>>The >>Cube presents HPE discover 2022 brought to you by >>HPE. Hi everybody. Welcome back to day three, the Cube's continuous coverage wall to wall coverage of HPE. Discover 2022. My name is Dave Lanta. I'm here with John furrier. Dave McGraw is here. He's the vice president in the office of the CTO at VMware. And he's joined by Scott. We, the vice president and CTO of global sales for Hewlett Packard enterprise. And we're gonna talk tech, we're gonna talk integration. Co-creation gens. Welcome to the cube. >>Thank you so much, >>Scott, let me, let me ask you a question on the Scott side on the HP, we had the sales executives on the leaders on the sales side. You're on the CTO side with customers. You're in the front lines with customers green. Lake's got traction. I got this 1600 plus customers, 70 services we heard. And just the beginning, when you're out front of customers, you've got the old HPE now the new HPE kind of developing, what are they talking to you guys about? Cause now you have this cloud layer. I call it cloud operations, architecture shift. Yeah. What is the main conversation that you're involved in? >>I think it's driven by fundamentally that customers want to consume differently, right there workloads are ever evolving. You guys have evolved to meet those and since their consumption methods have changed on how they want and right. A lot of it's agility and, and speed of business right. Has, has dramatically shifted. So I think you'll see HPE GreenLake, you know, obviously as the cloud that comes to you, try to meet the problem where the cloud experience is needed. And I think that's the fundamental shift we've seen. I spent a lot of time with customers here at this conference. And as we've moved from cloud first to cloud smart to cloud everywhere, we're sitting in the intersection of cloud ever and delivering the experience together. And I think that's the heart of most of the conversations that are going on. >>Well, VMware, you guys are on, on a cloud. You guys shifted up with the cloud play. That's accelerated the VMware proposition. Now we have yesterday, we were talking to the city, the storage folks, they're provisioning single pane of glass or storage to customers. And whether they wanna pipe it to S3 or develop at the edge, doesn't matter. It's one console. Yeah. That's brand new. That's shipping. >>Yeah. And you know, a lot of it's driven too. I think the days of trap silos of resources that support one line of business are over. So we're talking about cloud agility everywhere, right. And to be able to embrace the cloud in all the locations. Right. And you kind of see folks move beyond just like there's the cloud, it's everywhere. It's the cloud. And so things like storage and fundamental compute and fundamental network operations that we're working on together, I think are where the customers expect us to be. We no longer can just show up. We have to show up and solve and solve before their needs. And I think that's a unique shift in the experience that's going >>On. So when you go back to, you know, Antonio four years ago now said, okay, we're all in. Yeah. On as a service. And so when you do that, you say, okay, we're gonna, we have services. They're gonna help do that. We have financial models that we can take to market immediately. So let's start there. And I would imagine take, so take us back. That's the point at which, you know, you're, you got email, phone ring, whatever let's integrate from an engineering standpoint go yeah. You know, as fast as you can. So what did that mean in terms of an engineer from an engineering perspective between HPE and, and VMware take us through that progression. >>Yeah. No, thanks for the question in your spot on it started with flexible financing models around metered usage. That was sort of the need at the time to now the expectation of engineered integrated solutions where customers don't wanna be in the system integration business anymore. And that requires engineering right. Requires deep innovation partnership to evolve to where the customer's headed, like before they've thought about it. And you'll see, you know, what we've done with vCloud foundation together and the integration within the HP GreenLake ecosystem, what we're doing with unified hybrid cloud views of what's going on, I think requires deep innovation things we're doing with other projects that we're gonna talk about today. Like Monterey capital thunder, our deep integrative innovation projects, where we've got together to try to solve a big problem cross industry that our customers are expecting us to do. And I think that speaks to the spirit of our long partnership together too. It's a business partnership. Of course it's a customer partnership to solve, but it's an innovation partnership. >>I gotta, I gotta ask about the, um, hybrid, obviously hybrids, the steady state. We're all seeing that now multi-cloud is being kicked around, but it's not, multi-cloud in the sense of workload portability so much. It's more of hybrid stitched together. Um, but it's coming fast with a data plane and yeah. The fabric and control planes. Uh, VMware, you guys are talking heavy about cross cloud or multicloud. Absolutely. So this is now brings up the old school interoperability question, right? So GreenLake sits here on premise. You guys have the edge, you get public cloud together. Where's the cross cloud come in. Where are customers doing when they think about cross cloud or, or multicloud? What is that conversation? Is it, Hey, I got Azure cause I got office and teams and I got Amazon over here and I got my on premise edge. Are they moving towards just being agnostic on cloud or is what's the environment? What, what are you crossing in the cloud? What does that mean across the cloud? Can >>You, I mean, from, from our perspective at VMware on premises, it's VMware cloud foundation, having that available, it's a VMware cloud instance, full STD STDC stack, uh, that is interoperable with our VMware cloud instances at the hyperscalers. And so for us, it's really about putting the management and control planes around that so that customers can easily determine where they wanna place workloads and when they need to burst, they need to scale up scale down. They have the flexibility and we wanna make sure all of these capabilities are available with HPE >>Going forward. What's interesting is that, you know, with, with GreenLake, what I like about what I'm seeing is is that, um, the leveling up of the cloud operation model, it's always been DevOps. We've always saw dev stack ops, clearly being operationally with cloud now on premise and edge with public cloud, it's full end to end operational cloud. If you wanna call it that, what is a key technical issue the customers need to do to get that in place? Is it to be DevOps, is that have cloud native applications, um, what kind of managed services, what's the makeup of that operating model for cloud look like? >>Yeah. I think if you talk to any enterprise commercial account, a top account, they'll they'll, if you, they think about how they run their functions, right. And you got, and you spoke to one of them, you have it ops at the bottom, it's a layer cake, right? You have it ops, everybody's deeply looking for AI ops that can remediate and orchestrate and you guys are on that journey as we are, as you move up to devs and dev SecOps, cuz security's critical, you got financial ops cuz we know economic value matters all the way clear up to cloud ops and Mo ops. What we're talking about is building hybrid operating model cause hybrid, it is simplified it where you're out of the stack, we're doing that together as partners and hybrid cloud is multiple consumption methods, but an operating model is encompass encompassing, cyber resiliency, compliance, economic, operational control. >>That's what we're built and edges in there as well. Right? Folks is, and it's not