(upbeat instrumental music) >> TheCUBE's live coverage is made possible by funding from Dell Technologies, creating technologies that drive human progress. (uplifting instrumental music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome to Barcelona, Spain. It's theCUBE Live at MWC '23. I'm Lisa Martin, Dave Vellante, our co-founder, our co-CEO of theCUBE, you know him, you love him. He's here as my co-host. Dave, we have a great couple of guests here to break down day one keynote. Lots of meat. I can't wait to be part of this conversation. Chris Lewis joins us, the founder and MD of Lewis Insight. And Sarbjeet Johal, one of you know him as well. He's a Cube contributor, cloud architect. Guys, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for joining Dave and me today. >> Lovely to be here. >> Thank you. >> Chris, I want to start with you. You have covered all aspects of global telecoms industries over 30 years working as an analyst. Talk about the evolution of the telecom industry that you've witnessed, and what were some of the things you heard in the keynote that excite you about the direction it's going? >> Well, as ever, MWC, there's no lack of glitz and glamour, but it's the underlying issues of the industry that are really at stake here. There's not a lot of new revenue coming into the telecom providers, but there's a lot of adjustment, readjustment of the underlying operational environment. And also, really importantly, what came out of the keynotes is the willingness and the necessity to really engage with the API community, with the developer community, people who traditionally, telecoms would never have even touched. So they're sorting out their own house, they're cleaning their own stables, getting the cost base down, but they're also now realizing they've got to engage with all the other parties. There's a lot of cloud providers here, there's a lot of other people from outside so they're realizing they cannot do it all themselves. It's quite a tough lesson for a very conservative, inward looking industry, right? So should we be spending all this money and all this glitz and glamour of MWC and all be here, or should would be out there really building for the future and making sure the services are right for yours and my needs in a business and personal lives? So a lot of new changes, a lot of realization of what's going on outside, but underlying it, we've just got to get this right this time. >> And it feels like that monetization is front and center. You mentioned developers, we've got to work with developers, but I'm hearing the latest keynote from the Ericsson CEOs, we're going to monetize through those APIs, we're going to charge the developers. I mean, first of all, Chris, am I getting that right? And Sarbjeet, as somebody who's close to the developer community, is that the right way to build bridges? But Chris, are we getting that right? >> Well, let's take the first steps first. So, Ericsson, of course, acquired Vonage, which is a massive API business so they want to make money. They expect to make money by bringing that into the mainstream telecom community. Now, whether it's the developers who pay for it, or let's face it, we are moving into a situation as the telco moves into a techco model where the techco means they're going to be selling bits of the technology to developer guys and to other application developers. So when he says he needs to charge other people for it, it's the way in which people reach in and will take going through those open APIs like the open gateway announced today, but also the way they'll reach in and take things like network slicing. So we're opening up the telecom community, the treasure chest, if you like, where developers' applications and other third parties can come in and take those chunks of technology and build them into their services. This is a complete change from the old telecom industry where everybody used to come and you say, "all right, this is my product, you've got to buy it and you're going to pay me a lot of money for it." So we are looking at a more flexible environment where the other parties can take those chunks. And we know we want collectivity built into our financial applications, into our government applications, everything, into the future of the metaverse, whatever it may be. But it requires that change in attitude of the telcos. And they do need more money 'cause they've said, the baseline of revenue is pretty static, there's not a lot of growth in there so they're looking for new revenues. It's in a B2B2X time model. And it's probably the middle man's going to pay for it rather than the customer. >> But the techco model, Sarbjeet, it looks like the telcos are getting their money on their way in. The techco company model's to get them on their way out like the app store. Go build something of value, build some kind of app or data product, and then when it takes off, we'll take a piece of the action. What are your thoughts from a developer perspective about how the telcos are approaching it? >> Yeah, I think before we came here, like I said, I did some tweets on this, that we talk about all kind of developers, like there's game developers and front end, back end, and they're all talking about like what they're building on top of cloud, but nowhere you will hear the term "telco developer," there's no API from telcos given to the developers to build IoT solutions on top of it because telco as an IoT, I think is a good sort of hand in hand there. And edge computing as well. The glimmer of hope, if you will, for telcos is the edge computing, I believe. And even in edge, I predicted, I said that many times that cloud players will dominate that market with the private 5G. You know that story, right? >> We're going to talk about that. (laughs) >> The key is this, that if you see in general where the population lives, in metros, right? That's where the world population is like flocking to and we have cloud providers covering the local zones with local like heavy duty presence from the big cloud providers and then these telcos are getting sidetracked by that. Even the V2X in cars moving the autonomous cars and all that, even in that space, telcos are getting sidetracked in many ways. What telcos have to do is to join the forces, build some standards, if not standards, some consortium sort of. They're trying to do that with the open gateway here, they have only eight APIs. And it's 2023, eight APIs is nothing, right? (laughs) So they should have started this 10 years back, I think. So, yeah, I think to entice the developers, developers need the employability, we need to train them, we need to show them some light that hey, you can build a lot on top of it. If you tell developers they can develop two things or five things, nobody will come. >> So, Chris, the cloud will dominate the edge. So A, do you buy it? B, the telcos obviously are acting like that might happen. >> Do you know I love people when they've got their heads in the clouds. (all laugh) And you're right in so many ways, but if you flip it around and think about how the customers think about this, business customers and consumers, they don't care about all this background shenanigans going on, do they? >> Lisa: No. >> So I think one of the problems we have is that this is a new territory and whether you call it the edge or whatever you call it, what we need there is we need connectivity, we need security, we need storage, we need compute, we need analytics, and we need applications. And are any of those more important than the others? It's the collective that actually drives the real value there. So we need all those things together. And of course, the people who represented at this show, whether it's the cloud guys, the telcos, the Nokia, the Ericssons of this world, they all own little bits of that. So that's why they're all talking partnerships because they need the combination, they cannot do it on their own. The cloud guys can't do it on their own. >> Well, the cloud guys own all of those things that you just talked about though. (all laugh) >> Well, they don't own the last bit of connectivity, do they? They don't own the access. >> Right, exactly. That's the one thing they don't own. So, okay, we're back to pipes, right? We're back to charging for connectivity- >> Pipes are very valuable things, right? >> Yeah, for sure. >> Never underestimate pipes. I don't know about where you live, plumbers make a lot of money where I live- >> I don't underestimate them but I'm saying can the telcos charge for more than that or are the cloud guys going to mop up the storage, the analytics, the compute, and the apps? >> They may mop it up, but I think what the telcos are doing and we've seen a lot of it here already, is they are working with all those major cloud guys already. So is it an unequal relationship? The cloud guys are global, massive global scale, the telcos are fundamentally national operators. >> Yep. >> Some have a little bit of regional, nobody has global scale. So who stitches it all together? >> Dave: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. >> Absolutely. >> I know that saying never gets old. It's true. Well, Sarbjeet, one of the things that you tweeted about, I didn't get to see the keynote but I was looking at your tweets. 