, uh, and we talked about this a little bit last time. You and I, you and I spoke, you know, it's hard to get an organization to be aligned end to end and even harder when you think about all the downstream effects of that, right. When you've got, you know, distribution layers, and in of course your, your customer base, um, how do you get everybody in sync and aligned with what it is that we're doing? And we've made sure that throughout this process, as we've been leading to today, which is really a combination of a lot of this effort, that, you know, the folks in the organization both internally and externally, that need to be up to speed and need to be aligned to what it is that we're doing are there. >>Right? So it's part of that. Um, part of that process, we've been working on this for months to make sure that we're in a good place. You know, I, I have a saying inside the company, which is sometimes you have to go slow to go fast and it, it relates to, it actually relates to, um, to like motorcycle racing. You know, when you, you know, a motorcycle race, isn't one on the straightaway is when everybody has their throttle wide open it's one, um, before they enter the turns as they're slowing down, because the whole idea is you slow down when you get the bike settled, you get your, you enter the curve, you know, the right trajectory so that you can hit the apex and accelerate out. So when it comes to aligning a big organization and in our, um, distribution and channel infrastructure behind that, going slow means making sure everybody's aligned upfront in the process. And then we can build the plans going forward to make sure that we've got the right information in the right place at the right time, so that the customer can have a great experience at the end of the line. >>Alright, Tom, you, you've now been with Convolt a little over a year, you know, bring us inside a little bit, you know, some of the cultural changes, what surprises you've seen, uh, and, uh, you know, H help us, you know, bring a close to, uh, the Convolt future. Ready? >>Yeah. I'll tell you a stew. It's been, so I've been with, Convolt now a little bit over a year, but a year and a quarter. And, um, it has been a tremendous experience, obviously, we've we have, we've transformed the company. And, you know, if you look at the leadership team, it's, you know, it's a, it's a mixture of new folks and folks that have a lot of experience with the company. Um, and you look throughout the organization between how we operate as I was just talking about, and, um, the kind of innovation that we're delivering to the marketplace, it's founded on a really ideal, you know, we want to, um, we wanted to simplify the business. We wanted to drive innovation and we want to make sure that we're executing and we've been able to rally the company around those three components. And I'll tell you, um, the, the biggest pleasant surprise that I've had inside the organization is the attitude of our people and the openness of the Convolt teams to the kinds of change that we've been making. >>Um, it's been tremendous because without, without their support, there's no way that we would have been able to do this. Um, you know, from employee one to employee, you know, 2,500, you know, we're all like rowing in the same direction to use another analogy. And, um, without that, it would be impossible to make the kinds of changes that we're making now, you know, I I'd also say, you know, it takes it's, um, it takes time and that's one of the things that we've all needed to make sure that we, that we had, you know, getting, getting the whole company aligned, um, and then having the patients to, to make sure that we've got a nice follow-through, um, has been really important. And I think, you know, today is a great example of how far we've taken things at Humboldt and where we think things are headed going forward. And I expect lots more of us, more great things as we move forward through the rest of our, our calendar and fiscal year and into the out years as well. >>All right, Tom, uh, one more final word. Uh, w w what do you want really the customers to have as their takeaway from Convolt future ready? >>Well, I mean, I hope a customer see, you know, the kind of a positive change in momentum that we're making between, you know, what we're trying to, to deliver in terms of value for our customers and how much they can derive out of that. Um, you know, for our PR, you know, when you're, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So for us, you know, it all comes down to the data and data, you know, is so fundamental to any organization, how they derive value from it. And, you know, we play, I think, an important part in that landscape, and it's our hope that we're delivering the types of services to customers that allow them to extract the value of the data to make them successful. And at the end of the day, that's what we're all about. And I hope that this has been a good, um, experience for customers to see this and, um, and that they can, um, you know, see from it that we we've got momentum behind us. And that we're just going to continue to move this forward. >>All right. Well, Tom, thank you so much data, absolutely huge opportunity for customers as well as Convolt for you and, and all of your ecosystem there, Tom Broderick. Thanks so much pleasure catching up with you. >>Thank you, Sue. Really appreciate it. >>All right. And that brings to a close the cubes coverage of Convolt future. Ready? Check out the cube.net for lots more. You can go back and see the Convolt go that Tom and I have referenced and stay tuned for lots more events that we have coming up. I'm Stu Miniman. And thank you for watching the cube.