OT and it touching that's happening too, as we build edge tax, but folks need a simplified way. And as you saw in a lot of announcements here, our job was to bridge the cloud locations, right? So the customer didn't have to back to the portability statement you made, we announced a lot here that will allow you to float back and forth. So you have choice, choice and control control is the me is what every customer wants and they want the right workload at the right place at the right time at the right economic with the right capability. So I think that's in our mission together. Right? So, and >>A big part of engineering obviously is, is futures and roadmap. Yeah. Thought you mentioned Monterey cap thunder, you know, Monterey's kind of the smart Nick. One of the mega trends in the industry is Silicon diversity that handle all these new workloads to help with the edge. You know, capital is like the VSAN of memory as I, I would describe it. It obviously fits in there as well. So talk a little bit about the engineering roadmap, whatever you can share with us and how you guys are working together on that. Yeah. >>Yeah. I mean, those are three key projects for us. So there's constant interaction and integration with the HPE engineering team and the VMware team to make sure we bring those solutions to market with full capability. And for us, ultimately it's taking that technology and having it available in a VMware cloud context so that customers can have a, a consistent experience on premises running VMware cloud running with HPE GreenLake and then two are various VMware cloud suppliers around the world. And it's not just the hyperscalers, right? There's thousands of VMware cloud, uh, you know, partners that we work with manage service providers across the board. So it's, it's a very significant network of cloud. And you know, being consistent allows for mobility of workloads allows for consistency and skill sets for it operators as well. Mm-hmm >><affirmative> yeah. I wanna get into that, um, manage service trend around skill sets, but yeah, I have a, the number one thing that we've got in our, my notes here on multi-cloud challenges and I wanna get your reaction to it real quick, inconsistent infrastructure, API database network, and security constructs are different by cloud. How do you guys view that? And when you go to customers and they say, well, I got APIs that are different. I got different security constructs. What do I do? What does that, how do you answer that, that, that, that objection. >>Well, it's, it's a great call out cuz it is still the ongoing challenge, right? To gets to some of the portability, some of unified model and how they treat resources and consumption. Right? And so we're, we've all gotten together as an industry. You'll see purposely that the hyperscalers are all here at, at the conference, right? We're working on deep integration with all of our partners to make sure the customer doesn't have to. And I think it does extend to the different security models are troubling for customers. We're all working hard on unified security models as well. It's not just a developer saying, I like this set of APIs anymore, right? Or this framework customers need to run tier zero tier one, tier three applications when it really comes down to it and we need to create that unified model together. So, and I think that's really what the, the spirit or the embodiment of hybrid really is. >>When you talk to any customer, who's running a big operation, they're running in that model, right? They're not just doing cool. They want operationally simplicity. And I think you'll see these, these things we're engineering together are going after some of the hard problems, applications are hungry or all the time customers need more and more resources. And I think we would all agree. We've spent a lot of time in industry together when we're all working on sort of systems of record. What I call the shift ride effect is happening. Now we're in systems of interaction and systems of engagement out at the edge. That's the creation point of data. We need to be able to have that unified model all the way through the data path for the customer so they can monetize business value. >>And the data model is coming together. That's right. Where all three of those types of work that's right. There's two iconic names. And the other thing is that their trusted names and you're right, you're solving some of those hard problems making it simpler, but also you people trust that if something goes wrong, you're gonna be able to recover. So guys. >>Yeah. And I, and I'll tell you on the security front, you know, we've worked closely together here. If you look at, you know, VMware strategy of intrinsic security, it's really around going back to the development of our products, making sure there's a secure bill of materials, working with these guys on route of trust. Right? Making sure there's a full stack, uh, solution for our customers. Ultimately >>That's a whole nother cube segment that's bombs and shifting left and supply chain. Absolutely >>Shifting game. Absolutely. Right. Shifting >>Lift we're >>Shifting. Right guys. Awesome story. Congrats on the collaboration. Really appreciate your time in the cube. Thank you so >>Much. Thank you so >>Much. All right. You're very welcome. Okay, John and I will be back right after this short break. You're watching the Cube's coverage of HPE discover 2022 from Las Vegas, right back.

(upbeat music) >> Welcome everyone, this is Stephanie Chan with theCUBE. Recently analyst Dave Ross RADIO entitled, Pat Gelsinger has a vision. It just needs the time, the cash and a miracle where he highlights why he thinks Intel is years away from reversing position in the semiconductor industry. Welcome Dave. >> Hey thanks, Stephanie. Good to see you. >> So, Dave you been following the company closely over the years. If you look at Wall Street Journal most analysts are saying to hold onto Intel. can you tell us why you're so negative on it? >> Well, you know, I'm not a stock picker Stephanie, but I've seen the data there are a lot of... some buys some sells, but most of the analysts are on a hold. I think they're, who knows maybe they're just hedging their bets they don't want to a strong controversial call that kind of sitting in the fence. But look, Intel still an amazing company they got tremendous resources. They're an ICON and they pay a dividend. So, there's definitely an investment case to be made to hold onto the stock. But I would generally say that investors they better be ready to hold on to Intel for a long, long time. I mean, Intel's they're just not the dominant player that it used to be. And the challenges have been mounting for a decade and look competitively Intel's fighting a five front war. They got AMD in both PCs and the data center the entire Arm Ecosystem` and video coming after with the whole move toward AI and GPU they're dominating there. Taiwan Semiconductor is by far the leading fab in the world with terms of output. And I would say even China is kind of the fifth leg of that stool, long term. So, lot of hurdles to jump competitively. >> So what are other sources of Intel's trouble sincere besides what you just mentioned? >> Well, I think they started when PC volumes peaked which was, or David Floyer, Wikibon wrote back in 2011, 2012 that he tells if it doesn't make some moves, it's going to face some trouble. So, even though PC volumes have bumped up with the pandemic recently, they pair in comparison to the wafer volume that are coming out of the Arm Ecosystem, and TSM and Samsung factories. The volumes of the Arm Ecosystem, Stephanie they dwarf the output of Intel by probably 10 X in semiconductors. I mean, the volume in semiconductors is everything. And because that's what costs down and Intel they just knocked a little cost manufacture any anymore. And in my view, they may never be again, not without