46% of telcos think they won't make it to the next decade. That's a big number. Did that surprise you? >> No, actually it didn't surprise me because the competition is like closing in on them and the telcos are competing with telcos as well and the telcos are competing with cloud providers on the other side, right? So the smaller ones are getting squeezed. It's the bigger players, they can hook up the newer platforms, I think they will survive. It's like that part is like any other industry, if you will. But the key is here, I think why the pain points were sort of described on the main stage is that they're crying out loud to tell the big tech cloud providers that "hey, you pay your fair share," like we talked, right? You are not paying, you're generating so much content which reverses our networks and you are not paying for it. So they are not able to recoup the cost of laying down their networks. By the way, one thing actually I want to mention is that they said the cloud needs earth. The cloud and earth, it's like there's no physical need to cloud, you know that, right? So like, I think it's the other way around. I think the earth needs the cloud because I'm a cloud guy. (Sarbjeet and Lisa laugh) >> I think you need each other, right? >> I think so too. >> They need each other. When they said cloud needs earth, right? I think they're still in denial that the cloud is a big force. They have to partner. When you can't compete with somebody, what do you do? Partner with them. >> Chris, this is your world. Are they in denial? >> No, I think they're waking up to the pragmatism of the situation. >> Yeah. >> They're building... As we said, most of the telcos, you find have relationships with the cloud guys, I think you're right about the industry. I mean, do you think what's happened since US was '96, the big telecom act when we started breaking up all the big telcos and we had lots of competition came in, we're seeing the signs that we might start to aggregate them back up together again. So it's been an interesting experiment for like 30 years, hasn't it too? >> It made the US less competitive, I would argue, but carry on. >> Yes, I think it's true. And Europe is maybe too competitive and therefore, it's not driven the investment needed. And by the way, it's not just mobile, it's fixed as well. You saw the Orange CEO was talking about the her investment and the massive fiber investments way ahead of many other countries, way ahead of the UK or Germany. We need that fiber in the ground to carry all your cloud traffic to do this. So there is a scale issue, there is a competition issue, but the telcos are very much aware of it. They need the cloud, by the way, to improve their operational environments as well, to change that whole old IT environment to deliver you and I better service. So no, it absolutely is changing. And they're getting scale, but they're fundamentally offering the basic product, you call it pipes, I'll just say they're offering broadband to you and I and the business community. But they're stepping on dangerous ground, I think, when saying they want to charge the over the top guys for all the traffic they use. Those over the top guys now build a lot of the global networks, the backbone submarine network. They're putting a lot of money into it, and by giving us endless data for our individual usage, that cat is out the bag, I think to a large extent. >> Yeah. And Orange CEO basically said that, that they're not paying their fair share. I'm for net neutrality but the governments are going to have to fund this unless you let us charge the OTT. >> Well, I mean, we could of course renationalize. Where would that take us? (Dave laughs) That would make MWC very interesting next year, wouldn't it? To renationalize it. So, no, I think you've got to be careful what we wish for here. Creating the absolute clear product that is required to underpin all of these activities, whether it's IoT or whether it's cloud delivery or whether it's just our own communication stuff, delivering that absolutely ubiquitously high quality for business and for consumer is what we have to do. And telcos have been too conservative in the past. >> I think they need to get together and create standards around... I think they have a big opportunity. We know that the clouds are being built in silos, right? So there's Azure stack, there's AWS and there's Google. And those are three main ones and a few others, right? So that we are fighting... On the cloud side, what we are fighting is the multicloud. How do we consume that multicloud without having standards? So if these people get together and create some standards around IoT and edge computing sort of area, people will flock to them to say, "we will use you guys, your API, we don't care behind the scenes if you use AWS or Google Cloud or Azure, we will come to you." So market, actually is looking for that solution. I think it's an opportunity for these guys, for telcos. But the problem with telcos is they're nationalized, as you said Chris versus the cloud guys are still kind of national in a way, but they're global corporations. And some of the telcos are global corporations as well, BT covers so many countries and TD covers so many... DT is in US as well, so they're all over the place. >> But you know what's interesting is that the TM forum, which is one of the industry associations, they've had an open digital architecture framework for quite some years now. Google had joined that some years ago, Azure in there, AWS just joined it a couple of weeks ago. So when people said this morning, why isn't AWS on the keynote? They don't like sharing the limelight, do they? But they're getting very much in bed with the telco. So I think you'll see the marriage. And in fact, there's a really interesting statement, if you look at the IoT you mentioned, Bosch and Nokia have been working together 'cause they said, the problem we've got, you've got a connectivity network on one hand, you've got the sensor network on the other hand, you're trying to merge them together, it's a nightmare. So we are finally seeing those sort of groups talking to each other. So I think the standards are coming, the cooperation is coming, partnerships are coming, but it means that the telco can't dominate the sector like it used to. It's got to play ball with everybody else. >> I think they have to work with the regulators as well to loosen the regulation. Or you said before we started this segment, you used Chris, the analogy of sports, right? In sports, when you're playing fiercely, you commit the fouls and then ask for ref to blow the whistle. You're now looking at the ref all the time. The telcos are looking at the ref all the time. >> Dave: Yeah, can I do this? Can I do that? Is this a fair move? >> They should be looking for the space in front of the opposition. >> Yeah, they should be just on attack mode and commit these fouls, if you will, and then ask for forgiveness then- >> What do you make of that AWS not you there- >> Well, Chris just made a great point that they don't like to share the limelight 'cause I thought it was very obvious that we had Google Cloud, we had Microsoft there on day one of this 80,000 person event. A lot of people back from COVID and they weren't there. But Chris, you brought up a great point that kind of made me think, maybe you're right. Maybe they're in the afternoon keynote, they want their own time- >> You think GSMA invited them? >> I imagine so. You'd have to ask GSMA. >> I would think so. >> Get Max on here and ask that. >> I'm going to ask them, I will. >> But no, and they don't like it because I think the misconception, by the way, is that everyone says, "oh, it's AWS, it's Google Cloud and it's Azure." They're not all the same business by any stretch of the imagination. AWS has been doing loads of great work, they've been launching private network stuff over the last couple of weeks. Really interesting. Google's been playing catch up. We know that they came in readily late to the market. And Azure, they've all got slightly different angles on it. So perhaps it just wasn't right for AWS and the way they wanted to pitch things so they don't have to be there, do they? >> That's a good point. >> But the industry needs them there, that's the number one cloud. >> Dave, they're there working with the industry. >> Yeah, of course. >> They don't have to be on the keynote stage. And in fact, you think about this show and you mentioned the 80,000 people, the activity going on around in all these massive areas they're in, it's fantastic. That's where the business is done. The business isn't done up on the keynote stage. >> That's why there's the glitz and the glamour, Chris. (all laugh) >> Yeah. It's not glitz, it's espresso. It's not glamour anymore, it's just espresso. >> We need the espresso. >> Yeah. >> I think another thing is that it's interesting how an average European sees the tech market and an average North American, especially you from US, you have to see the market. Here, people are more like process oriented and they want the rules of the road already established before they can take a step- >> Chris: That's because it's your pension in the North American- >> Exactly. So unions are there and the more employee rights and everything, you can't fire people easily here or in Germany or most of the Europe is like that with the exception of UK. >> Well, but it's like I said, that Silicone Valley gets their money on the way out, you know? And that's how they do it, that's how they think it. And they don't... They ask for forgiveness. I think the east coast is more close to Europe, but in the EU, highly regulated, really focused on lifetime employment, things like that. >> But Dave, the issue is the telecom industry is brilliant, right? We keep paying every month whatever we do with it. >> It's a great business, to your point- >> It's a brilliant business model. >> Dave: It's fantastic. >> So it's about then getting the structure right behind it. And you know, we've seen a lot of stratification where people are selling off towers, Orange haven't sold their towers off, they made a big point about that. Others are selling their towers off. Some people are selling off their underlying network, Telecom Italia talking about KKR buying the whole underlying network. It's like what do you want to be in control of? It's a great business. >> But that's why they complain so much is that they're having to sell their assets because of the onerous CapEx requirements, right? >> Yeah, they've had it good, right? And dare I say, perhaps they've not planned well enough for the future. >> They're trying to protect their past from the future. I mean, that's... >> Actually, look at the... Every "n" number of years, there's a new faster network. They have to dig the ground, they have to put the fiber, they have to put this. Now, there are so many booths showing 6G now, we are not even done with 5G yet, now the next 6G you know, like then- >> 10G's coming- >> 10G, that's a different market. (Dave laughs) >> Actually, they're bogged down by the innovation, I think. >> And the generational thing is really important because we're planning for 6G in all sorts of good ways but actually what we use in our daily lives, we've gone through the barrier, we've got enough to do that. So 4G gives us enough, the fiber in the ground or even old copper gives us enough. So the question is, what are we willing to pay for more than that basic connectivity? And the answer to your point, Dave, is not a lot, right? So therefore, that's why the emphasis is on the business market on that B2B and B2B2X. >> But we'll pay for Netflix all day long. >> All day long. (all laugh) >> The one thing Chris, I don't know, I want to know your viewpoints and we have talked in the past as well, there's absence of think tanks in tech, right? So we have think tanks on the foreign policy and economic policy in every country, and we have global think tanks, but tech is becoming a huge part of the economy, global economy as well as national economies, right? But we don't have think tanks on like policy around tech. For example, this 4G is good for a lot of use cases. Then 5G is good for smaller number of use cases. And then 6G will be like, fewer people need 6G for example. Why can't we have sort of those kind of entities dictating those kind of like, okay, is this a wiser way to go about it? >> Lina Khan wants to. She wants to break up big tech- >> You're too young to remember but the IT used to have a show every four years in Geneva, there were standards around there. So I think there are bodies. I think the balance of power obviously has gone from the telecom to the west coast to the IT markets. And it's changing the balance about, it moves more quickly, right? Telecoms has never moved quickly enough. I think there is hope by the way, that telecoms now that we are moving to more softwarized environment, and God forbid, we're moving into CICD in the telecom world, right? Which is a massive change, but I think there's hopes for it to change. The mentality is changing, the culture is changing, but to change those old structured organizations from the British telecom or the France telecom into the modern world, it's a hell of a long journey. It's not an overnight journey at all. >> Well, of course the theme of the event is velocity. >> Yeah, I know that. >> And it's been interesting sitting here with the three of you talking about from a historic perspective, how slow and molasseslike telecom has been. They don't have a choice anymore. As consumers, we have this expectation we're going to get anything we want on our mobile device, 24 by seven. We don't care about how the sausage is made, we just want the end result. So do you really think, and we're only on day one guys... And Chris we'll start with you. Is the theme really velocity? Is it disruption? Are they able to move faster? >> Actually, I think invisibility is the real answer. (Lisa laughs) We want communication to be invisible, right? >> Absolutely. >> We want it to work. When we switch our phones on, we want it to work and we want to... Well, they're not even phones anymore, are they really? I mean that's the... So no, velocity, we've got... There is momentum in the industry, there's no doubt about that. The cloud guys coming in, making telecoms think about the way they run their own business, where they meet, that collision point on the edges you talked about Sarbjeet. We do have velocity, we've got momentum. There's so many interested parties. The way I think of this is that the telecom industry used to be inward looking, just design its own technology and then expect everyone else to dance to our tune. We're now flipping that 180 degrees and we are now having to work with all the different outside forces shaping us. Whether it's devices, whether it's smart cities, governments, the hosting guys, the Equinoxis, all these things. So everyone wants a piece of this telecom world so we've got to make ourselves more open. That's why you get in a more open environment. >> But you did... I just want to bring back a point you made during COVID, which was when everybody switched to work from home, started using their landlines again, telcos had to respond and nothing broke. I mean, it was pretty amazing. >> Chris: It did a good job. >> It was kind of invisible. So, props to the telcos for making that happen. >> They did a great job. >> So it really did. Now, okay, what have you done for me lately? So now they've got to deal with the future and they're talking monetization. But to me, monetization is all about data and not necessarily just the network data. Yeah, they can sell that 'cause they own that but what kind of incremental value are they going to create for the consumers that... >> Yeah, actually that's a problem. I think the problem is that they have been strangled by the regulation for a long time and they cannot look at their data. It's a lot more similar to the FinTech world, right? I used to work at Visa. And then Visa, we did trillion dollars in transactions in '96. Like we moved so much money around, but we couldn't look