a major change in the volume strategy, which of course Gelsinger is doing everything he can to affect that change, but they're years away and they're going to have to spend, north of a 100 billion dollars trying to get there, but it's all about volume in the semiconductor game. And Intel just doesn't have it right now. >> So you mentioned Pat Gelsinger he was a new CEO last January. He's a highly respected CEO and in truth employed more than four decades, I think he has knowledge and experience. including 30 years at Intel where he began his career. What's your opinion on his performance thus far besides the volume and semiconductor industry position of Intel? >> Well, I think Gelsinger is an amazing executive. He's a technical visionary, he's an execution machine, he's doing all the right things. I mean, he's working, he was at the state of the union address and looking good in a suit, he's saying all the right things. He's spending time with EU leaders. And he's just a very clear thinker and a super strong strategist, but you can't change Physics. The thing about Pat is he's known all along what's going on with Intel. I'm sure he's watched it from not so far because I think it's always been his dream to run the company. So, the fact that he's made a lot of moves. He's bringing in new management, he's repairing some of the dead wood at Intel. He's launched, kind of relaunched if you will, the Foundry Business. But I think they're serious about that. You know, this time around, they're spinning out mobile eye to throw off some cash mobile eye was an acquisition they made years ago to throw off some more cash to pay for the fabs. They have announced things like; a fabs in Ohio, in the Heartland, Ze in Heartland which is strikes all the right chords with the various politicians. And so again, he's doing all the right things. He's trying to inject. He's calling out his best Andrew Grove. I like to say who's of course, The Iconic CEO of Intel for many, many years, but again you can't change Physics. He can't compress the cycle any faster than the cycle wants to go. And so he's doing all the right things. It's just going to take a long, long time. >> And you said that competition is better positioned. Could you elaborate on why you think that, and who are the main competitors at this moment? >> Well, it's this Five Front War that I talked about. I mean, you see what's happened in Arm changed everything, Intel remember they passed on the iPhone didn't think it could make enough money on smartphones. And that opened the door for Arm. It was eager to take Apple's business. And because of the consumer volumes the semiconductor industry changed permanently just like the PC volume changed the whole mini computer business. Well, the smartphone changed the economics of semiconductors as well. Very few companies can afford the capital expense of building semiconductor fabrication facilities. And even fewer can make cutting edge chips like; five nanometer, three nanometer and beyond. So companies like AMD and Invidia, they don't make chips they design them and then they ship them to foundries like TSM and Samsung to manufacture them. And because TSM has such huge volumes, thanks to large part to Apple it's further down or up I guess the experience curve and experience means everything in terms of cost. And they're leaving Intel behind. I mean, the best example I can give you is Apple would look at the, a series chip, and now the M one and the M one ultra, I think about the traditional Moore's law curve that we all talk about two X to transistor density every two years doubling. Intel's lucky today if can keep that pace up, let's assume it can. But meanwhile, look at Apple's Arm based M one to M one Ultra transition. It occurred in less than two years. It was more like, 15 or 18 months. And it went from 16 billion transistors on a package to over a 100 billion. And so we're talking about the competition Apple in this case using Arm standards improving it six to seven X inside of a two year period while Intel's running it two X. And that says it all. So Intel is on a curve that's more expensive and slower than the competition. >> Well recently, until what Lujan Harrison did with 5.4 billion So it can make more check order companies last February I think the middle of February what do you think of that strategic move? >> Well, it was designed to help with Foundry. And again, I said left that out of my things that in Intel's doing, as Pat's doing there's a long list actually and many more. Again I think, it's an Israeli based company they're a global company, which is important. One of the things that Pat stresses is having a a presence in Western countries, I think that's super important, he'd like to get the percentage of semiconductors coming out of Western countries back up to at least maybe not to where it was previously but by the end of the decade, much more competitive. And so that's what that acquisition was designed to do. And it's a good move, but it's, again it doesn't change Physics. >> So Dave, you've been putting a lot of content out there and been following Intel for years. What can Intel do to go back on track? >> Well, I think first it needs great leadership and Pat Gelsinger is providing that. Since we talked about it, he's doing all the right things. He's manifesting his best. Andrew Grove, as I said earlier, splitting out the Foundry business is critical because we all know Moore's law. This is Right Law talks about volume in any business not just semiconductors, but it's crucial in semiconductors. So, splitting out a separate Foundry business to make chips is important. He's going to do that. Of course, he's going to ask Intel's competitors to allow Intel to manufacture their chips which they very well may well want to do because there's such a shortage right now of supply and they need those types of manufacturers. So, the hope is that that's going to drive the volume necessary for Intel to compete cost effectively. And there's the chips act. And it's EU cousin where governments are going to possibly put in some money into the semiconductor manufacturing to make the west more competitive. It's a key initiative that Pat has put forth and a challenge. And it's a good one. And he's making a lot of moves on the design side and committing tons of CapEx in these new fabs as we talked about but maybe his best chance is again the fact that, well first of all, the market's enormous. It's a trillion dollar market, but secondly there's a very long term shortage in play here in semiconductors. I don't think it's going to be cleared up in 2022 or 2023. It's just going to be keep being an explotion whether it's automobiles and factory devices and cameras. I mean, virtually every consumer device and edge device is going to use huge numbers of semiconductor chip. So, I think that's in Pat's favor, but honestly Intel is so far behind in my opinion, that I hope by the end of this decade, it's going to be in a position maybe a stronger number two position, and volume behind TSM maybe number three behind Samsung maybe Apple is going to throw Intel some Foundry business over time, maybe under pressure from the us government. And they can maybe win that account back but that's still years away from a design cycle standpoint. And so again, maybe in the 2030's, Intel can compete for top dog status, but that in my view is the best we can hope for this national treasure called Intel. >> Got it. So we got to leave it right there. Thank you so much for your time, Dave. >> You're welcome Stephanie. Good to talk to you >> So you can check out Dave's breaking analysis on theCUBE.net each Friday. This is Stephanie Chan for theCUBE. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From around the globe, It's theCUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back to IBM Think 2021. This is theCUBE's ongoing coverage where we go out to the events, in this case virtually to extract the signal from the noise. Now we're going to talk about one of the deepest customer relationships in the tech business with Piet Bill who is the IBM managing director for American Express. Piet, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having me, Dave. >> So as I said, this is one of the deepest vendor-client relationships. I mean, it's more than that. It's just, you're not a vendor. You're a partner, a very deep relationship many many decades, plus executives know each other. There's been some senior executives from American Express, as I recall came over to IBM of course, famously Lou Gerstner. But, talk about the, just give us the overview of the evolution of that partnership. >> Yeah well, as you rightly mentioned, the relationship is long and deep. It's over a hundred years. I mean the original deal was probably around the combine clocks and scales and all that kind of stuff, and it evolved over time. But what it does indeed create is a long, deep, lasting relationship as a fundament for doing business. And yeah, that business has gone through a lot of cycles over the last decade. So as you say, from buying stuff but I would say over time evolving really into a partnership around services, mutual business back and forth, exchanging executives on board level. American Express executives on the board of IBM and vice versa. So yeah, it's a very, very deep long relationship of two iconic companies in Manhattan. >> Yeah, well so it's got to be more than just buying stuff. Obviously, there's a lot of business being transacted, but you've got an intimate, I mean your title has American Express in it. So you've got to intimately understand your client's business. I mean, I guess that's always the case but we're taking it to another level here, aren't we? >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, so what you really are often what we do as IBM is really get into the shoes basically of American Express trying to support their business to their clients. So American Express is very focused on small and medium businesses. So, we tap into how can we help the small and medium business as part of the American Express customer set. And how can we help evolve their business models, their technology, their services, to serve their clients better because in the old days, indeed, to your point, it was like, oh we wanted to buy the right stuff. And then we use that to do our thing but that the technology today, the area in which we operate is completely different. If you don't understand the client of American Express, we cannot serve American Express as a company. So it is indeed very important and it is therefore deeper and it requires way more focus on the clients of American Express than in the old days, I would say. >> Well, the pandemic must've been a challenging environment. Of course, I mean, you know people aren't out shopping as much, although people are waiting, they can't wait to get back out. They say, it's going to be like Woodstock here with their American Express cards. But so, maybe talk a little bit about how you worked together during the pandemic. >> Yeah, so well, first of all, like anybody we all work from home, but American Express really, I would say almost re-engaged on what is core in their strategy, is the support to small and medium business. So, American Express started this Stand For Small Initiative led by Steve Squeri himself, about how can we enable the small enterprises in doing business in the COVID period? What do they need? I mean, yeah, they need money, but they also need help. Like how to deal with your financials with your people. Can we use the spare time to do more education? And so IBM was one of the partners that jumped on board immediately to say, okay let us help in that platform, support you when necessary with the platform, but definitely help you in that platform to reach out to the small and medium enterprises, specifically in the New York area And like many other partners, we all got on board. And I think it got another focus again, I mean small and medium business has always been a focus but it's different when so many companies are struggling right now. And so we got on board and I think that is really a very clear partnership expression, I would say. >> How do you measure success with American Express? What are some of the key things that you guys look at? How have you evolved that over time? >> Well, ultimately I would say it's client satisfaction in the end. It sounds like an open door, but it really is. I mean, the real measurement, I mean there's always money measurements back and forth. And you can argue that of course you need to do solid business. There's no discussion there but I would say it's where do we align on the strategic intent from both companies? And let me elaborate a second on that one. If American Express is really transforming its business to become way more, I would say cloud enabled, hybrid technologies enabled. We provide a lot of that material. So we are really working together on trying to leverage each other in building that hybrid platform that will enable that future. And why do you need that? Well, because American Express needs to be dynamic and getting fintechs on board, getting exchanges with new companies are going way faster. It's not the traditional old style anymore where you could go for transformations for years. No, it needs to be on the spot. So we felt our strategies are really well aligned. And I would say the real measurement of success is how can we now make that to the benefit of American Express and on the back of that, we will do good business. So client satisfaction should be the primary one, strategic alignment important, and then of course doing the sound business on the back of that for both sides >> Financial services firms have always been pretty savvy when it comes to applying technology to business. Some of the most demanding customers and more advanced. And so, American Express was likely already on a digital transformation prior to the COVID hitting. At the same time, if he talks about it being accelerated. But, I think what people miss is that it wasn't, well they don't miss it, but to think about it and this way it wasn't planned, it was like forced. And, so you just, you had no choice. You couldn't think about it. You just had to do an act. And so on the one hand, okay, that's good. It was a forcing function. It also served as a Petri dish, but on the other hand, I'm sure a lot of mistakes were made. Now, as we exit the pandemic, we step back and say, okay, wow, we learned a lot. Now we can make a more planful approach and really go deeper and lean in over the next several years. What are your thoughts on that? And how does it relate to what you guys are doing with American Express? >> I think that's a very good point, I agree. It's what you see is that this indeed has forced us in a lot of things. I think the good news is American Express was already enabled for a lot of that new technology. They have invested. They have a lot of very skilled, good people and a very clear strategy and what they were after. This indeed put more pressure on it. I think what you will see happening in the foreseeable future after we get out of all of this, let's say the the urgency to complete the transformation on the cloud and data will become even more crucial. And so the priority will become higher and it will not be just higher because of the techies wanting it to do it, but because the business needs it. So they need it from a risk perspective, they need it from an agility perspective, go to market of new products. They need to really move fast. It's a fast moving market. You get a lot of it. I mean, the competition is there. So to enable that the move to get new technologies in faster is becoming pivotal and crucial. And I think for now, it's more of an almost like a survival