at these things, right? So yeah, I think regulation is a problem that holds you back, it's the antithesis of velocity, it slows you down. >> But data means everything, doesn't it? I mean, it means everything and nothing. So I think the challenge here is what data do the telcos have that is useful, valuable to me, right? So in the home environment, the fact that my broadband provider says, oh, by the way, you've got 20 gadgets on that network and 20 on that one... That's great, tell me what's on there. I probably don't know what's taking all my valuable bandwidth up. So I think there's security wrapped around that, telling me the way I'm using it if I'm getting the best out of my service. >> You pay for that? >> No, I'm saying they don't do it yet. I think- >> But would you pay for that? >> I think I would, yeah. >> Would you pay a lot for that? I would expect it to be there as part of my dashboard for my monthly fee. They're already charging me enough. >> Well, that's fine, but you pay a lot more in North America than I do in Europe, right? >> Yeah, no, that's true. >> You're really overpaying over there, right? >> Way overpaying. >> So, actually everybody's looking at these devices, right? So this is a radio operated device basically, right? And then why couldn't they benefit from this? This is like we need to like double click on this like 10 times to find out why telcos failed to leverage this device, right? But I think the problem is their reliance on regulations and their being close to the national sort of governments and local bodies and authorities, right? And in some countries, these telcos are totally controlled in very authoritarian ways, right? It's not like open, like in the west, most of the west. Like the world is bigger than five, six countries and we know that, right? But we end up talking about the major economies most of the time. >> Dave: Always. >> Chris: We have a topic we want to hit on. >> We do have a topic. Our last topic, Chris, it's for you. You guys have done an amazing job for the last 25 minutes talking about the industry, where it's going, the evolution. But Chris, you're registered blind throughout your career. You're a leading user of assertive technologies. Talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, some of the things you're doing there. >> Well, we should have had 25 minutes on that and five minutes on- (all laugh) >> Lisa: You'll have to come back. >> Really interesting. So I've been looking at it. You're quite right, I've been using accessible technology on my iPhone and on my laptop for 10, 20 years now. It's amazing. And what I'm trying to get across to the industry is to think about inclusive design from day one. When you're designing an app or you're designing a service, make sure you... And telecom's a great example. In fact, there's quite a lot of sign language around here this week. If you look at all the events written, good to see that coming in. Obviously, no use to me whatsoever, but good for the hearing impaired, which by the way is the biggest category of disability in the world. Biggest chunk is hearing impaired, then vision impaired, and then cognitive and then physical. And therefore, whenever you're designing any service, my call to arms to people is think about how that's going to be used and how a blind person might use it or how a deaf person or someone with physical issues or any cognitive issues might use it. And a great example, the GSMA and I have been talking about the app they use for getting into the venue here. I downloaded it. I got the app downloaded and I'm calling my guys going, where's my badge? And he said, "it's top left." And because I work with a screen reader, they hadn't tagged it properly so I couldn't actually open my badge on my own. Now, they changed it overnight so it worked this morning, which is fantastic work by Trevor and the team. But it's those things that if you don't build it in from scratch, you really frustrate a whole group of users. And if you think about it, people with disabilities are excluded from so many services if they can't see the screen or they can't hear it. But it's also the elderly community who don't find it easy to get access to things. Smart speakers have been a real blessing in that respect 'cause you can now talk to that thing and it starts talking back to you. And then there's the people who can't afford it so we need to come down market. This event is about launching these thousand dollars plus devices. Come on, we need below a hundred dollars devices to get to the real mass market and get the next billion people in and then to educate people how to use it. And I think to go back to your previous point, I think governments are starting to realize how important this is about building the community within the countries. You've got some massive projects like NEOM in Saudi Arabia. If you have a look at that, if you get a chance, a fantastic development in the desert where they're building a new city from scratch and they're building it so anyone and everyone can get access to it. So in the past, it was all done very much by individual disability. So I used to use some very expensive, clunky blind tech stuff. I'm now using mostly mainstream. But my call to answer to say is, make sure when you develop an app, it's accessible, anyone can use it, you can talk to it, you can get whatever access you need and it will make all of our lives better. So as we age and hearing starts to go and sight starts to go and dexterity starts to go, then those things become very useful for everybody. >> That's a great point and what a great champion they have in you. Chris, Sarbjeet, Dave, thank you so much for kicking things off, analyzing day one keynote, the ecosystem day, talking about what velocity actually means, where we really are. We're going to have to have you guys back 'cause as you know, we can keep going, but we are out of time. But thank you. >> Pleasure. >> We had a very spirited, lively conversation. >> Thanks, Dave. >> Thank you very much. >> For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE live in Barcelona, Spain at MWC '23. We'll be back after a short break. See you soon. (uplifting instrumental music)

>> As to the adoption challenges, I wasn't clear on where that should go. I mean, I'm happy to just throw it out there. >> You'll again punch it back to me, right? >> Okay. >> Question comes to me and I'm going to pass the ball to Greg to connect the thread on one backbone is needed. Emphasizing Cat 9K that we just talked about. >> And same thing for the last question. The routes to market? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Great. So we'll use that program for everything. Perfect. >> Masum, could you... Yeah, right there. So mark your place and try not to move that seat. That's it. Now, come forward just a tad, just a tad. There we go. Yeah. Okay, that's fine. Okay Alex, we're good. >> Okay. So Leonard don't leave after this 'Cause I'm going to do my outro. I'm going to do that as a separate asset, okay? >> You bet. >> Okay, great. So guys just it'll be five, four, three, silent, two, one. And then just follow my lead, okay? All right, Alex, you're ready? Masum and Greg, you're ready? >> Ready. >> Ready. >> Okay, here we go on me. On Dave in five, four, three, (beep). Okay, we're back. Digging into the infrastructure to make hybrid work possible. High performance, cost effective, scalable, and secure. That's what it's all about. And so far, we've covered the rapid migration to Wi-Fi 6E technology, and the role that switching is going to play. And now we're going to get into Private 5G and to do that, let's welcome Masum Mir, who is Vice President, and General Manager of Mobile, Cable and IoT business at Cisco. And Greg Dorai who is the Vice President of Product Management for the networking experiences group at Cisco. He's responsible for Catalyst access, that whole portfolio, Enterprise 5G, Cisco DNA Spaces, Cisco ISE, a lot of stuff there Greg. And gentlemen, welcome. >> Dave thank you for having us. >> Yeah, our pleasure. Masum let's start with you on the topic of Private 5G. What do we need to know about that? And more specifically, what's unique about Cisco's Private 5G? >> So most importantly, delivering Private 5G in enterprise terms, that's super important to look at 5G. Many of our peer groups might have got it wrong. We're looking at Private 5G with the lens of enterprise, what enterprise really needs. Is 5G going to come and displace a lot of existing technology, or is it going to help augment the technology that enterprise. It has an excellent the digitization journey. I wanted to start Dave with the basic premise of hybrid work. And what hybrid work really means. Is it only for knowledge worker, or is it for all workers? So we strongly believe hybrid work needs to empower all workers. It's not only connecting remote workers but also bringing people, things and space together. And we strongly believe the combination of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G for private network is going to accelerate that journey bringing people, things and space together in a very, very cohesive way. Why our offer is so unique? We are going to create a continuum. Enterprises don't have to make a hard choice. They will be using Wi-Fi technology and 5G technology hand in hand without creating a disruption on their policy and identity systems. They don't have to rethink, "Do I have to go and build a new backbone?" Is a common backbone that will support both Wi-Fi as well as 5G. Most importantly, delivering this entire offer as a service with the ease of consumption, ease of operation, and a trusted environment that they can put their mission critical workload on. >> Now, I like it. So a couple takeaways there. I mean, it's inclusive of all workers not just knowledge workers, non disruptive, everybody loves to hear that. And of course, it has service model as key Masum, let me stay with you. I mean, we can't wait for 5G, right? It's lightning fast, it got super low latency, very high bandwidth. So that's what everybody's excited about. The question though is, 5G gets introduced, yeah it's going to power things like IoT networks. Is that going to replace Wi-Fi and legacy wired broadband? >> Absolutely not. So we see Private 5G as an augmentation to the enterprise on top of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi as you heard in the previous conversation, Wi-Fi is bringing more capability with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E. And 5G is going to be yet another augmentation. Wi-Fi and 5G will coexist within enterprise for many years to come. I would like my friend, Greg to talk a little bit about this continuum. Greg? >> Yeah, I think it's sort of like, I like to say it's an and not an or. Because there's enough use cases out there which require spectrum. And you know, spectrum is a constraint. So you have Private 5G, your Wi-Fi 6, and both offer opportunities. So for example, in an indoor carpeted setting where you're basically connecting your phone for basic browsing, or connecting your laptop, Wi-Fi is sufficient. But if it's a process automation factory where you need seven nines of reliability, Private 5G is the better technology. Similarly outdoor, large areas, it's probably Private 5G, right? 'Cause you can have easy handoff between public and private. So it's use case driven. And once it's use case driven, it's going to be an or because there's so many next-gen use cases. Whether it's AR VR, drones, you know, self-driving cars you name it, right? And so I think these two technologies, 5G and Wi-Fi 6E is going to work hand in hand to deliver awesome outcomes for our customers. >> Yeah. And just the data volumes are going to be incredible. We always talk about the data volumes. You ain't seen nothing yet is what I always say. But the thing is every new tech that's introduced into the enterprise, you can almost be certain that it's going to bring adoption challenges. And not only that, it also is going to bring changes in the way you do things. And that brings new complexities from an operational standpoint. So my question is, how are you addressing this with the introduction of 5G? >> Dave, this is a fantastic question. And this is why we have spent, me and Greg have spent tremendous amount of time to create continuum. I'll start with the foundation first, backbone. So we have been building this enterprise backbone supported with wired connection as well as Wi-Fi connection. We wanted to make sure that as Private 5G comes within enterprise, you don't have to rethink and reimagine your backbone. It's the common backbone that will support what Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, as well as Private 5G. You're rest assured that it is the same backbone that we have heard in the previous section on the Cat 9K that will also support a Private 5G access. The second aspect of Private 5G is as you build any new technology into enterprise often time we get into this trap. To get to an outcome, we move fast and we create a silo. And then that silo operation creates barriers to mainstream it. So upfront, we have to think about not creating another silo. And how we are doing it. Number one, is a device that can connect into Wi-Fi network or a Private 5G network. You don't have to reimagine or rethink how I'm going to manage the identity. We'll create continuum with a common identity across the Wi-Fi access or 5G access in the same environment. The second aspect of that is how are we going to retain all our staff? Our enterprise staff is well trained with Wi-Fi technology and wired technology. Now 5G comes with tremendous amount of value and benefit. But it also comes with inherent technology complexity, learning curve problem. This is where our simple to consume, simple to operate model of SaaS comes to play. That we're going to take all those complexity away. It is a cloud delivered service. So enterprise don't have to go through this massive learning curve adopting this technology. Last but not least, on how we are going to manage your capital. Any new technology and enterprise often time, you need huge amount of upfront investment to adopt the technology to get to the other side of getting the outcome. So again, our business model of SaaS will allow enterprise to adopt this new technology and pay as your grow model to meet with enterprise needs. Finally, I also wanted to pass to Greg to touch a little bit more on how we are thinking about this common identity across any access in the enterprise. Greg, to you. >> So we thought about it in two different ways. One is, a lot of enterprises today use our identity and secure management platform. We call it ISE, Cisco ISE platform. And so, years and years of policy and identities, and which access servers, radio servers they use et cetera, are plugged in already into our ISE, right? So, if you can share that with this Private 5G as a service infrastructure that Masum's been building, we think we'll be able to create that bridge. Because we are not forcing enterprises to create new identities or new policies. So that's sort of step one to make it easier. We also thought through so something where in the case of a public 5G network, for example. It's very convenient because you take your phone out of your pocket and it's connected to the network, right? Versus for wifi, you have to log into an SSID in your hotel, or in your home, and in home, it's automatic. But that's that login process that creates friction. And that's a problem because then you can't be seamless. So we initiated what we call as open roaming, right? Like that's a identity federation that we first created between identity owners. Could be carriers, could be anything, right? Anyone who owns an identity. And they will share with venues. And so if the sharing happens, then that onboarding can be automatic. And once onboarding is automatic, then it's easy to pass off between Wi-Fi and 5G. And so that's again, another way in which you can lower the adoption barriers 'cause you share across public Private 5G and Wi-Fi networks. So these are two concrete examples of how we thought about lowering the barriers of adoption as we enter into this heterogeneous world. >> Nice, I can't wait. Let's talk about how this thing, scales in the go to market. What are the most likely, or maybe preferred, or obvious routes to market for Private 5G from Cisco? >> So Dave stay tuned right when they announce more about it. But I can also assure you that access to this spectrum is a challenge for many enterprises when it comes to cellular technology. In some countries there are more spectrum accessible by enterprise. In many countries, that's not the case. So we have thought through very carefully that how do we bring this offer to the market partnering with many service providers and mobile operators. Where in countries where you don't have direct access to the spectrum, our partnership with mobile operators, that you will hear more about as we come to Mobile World Congress, is going to allow our enterprise to consume this technology. even if they don't have the spectrum. In the places where the enterprise might have spectrum access, we'll also in our manage service providers to hide the complexity of the new technology on top of our SaaS services, or cloud delivered services. This is the augmentation with the partnership with manage service providers and mobile operators that will ease this journey for enterprises. Our most important primitive in this journey is to keep it simple for enterprise, make it intuitive, and trust it from day one. >> Outstanding. Okay, Masum, Greg, thanks so much. It was great to have you guys on. I really appreciate your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> In a moment, I'll be back with some closing thoughts and an opportunity for you to actually see this technology in action and talk to the experts directly. Keep it right there.

>> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico it's theCUBE! Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (Latin music) >> Welcome back everyone, this is theCUBE, exclusive coverage of Puerto Rico covering Blockchain Unbound's global conference where token economics meets the real world global society, Blockchain decentralized applications, and of course, cryptocurrency all kind of coming together. You got investors, you got developers, you got billionaires and millionaires, and you got the capital markets all rolled up into one. My next guest is Andrew Prell, founder and CEO of Convergence, entrepreneur, visionary, experienced entrepreneur, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you very much for having me! >> So you're doing some really radical, not radical, progressive, I mean radical sounds (mumbles) Awesome things, you're re-imagining gaming. >> Andrew: Correct. >> Got a great team of people who have seen that movie before, literally, seen the entertainment side of gaming, the pro gaming side to the tactical gaming side, take a minute to explain what you guys are doin' that's super fascinating, how it works in this new era. >> So, we're re-imagining the entire game space, when I say that I'm talking the consumer side, that's cell phones all the way through consoles and PCs, out to the out-of-home entertainment side, which is arcades, location-based entertainment and full-blown theme parks, and marrying them all together with one backbone platform that allows all of the devices to interact with each other in the same game space. So you can be in a $300,000 simulator at Disneyland, workin' with guys on cell phones against guys in their head-mounted displays. Any of that, they all work together in one game space. >> So basically the world is the device, every device. >> Yes. >> On the network, IP connection or global, player, console, screen, and you're connecting them all together. Hence Convergence. >> Right, we're giving every device in the eco-system it's proper place and it's proper prestige. 'Cause if you've got a $5,000 gaming rig, you don't think a guy with a $800 cell phone should be at the exact same level, but maybe 10 other cell phones could be a equal match to you. >> Take me through a use case of how you're going to converge this all together. So you talk to some purists out there, "I've got a 4K monitor, I don't want this cell phone guy "comin' in here, he's got lag, "I got all kinds of gaming issues." Does that go away, how does it all work? >> What we're havin' to do is contextual-based interfaces, meaning that your roles and responsibilities in the game space is dependent on the devices that you bring in. Because virtual reality is not just the head-mounted display, it's all the new gear coming out with the tactile feedback, the bodysuits, the gloves, the boots, the treadmills, all of that. All of that, your roles and responsibilities in each game space is dependent on the device that you enter with. >> So I was at Sundance this year and I had a theme, I did a panel I put together called The New Creative. And if you look at all the new artists out there, they want to break down the elite gatekeepers, right? I mean the virtual-reality and augmented-reality world is colliding with film, filmmakers. You got YouTubers out there with a million, 10 million subscribers, built-in audiences, this new technology coming out. A lot of people are bringing storytelling, filmmaking, and it's just really in the early stages right now. People love the characters, but you start to see the new kind of format. Does this play into your world? I can imagine that, if you're thinking to be disruptive in the way you're thinking, new games're going to emerge so it's not thinking about the old games, it's thinking about potentially new games. >> Andrew: Correct. >> How do you view that, is that somethin' that you see? What's your reaction to that trend of this new, multifaceted VR, AR. >> We see that everybody is going to get to play together, cross every device, the developers are going to get rewarded for creating content, people are going to be rewarded for creating things inside of the games, and the players are going to get rewarded for doing all the top things, and getting to the top levels of all the games, and we're going to reward them through our cryptocurrency. >> We're in Puerto Rico obviously, this world's goin' to another level, Brock Pierce, his community, the Blockchain community, they're comin' to Puerto Rico, tax incentives, the government's here opening up their arms, But you're starting to see it go to the next level. These early industries you got the entrepreneurs and the promoters. The promoters promote the entrepreneurs, there's a lot of love goin' back and forth. But then they hit that threshold, the capital markets come in, you know, you start to see the opportunities, but the money start flowing in. It's kind of happening now, so it's goin' the next level. In your opinion, token economics; now that there's so much money flowin' in, now that people see that Blockchain's legit, now that people see that this is actually a new model, not everybody, but majority-a' people in the industry are all noddin' their heads, "Okay, Blockchain's "got some potential, token economics is a legit thing, "it's disrupting capital structures, "it's disrupting funding." How is it disrupting the gaming business? Can you share your opinion on that? >> People don't understand the overall impact. We didn't understand the overall impact. A lot of the investors coming in still don't fully understand the overall impact. I was in a discussion the other day, I'd written some articles in Medium about token economics, and about the virtuous circle of a token-based investment fund. Meaning everything that it invests, all the fees, everything coming out of it, is all based on a token inside of an ecosystem. We're about to head to GDC, Game Developers Conference, just like Kevin Bachus did for the Xbox, we're going out there to license and buy up all the content that we can through our tokens. Now the cool thing here, the thing that just makes the investment, the cash funds dead, is a dollar bill can not change in value other than go down over time slightly. So we'll just say the dollar bill doesn't change in value. If I was Kevin Bachus back when the Xbox was coming out, and I went and invested a million dollars in a hundred companies in crypto, say the Xbox is crypto, and you could only get to those games through the token, which is what we're doing, and I found Halo, which, a hundred-million people bought the Xbox just because of Halo, then what that does for a cash fund is everybody pats each other on the back because you've got one game that's goin' to exit and that's kind of cool, but that's it. Doesn't affect the rest of the economy other than a nice network effect. Halo gets a hundred million users, the next guy might get five million of those or 10 million of those, that's a nice small impact. When you do it with crypto, and you start out with a penny token, that you put a million dollars into a hundred companies, and you find that Halo, and it explodes, your penny token might go to 10 cents. So what you just did was you just 10-exed what you invested into Halo. >> It's a futures contract on gaming. >> Well. >> Kind of. >> I'm not going to talk to that point. (laughs) We're going to just talk about this example, is you 10-exed, you went from a million to 10 million