statement. We need to get through this bubble of COVID. As soon as that's done, we need to think way more on the structural elements of data and how we enable a hybrid strategy going forward. >> So in the spirit of, you know you need to understand your customer. In this case, American Express and understand their business. And American Express is, I'll make you laugh. Anytime I call American Express, if I have to work out a problem or whatever, and I got to talk to customer service, they always thank me for my loyalty. Because I've been a customer for a long time. Back when probably when Ronald Reagan was president it was my first Amex card. And so they're like, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Vellante. We really appreciate your loyalty." So loyalty is a big thing for American Express with its customers. So what about IBM and American Express? How are you breeding? You know, what's that loyalty factor look like for you guys? >> Yeah, I think it's a very important element. I mean, to your point, I have the same experience. It's a crucial element. The whole, I mean, American express is famous for its loyalty schemes for loyalty as a company. I think loyalty, like the business has evolved. I think the loyalty evolves in the same style. And I would say in the old days, I would say the argument was you need to have the best product. You know, you need to be, and then we'll buy the product. In the current environment, I would argue it's way more about skills. Do we have the right people? Do we have the right technology, strategy kind of stuff? I would say for the future, it's way more about do we have the right trust, commitment, and loyalty of the people that work with us going forward to serve the client needs? And I think that evolution, it's almost like you have an Industrial Revolution. There was an Information Revolution. I think there's more of a Loyalty Revolution coming up where the real differentiating factors is because we can study this and argue this for ages but a lot of parties will deliver a lot of good technology to the market. They will deliver a lot of good people. They will have good price points. So what's the real differentiating factor? It's like, do we really trust these people? And then I think relationship loyalty will really come in play and it will not become in play just between an IBM and an American Express. But I would argue it will come in play in the whole business cycle of American Express to their clients. I mean, if the credit card swipe of your American Express card in a shop fails, it needs to be my problem. If I deliver the service to American Express, it cannot be that, oh, American Express has a problem. And you know what, it's eight o'clock in the evening. Yeah, we have reduced services. No, we never had that. We will never have that. But we need to get even deeper in understanding what the effects are of these business issues. >> Yeah. you're right. The nature of loyalty, I mean, certainly the products have changed. I remember, you used to travel overseas with American Express Travelers Checks. That was a staple of every overseas trip that I ever took. No matter where I was going, whether it was the Asia Pacific or Europe, I had to have that packet. And there were times when one time in particular I had a problem, boom, they were right there. It solved that problem. Now of course, many young people in the audience don't even know what America's Express Travelers Check is. They probably don't know what cash is. Carrying around crypto in their wallet. But, that's an example and that's about trust. I trust that product. I trust that company behind the product. And again, that has to extend to your relationship, doesn't it? >> Absolutely, so the technology that American Express uses, whether they do it themselves, or whether it's provided by partners like IBM. It needs to be seamless because, let's face it. Dave, you will not be interested to know who provides you the security on your credit card. If you have an American Express card, you expect it expect American Express to deliver you the security that you need. And whether American Express delivers that or IBM, you couldn't care less and you shouldn't care less. But what it does require is that, in the old school I would say it was more like, okay, we'll give some services and some products to American Express and guys, good luck! Now, we need to think ahead. And I think that's where the power of IBM comes in whether we really are tuned by industry to the industry issues like compliance, security, stability, services to the end clients, to you. So you need to feel if I cannot explain what I do to American Express in your terms as an end-user of an Amex credit card, you can argue what's the real value at? And definitely if there's like three, four, or five parties playing exactly the same game, it needs to be differentiating. And I think a company like IBM we have differentiating value, but we need to make it very clear. And that's, I think where you see companies like American Express really work together and that's where loyalty and trust really comes into play. >> Last question and we've got to go is, you have American Express in your title. Are other companies jealous? (laughs) We want that too. >> They should. They should be. I must say, we deal with a ton of financial institutions as you know around the globe, including the other credit cards. But yeah, I think when these deep relationships come in place and two, they're so old. So deep, so entrenched, and it really started. There's different dimensions to it. And it's not always that hard-coded anymore. It's the subtlety of really relying on each other. I mean, when something happens in the middle of the night with American Express, all of IBM is on board as of the second. And it's not driven by contracts or by anything. It's by people that have an American Express logo on the forehead and worked for an IBM. >> Yeah, right. That's awesome. Piet, Piet Bill's great story. Thanks so much for coming to theCUBE. It was great to have you. >> Thanks for having me. >> All right. And keep it right there. This is Dave Vellante, ongoing coverage of Think 2021. You're watching theCUBE.

>>from >>around >>The globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of IBM think 2021 brought to you >>by IBM. Welcome back to IBM Think 2021. This is the cubes ongoing coverage where we go out to the events in this case virtually to extract the signal from the noise. Now we're gonna talk about one of the deepest customer relationships in the tech business with Pete Bill, who is the IBM managing director for American Express. Pete, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >>Thanks for having me Dave. >>So as I said, this is one of the deepest vendor client relationships. I mean, it's more than that because you're not a vendor, your partner, very deep relationship, many, many, you know, decades plus uh, executives know each other. There's been a some senior executives from American Express as I recall, came over to IBM of course, famously Lou Gerstner um, but but talk about the, just give us the overview of the evolution of that partnership. >>Yeah, well, as you rightfully mentioned, uh the relationship is long and deep, its over 100 years. I mean the original deal was probably around the club buying clocks and uh scales and all that kind of stuff and it evolved over time. But what it does indeed create is a long deep lasting relationship as a fundament for doing business and uh yeah that business has gone through a lot of cycles over the last decades, as you say, uh from from buying stuff. But I would say over time evolving really into a partnership around services, mutual business back and forth, exchanging executives on board level american Express executives on the board of IBM and vice versa. So yeah, it's a very very deep long relationship of two iconic companies in in Manhattan. >>Yeah, so it's got to be more than just buying stuff. Obviously there's a lot of business being transacted but you've got to intimate your title has american Express in it. So you've got to intimately understand your client's business. I mean that's I guess that's always the case, but we're taking it to another level here, >>aren't we? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so what you really are after and what we do is IBM is really get into the shoes basically of american Express trying to support their business to their clients. So american Express is very focused on small and medium business. So we tip into how can we help the small and medium businesses part of the american Express custom set and how can we help evolve their business models, that technology their services to serve their clients better because in the old days indeed. To your point it was like, oh we wanted to buy the right stuff and then we use that to do our thing. But that the technology today, the area in which we operate is completely different. If you don't understand the the client of american Express, we cannot serve american express as a company. So it is indeed very important and it is therefore deeper and it requires way more focused on the clients of american express than in the old days I would say. >>Well the pandemic must have been a challenging uh environment. Of course. I mean you know people aren't out shopping as much although you know people are waiting, they can't wait to get back out. They say it's gonna be like Woodstock with the american express cards. But so so maybe talk a little bit about how how you work together during the pandemic. >>Yeah. So well first of all like anybody, we're all work from home. But american express really uh I would say almost reengaged on what is core and the threat that used to support to small and medium business. So american Express started this stand for small initiative led by steve Square himself about how can we enable the small enterprises uh in doing business in the covid period? What do they need? I mean, yeah, they need money, but they also need help like how to deal with your financials with your people. Can we use the spare time to do more education? And so IBM was one of the partners that jumped on board immediately to say, okay, let us help in that platform support you were necessary with the platform but definitely help you in that platform to reach out to the small and medium enterprises uh specifically in the new york area. And like many other partners, we all got on board and I think it got another focus. Again, I mean small and medium business has always been a focus, but it's different when so many companies are struggling right now. And so we get a got on board. And I think that that is really a very clear partnership expression. I would say, >>how do you measure success with with american Express? What are some of the key things that you guys look at? How, how have you evolved that over time? >>Well, ultimately, I would say it's client satisfaction in the end, it sounds like an open door, but it really is. I mean the real the real measurement, I mean there's always money measurements back and forth. You can argue that that is of course you need to do solid business. There's no discussion there, but I would say it's where do we align on the strategic intent from both companies and let me elaborate a second on that one. If american Express is really transforming its business to become way more, I would say uh cloud enabled hybrid technologies enabled. Uh we provide a lot of that material. Uh so we are really working together on trying to leverage each other in building that hybrid platform that will enable that future. And why do you need that? Well, because american Express needs to be dynamic and getting fit, excellent board, getting exchanges with with with with new companies going way faster. It's not a traditional old style anymore where you could go for transformations for years now it needs to be on the spot. Um so we show our strategies are really well aligned and I would say the real measurement of success is how can we now make that to the benefit of american Express? And on the back of that we will do good business. So uh client satisfaction should be the primary one. Strategic alignment important. And then of course doing the sound business on the back of that for both sides, >>financial services firms have always been pretty savvy when it comes to applying technology to business some of the most demanding customers and more advanced. Uh So you know the american express is likely already on a digital transformation prior to the covid hitting at the same time. It talks about it being accelerated. But I think what people miss is that it wasn't well they don't miss it but you know to think about it in this way, it wasn't planned, it was like forced. And so you just you have no choice, you couldn't think about it, you just have to do an act. And so on the one hand, okay, that's good. It was a forcing function. It also served as a Petri just but on the other hand, I'm sure a lot of mistakes were made now as we exit the pandemic step back and say okay wow, we learned a lot now. We can make a more planned full approach and really go deeper and lean in over the next several years. What are your thoughts on that and how does it relate to what you guys are doing with american Express? >>I think that's a very good point. I agree. It's what you see is that uh this indeed has forced us in a lot of things. I mean I think the good news is american Express was already enabled for a lot of that new technology. They have invested, they have a lot of very skilled good people uh a very clear strategy and what they were after this and they put more pressure on it. I think what you will see happening in the foreseeable future after we get out of all of this is that the, let's say the urgency to complete the transformation on cloud and data will become even more crucial. And so the priority will become higher and it will not be just higher because of the Turkish wanting it to do it, but because the business needs it. So uh needed from a risk perspective, they needed, from an agility perspective, go to market of new products. Uh they need to really move fast. It's a fast moving market, you get a lot of the media competition is there? Uh so to enable that the move to get new technologies and faster is becoming pivotal and crucial. And I think for now it's more of almost like a survival statement. We need to get through this bubble of Covid as soon as that's done, we need to think way more on the structural elements of debt and how we enable a hybrid strategy going forward. >>So in the spirit of you need to understand your customer in this case american Express and understand their business. An american express is uh make you laugh anytime I call american Express, you know, if I have to work out a problem or whatever. Uh and I gotta talk to some customer service. They always thank me for my loyalty because I have been a customer for a long time. You know, back when probably when Ronald Reagan was president, it was my first Amex card. And so they're like, oh thank you, Mr Volonte. We we really appreciate your loyalty. So loyalty is a big thing for american Express with its customers. So what about IBM and American Express? How are you breeding, you know, what's that loyalty factor look like for you guys? >>Yeah, I think it's a very important element. I mean to your point, I have the same experience, It's it's a it's a crucial element. Uh the whole, I mean american Express is famous for its loyalty schemes for loyalty as a company. I think loyalty like the business has evolved, I think the loyalty evolves in the same style in I would say in the in the in the old days, I would say the argument was you need to have the best product, you know, you you need to be and