in Halo, but you also 10-exed every single investment you just did, and you 10-exed every person in that ecosystem that's involved in it, that's getting paid in it. Your suppliers, your publishers, your media. >> John: Everyone gets paid. >> Everybody get 10-exed because you found Halo. So that makes this whole ubiquitous ecosystem involved with everybody else, meaning I get rewarded if you get rewarded, so everybody helps everybody else. >> That is exactly the model of token economics. >> Exactly, it explodes because it's so powerful. >> This is interesting, the inefficiencies of the process that you pointed out, the old way, is eliminated by the new model. Hence, the people who pick up the game are the participants who shorten that efficiencies. >> I had a guy the other guy ask me, "you're not asking for enough money with your ICO, "'cause you've got to go invest in all these companies." And I was like, "you don't understand token economics!". All I have to do is unlock the power of my token and invest with that, and I've already proven, back in 2015 we proved that a lot of the game developers would take our token without it even having a secondary market. >> You haven't even gone to a whole 'nother dimension that you don't even have to go to now, but that's future, is the role of consensus in these communities really also do the filtering at many levels. >> Andrew: 100%! >> If you look at what Activision got their ass handed to them, all you got to do is look at the Reddit threads. The whole gaming thing is, no one wants to see games go corporate. Because they had to force a business model, this is a huge issue, people are losing their shirts. "Oh, great creative studio, they sold out, game's over". The audience flocks away, why? 'Cause they have no incentive. Do you agree? >> I agree a 100%, but there's a lot of professional investors that don't. So we broke up the sum of our funds that we're investing into all these startups, we broke it up into 10 funds, and we're going to turn it into a game. We're going to give one of the funds purely to our token holders, and do a consensus model, and let them vote on what they think we should, what should be in our network. And they're going to go up against nine other investors. I threw down the gauntlet. Whoever gets best wins the extra bonuses. >> So are you raising money now or did you raise the token sale already? >> We're closing out our private presale, and because of Blockchain Unbound I doubt we'll actually hit the open market with the ICO, so people will have to go to our developers that we invest in, and get the tokens through them somehow. >> Good success year, huh? Blockchain Unbound been a good success for you? >> Oh yeah, Brock Pierce is on board, been pushin' behind us since Cayman. Him and Crystal both fully supported us and we're havin' awesome. >> What's your advice to people out there, scratchin' their heads, "Andrew, give me "the 101 on token economics, what's the bottom line, "what do I need to know about, where do I get started, "what do I do?". >> Once you get your token actually, say, authenticated, realized, everything's transparent, and it gets on that secondary market, it's better to use that to invest in anything you need to invest in. Get everybody incentivized around your token. All your employees, all your vendors, everybody incentivized around that token, it's a 1000% more powerful than a dollar, 'cause a dollar doesn't go up in value. Your token can go up and down, but trends up, and as soon as you find just one spark that blows up, everybody, all boats rise equally. It's awesome. >> All right, Andrew Prell, CEO, reimagining gaming. Token economics is a disruptive force. There's math involved, every company will need a a chief economic officer, that'll be a new title, we'll be certainly seein' that out. Thanks for comin' on theCUBE, 'preciate it. I'm John Furrier, you're watchin theCUBE. Exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound. Part of our two-day wall-to-wall coverage, thanks for watchin', we'll be back with more after this short break.

>> Narrator: Live, from Nice, France, it's theCUBE. Covering .NEXT Conference 2017 Europe. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman and this is theCUBE live coverage of Nutanix .NEXT Conference in Nice, France. Happy to welcome to the program a first time guest, Daniele Mancuso who's fresh off the keynote stage. The Director of Innovation and Engineering at TI Sparkle. According to your website, TI Sparkle's the world's communication platform, so thank you so much for joining me. >> Thank you. >> So for those of us that aren't familiar, give us a little bit of outline of the company first. >> Yeah, so TI Sparkle is a fully-owned company belonging to Telecom Italia Group. Spinoff by the mother company back in 2003 with a mission to develop wholesale and corporate multinational retail and enterprise business abroad. 37 countries present office. 125 pubs all around the world that becomes around 1000 if we consider also the partnership with other operators. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers of fiber optics spreads between southeast Asia to Europe to North America and also South America via private backbones via [Inaudible] cable in consortia bilateral. In the top rank for IP transit with our Seabone Backbone, we are number 7 in the world and I think number 9 at the moment for voice in terms of minutes exchanged with international carriers. >> And so, innovation and engineering, what's under your purview, what's the relationship with kind of the IT Department? >> Basically, I am a peer within a division called ICT Engineering. I am a peer with IT responsible. Her role is basically to develop the new digital OSS and BSS of the company as well as the, let's call it, East/West API for the internet working with other peer operators. My role is instead to make this world speaking with the network elements, the network domains. The cloud domains, all the infrastructure. We are undergoing a severe transformation altogether because things much be very much synchronized in this new crazy world that is accelerating day by day. >> Yeah, I follow Telecom. A lot of my careers I worked for one of the companies that spun out of AT&T back in the US, so many companies talk about digital disruption. Digital has had a huge impact on telecom. You know, transformation, you talk about fiber roll outs used to be. I remember in the 90's it was like, oh, we're going to have infinite band width, and you know, prices are going to go there. >> The bubble. >> Things like that, so what are some of the key drivers, you know, what's changing in your business, the stresses and opportunities? >> Well, we need to realize in two part rationale, One is the wholesale business in which we were a pioneer, we are still having a severe, big role in the market But the issues is that wholesale is starting not to pay anymore. We face a severe, dramatic price decline year over year and therefore, in order to get sustainability of the company, you need to start turning the bar in a strong way toward the enterprises because it's there that is the money. So, this doesn't mean that of course you go out from the wholesale. We are a wholesale player. Our strategic plan involves us to consolidate and to reach the offering of wholesale services. As well as developing the new services focused for the enterprises, therefore with high capability of execution, very strong and fast time to market and enriched with a plethora of plugins that make the customer feeling the Sparkle Experience, as we call it. Most of the actions of which we are active at the moment, are the new dynamic services that are provided as part of the Metro Internet Forum, therefore the on demand paradigm, new connectivity, connectivity towards the cloud platforms, connectivity and reach by cloud experience. In order to reach these targets, you need to abandon a little bit the concept of network infrastructure. You need to scale it up. You need to softwareize it. You need to make it closer to IT. And at the same time, IT needs to come closer to the network And the two need to interwork together in an orchestrated way. This is the new world. The fashionite work, orchestration. In reality we like to speak more of choreography because orchestration is something that we see just residing within the company. Meaning, if you think an orchestra director is making all the instruments, all the artists that are within the company to play in a harmonized way, but in reality we want to export towards our customer this experience, and therefore we see it more as a ballet. So the orchestration is the baseline, but in reality we want the customer to feel embraced by what Sparkle can offer to him. >> Alright, so connect the dots for us as to where Nutanix came into it, how that discussion started and what you're using with them. >> So, this let's say paradigm of the digital transformation at Sparkle started around 2 years ago. We stopped one moment and said, okay, what should we do? How can we do it? How can we embrace it? Of course there are a lot of issues that are related to business processes, organization skills, but also the technologies a fundamental driver and these are most important, so, we started to design a new data center initially for our internal purpose, and we decided that in this data center, all new technology, all new software driven capabilities of the company should be deployed, but if you see the numbers of Sparkle, Sparkle is a lean and clean company. We have just 700 people, despite a global presence and so we cannot approach the transformation using the old paradigm of the best of breed, which is a traditional way of approaching things for tech providers. We instead decided to go completely to a new world. We started to do strong analysis on IPEX convergence and we came to term with Nutanix. Finally the new data center for works on all unit application is based on Nutanix notes and we forced all our vendors to certify their application on Acropolis so everything is AHVA based. And when we say everything, we're speaking about applications like Voice over IP Monitoring probes, we're speaking about lifecycle service orchestrator, we're speaking about Network Domains Orchestrator, cloud automation and brokerage platform, everything is running on Nutanix on this huge cluster with different nodes that are, more or less, powerful depending which application we been offered. But the main driver there is easier views, predictability, easy capacity management, everything runs in a very orchestrated and simple way. >> So, you know, relatively lean organization, simplicity is something we talk about, kind of, base hyper converged. I have to imagine one of the reasons you looked at HCI and is that way Nutanix is the one that you chose? >> Yeah. Absolutely. Those are fundamental features for us and in the development that we are doing with Nutanix, we are working very close with their engineering to develop also new feature that our customized for our solutions, we see that at the moment they are a perfect fir for our working model. They are also very fast company in developing things. Agile development. They are kind of having some predictability of what customer needs in future. Back at the keynote a few minutes ago, we were discussing about the usage of Nutanix for arranging public cloud environments, we just said that HV needs a further step of maturation, but Sunile was immediately coming out with Microsoft implementation and multi features that, in our opinion, were the small missing tip to complete HV as a complete cloud solution, so we are going there, also, this is our direction. >> Yeah, so absolutely, in your keynote you spoke a lot of HV, getting certified on all the platforms, want to talk about the cloud strategy, what are you using from Nutanix, are you, do public clouds fit into your picture? Kind of paint us your cloud strategy. >> So, let's always remind that we are a telecom. Are we going to compete with the big guys? It's not in our court. It's not in our interest and it's not possible for ISP. >> Let me ask, there's lots of telecoms that tried and failed >> Yeah, we're not even trying we're not even trying. In a telecom like us, that basically does not have a real captive market, we are operating abroad, so theoretically, we are the small guy that is going to face the incumbent in the market. But we have regions in which we have a consolidated presence especially in Europe, and we have data centers In Italy, Greece and Turkey. These data centers were traditionally addressing co-location business both for [Inaudible] and enterprises. So we decided when, the direction was, let's focus on enterprise to start the cloud journey but focusing initially on those markets. Again, we started with the best of breed approach, because this is what is in the telco court. The telco, needs to provide a service with a guaranteed SLA with an infinite number of 9 behind it. So at the beginning the first choice is okay, let's choose and let's pick the best pieces from each technology. It works. You arrange the solution. The problem is that you need to operate in the service. And when you create a cloud infrastructure with the best of breed approach, but you want to maintain lean and clean operations, then it's becoming complicated because you need to have a plethora, a bunch of specialists for each technology that you are going to implement. Meaning that you have storage specialists, storage network specialists, backup specialists, it cannot work like this. If you don't have the ability to scale globally, you will never be able to get sustainability there. So, in our cloud 2.0 strategy, which we are started already to apply from last year, Nutanix came to help because basically we did the analysis, we did several proof of concepts and we found out that we can get the same SLA, the same predictability, the same, or even better quality of service to our customer but using something that first of all is manageable by generalist IT skilled people, you can simply expand by scaling more bricks and at the end of the day, it's also more cost effective in terms of ratio between [Inaudible] You don't have [Inaudible] of optics. You have only one player to speak, fight, negotiate but finally get results. So that is the current scenario. On the cloud, as I said, we are still visphere shop, but we are starting already to move to HV, especially after this announcement of Microsoft implementation coming through. What is our future in cloud? We are going to address a transformation of our pubs all around the world. They will essentially become micro data centers from which we can offer data proximity, data locality to customers. Especially taking into consideration the GDPR entering from next year on world, I expect that many customers will feel a little it more relaxed and to disperse their data on centralized data centers without their having control of where really the data stays. So, we are starting also with Nutanix very small and compact solution that we can install in one of our cabinets in the pubs. And this will come also with the strategy of integrating the services with network vitralization solid balancing firewall, everything residing on the same stack. And SD1. In this way, we are quite confident that we can for sure leverage on our existing customer bases but also try to attract more customers that at the moment are not interconnected to our network via local loops. Simply using the internet as a new means of communication. >> Alright, so Daniele, lot of pieces here, just a final, get a brief statement from you, looked like you're looking at Nutanix, you know, they would call it kind of the core, their cloud, even the Edge, starting there, Why Nutanix? >> We have done some analysis, we have done a few proof of concepts also with competitors or with former competitors, let's say. What we really missed in our opinion, was the comprehensive vision. We understood from Nutanix, I mean, apart the numbers of performances, that somehow you can also get with other solutions, but what was missing in the others was that focus, the strategy, the vision and the certainty of the target they wanted to get. Speaking with Sunil, speaking with Benny Hill, speaking with all the guys, we see that they have a strong vision of where they want to be in a couple of years from now, and we have seen that they have a high capacity of execution and fast. And we basically have the same targets, we want to get the same achievements, so for us, it is a very reliable partner to work with in the next few years. >> Alright, well Daniele Mancuso, really appreciate you joining us. We know Nutanix always looks for the customers that are helping to move that digital transformation, be a partner with them. We'll be back with lots more coverage here from the acropolis in Nice, France. I'm Stu Miniman, you're watching theCUBE.