then we'll buy the product in the current environment. I would argue that it's way more about skills, Do we have the right people? Do we have the right technology strategy kind of stuff? I would say for the future, it's way more about do we have the right trust, commitment and loyalty of the people that work with us going forward to serve the client needs? And I think that evolution, it's almost like you have an industrial revolution, there was an information resolution. I think there's more of a loyalty revolution coming up where the real differentiating factors is because we can study this and argue this for ages. But a lot of parties will deliver a lot of good technology to the market, they will deliver a lot of good people, they will have good price points. So what's the real differentiating factor? It's like, do we really trust these people? And then I think relationship loyalty will really come and play and it will not become and play just between an IBM and an american express, but I would argue it will come and play in the whole business cycle of american express to their clients. I mean if the credit card swipe of your american express card in a shop fails, It needs to be my problem. If I deliver the service to American express it cannot be that Oh American express has a problem and you know what, it's 8:00 in the evening uh yeah we have reduced services. No we never had that, we will never have that but we need to get even deeper in understanding what the effects are of these business issues. >>Yeah I mean you're right the nature of loyalty, the preservative products have changed. I mean I remember you know I used to travel overseas with american Express traveler's checks that was a staple of every overseas trip that I ever took you no matter where I was going, whether it's asia pacific or or europe, I had to have that packet and I and I had you know, there were times when, when you know one time particularly had a problem film, they were right there to solve the problem. Of course, many young people in the audience don't even know what american express traveler's check is. They probably don't know what cash is carrying around crypto in their wallet. But but but that's an example and that's about trust, trust that product, I trust that company behind the product. Again, that has to extend to your relationship doesn't. >>Absolutely. So the technology that an american Express users, whether they do it themselves or whether it's provided by partners like IBM it needs to be seamless because let's face it, you would not be interested to know who provides you the security on your credit card. If you have an american Express card, you expect expect american Express to deliver your the security that you need and whether american Express delivers that or IBM you couldn't care less and you shouldn't care less. But what it does require is that in the old school I would say it was more like okay we'll give some services and some products to american Express and guys could look now, we need to think ahead and I think that's where the power of IBM comes in where that we really attuned by industry to the industry issues like compliance, security, stability services, um to the inclined to you. So you need to feel if I cannot explain what I do to american express in your terms as an infusion of an express credit card, you can argue what's the real value add. And definitely if there's like 345 parties playing exactly the same game, it needs to be differentiating and I think a company like IBM we have differentiating value but we need to make it very clear and that's I think where you see companies like american Express really work together and that's what loyalty and trust really comes in play. >>Last question when we got to go is you have american expression, your title are other companies jealous >>we >>want that >>to, they should, they should >>be. Uh >>but I I must say, I mean we deal with a ton of financial institutions as you know around the globe including the other credit cards. But yeah, I think where these deep relationship ships commonplace indeed too. I mean they're so old, so deep, so and entrenched and it really start there's different dimensions to it and it's not always that hard coded anymore, it's the subtlety of really relying on each other. I mean when something happens in the middle of the night with american express, all of IBM is on board as of the second and it's not driven by contracts or by anything. It's by people that have an American Express logo on the forehead and work for an IBM. >>Yeah. Right. It's awesome. Pete Pete bills. Great story. Thanks so much for coming to the cube. It's great to have you. >>Thanks for having me. >>All right and keep it right. There is day volonte ongoing coverage of think 2021. You're watching the Cube? Yeah.

(bright, peppy music) >> Announcer: From Chicago, it's theCUBE. Covering Veritas Vision Solution Day 2018. Brought to you by Veritas. >> Hello everyone, welcome to Chicago. We're here covering the Veritas Solution Day. Veritas, last year, had the Veritas Vision Conference and they brought together all their customers. This year they decided to go around the world, I think they have six or seven of these across the globe. And we just were in New York a few weeks ago at Tavern on the Green. We're here at the Palmer House in Chicago. Iconic hotel. About 60 to 70 customers here. Of course Chicago's a big opportunity for companies like Veritas because there's such a good customer base here. But what I want to do now is set up what's going on in the data protection business. According to a number of sources, Gartner, IDC Data, other survey data, certainly anecdotally when we talk to customers, about half of the customers that we talk to are going to replace their data protection platform within the next five years. Why is that? Well, there are a number of factors that are affecting that and I want to talk about the reasons why, the implications to the market, and what that means for customers. So if you look back 10 years ago, there was a similar dynamic going on catalyzed by the ascendancy of virtualization. What was happening is that you had all these servers that were underutilized and so the brilliance of virtualization was we're going to consolidate those servers, virtualize the compute power, dramatically increase the utilization and reduce the physical capacity that's on the floor. So you can get rid of stuff. Get rid of servers, spend less, and get more value out of that asset. Because you had all these underutilized hardware assets. Data protection backup in particular was the one workload that actually could use all that compute power. Why, because at the end of the day, you're backing up this huge stream of data. And so as a result, when you had to do a full backup, you didn't have the physical resources. So people had to rethink how they architected backup because of virtualization. So you now have a similar dynamic, but for different reasons. Some of the big trends that are going on here. The first one is of course digital. So digital means data and it's all about how you get value out of your data because data is increasingly an important asset. People are realizing that protecting that data is more and more important. As a result, people are rethinking just the definition of recovery. Recovery has to be faster, you've got to be always on in this digital world. So digital transformation is critical. You can't just bolt on backup as you have for the last 20, 30, 40 years really. Backup has been a bolt on. You've also got cloud. Everybody wants cloud-like. So you're seeing a shift from improving or dealing with resource utilization and allocation, as I explained in the virtualization world, now to automation. Why automation? Because people want a cloud-like experience. They realize they can't just shove all their data into the public cloud. There's data all over the place, and I'll talk about that in a moment in terms of distributed data, but specifically people want a cloud-like experience. What does that mean? That means they want pay-as-you-go, they want simple deployment, they want fast seamless recovery, and they want a lot of automation. While the price of technology comes down year after year, the price of people doesn't. And you can't just keep throwing people at the infrastructure problem, because it's so complex, you have to automate. And you want to shift resources toward higher value activities. Digital transformation, dev opps, application development. So this distributed data world, this multi-cloud world, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment when I discuss the Edge, it's becoming a forcing function. Multi-cloud is a forcing function to rethink your backup. Because you've got different infrastructures, a service providers, you've got SAS providers, you've got all kinds of clouds that are popping up all over the lines of business and within your own data centers. As a result, you need to think about how do I catalog all that data, how do I protect that data, how do I govern that data, how do I deal with things like GDPR and make sure that I'm in compliance. So it becomes a much more complicated equation, and the variables are distinct. For example, I don't really understand what point in time means anymore. If you have distributed data, what does it mean to have a point in time copy? Point in what time? Who's the master? So you need some kind of controls in that multi-cloud world. That's a forcing function to rethink your backup. The other thing is platform. Platform beats products. I'll talk about that in a moment. People for years have looked at backup as purely insurance. Everybody hates buying insurance, we all know that, so you're seeing people trying to get more out of their backup and recovery platforms. For instance, integrating disaster recovery. So that's becoming an integral part of people's strategies. You're also seeing analytics becoming more and more important. People are trying to, because all the data sits in the corpus of the backup, people are saying why don't we analyze that data and get more out of it. Why don't we take snapshots of that data and make it available to dev opps. And what about ransomware, which again I'll talk about in a moment. Could I maybe look at anomalies in that data to determine if there are some problems. Many, many use cases emerging. Data classification, governance, I mentioned GDPR before, so you're seeing backup shift from pure insurance to a higher value business opportunity. And then of course, there's security, there's compliance, there's governance, ransomware is critical. Organizations are creating air gaps, meaning disconnecting from the internet, so that if they get hit with a ransomware attack they can isolate their data, but just even that is not enough. People can get through air gaps by physically putting in, whatever. Sticks or malware et cetera. So you still have to be able to use analytics to look at that corpus of backup data and identify anomalies. But again, because of those security risks and because of the importance of digital transformation and data people are rethinking how they do data protection. And finally, there's the Edge. We are living in a distributed world, it's a multi-cloud world, as I said before it's a forcing function, and the Edge is one of those clouds, if you will, which changes the way in which you think about backup. How does it change. Locality of the recovery data. If you've got Edge data, if you've got multi-cloud, you've, as I said before, got to have a global catalog and recover that data locally. Another thing to think about is SLAs. In a cloud world, you, the customer, are responsible for the recovery. Well, the cloud vendor can get the light back on on the disc system, or the computer, or the compute system, you are responsible for the people and the process to recover your business. That is not the cloud vendor's responsibility so you need to think about that. And think about recovery as recovery at the business level, not just recovery of the data, but recovery, getting your business back online. There's also the three laws of the cloud. We learned this from Pat Gelsinger this August at VMworld. The laws of physics, the laws of economics, and the law of the land. Those will dictate where you put data and how you back up that data. So all of this has created a new landscape in the data protection business. Let's run down that landscape. Who are the leaders. You've got Dell EMC, you've got Veritas, you've got Convault, and you've got IBM. Those guys comprise probably 2/3 or more of the marketplace. And you have startups like Cohesity and Rubrik who have raised hundreds of millions of dollars going after them and challenging them. You've got a whole new set of players that are taking new approaches. Actifio, for example, got the whole copy data management thing going. Datrium is creating end to end, both primary storage and data protection backup in the same platform with a software-based cloud-like, SAS-like offering. You've got companies like Zerto and Imanis Data that are specialists. You've got companies like WANdisco, again, taking new approaches. And then you have Oracle, with the Oracle recovery appliance, which is totally changing the way in which backup worked for Oracle databases exclusively. Taking a database-led approach to backup. And then of course you've got the storage players that are part of the ecosystem even though they're not directly competing with backup software vendors. Guys like Pure, NetApp, InfiniteApp. They're partnering with backup vendors. And then of course, there's the cloud guys. AWS, Azure, Google. The thing to think about as customers, really three things. Platform versus product. What's the platform look like? Is it an API-based platform? Because you want to program to that platform infrastructurer's code, you want to support your dev opps infrastructure. The second is cloud-like pricing, and cloud-like deployment. You want a cloud-based operating model to simplify your operations and lower your IT labor costs and shift those costs to more strategic efforts and initiatives such as digital transformation and application development. And the third is ecosystem alignment. Make sure that your backup software vendor and you backup solution vendors are all, their ecosystem is aligned with your ecosystem. Because you're going to get more facile integration and problem-solving and flexibility if those systems align. So take a look at that as well. Couple of things I want to mention and emphasize. New application development models. Cloud Native, Kubernetes. Function, you know people call it server-less, but function-based programming. Really to support dev opps and infrastructure as a code. That is going to have implications on how you protect data. And finally AI. How can you talk about anything today without talking about AI. Anticipatory staging of data for recovery, as in the example. Predicting where problems are going to occur. Machine intelligence will increasingly play a role in this whole landscape. So, as you can see, there's a lot going on. This is why data protection is such a hot space. That's why the VCs are getting in. It's why the incumbents like Veritas, Dell EMC, IBM, Convault, those that I mentioned are trying to re-platform and hang on to their large install bases and ultimately grow them. And it's why companies in the startup and the niche spaces, are tucking in and identifying new opportunities to participate. So that's a quick overview of what's going on here at the Veritas Vision Solution Day from Chicago. We'll be here all day talking to customers, talking to practitioners, technologists, and executives. So keep it right there, you're watching theCUBE. I'm Dave Vellante. Be right back. (bright music)