 Okay everybody, we're back, this is Dave Vellante and we're live from HP Discover in Frankfurt. This is HP's big customer show. HP essentially does the big shows twice a year, once in the US, this past year was in Las Vegas and now in Frankfurt. Last year I believe HP was in Vienna in the European sector. And it's the big customer show, nine, 10,000 people, Meg Whitton's here, Big Kino tomorrow, all the executives are here. HP had a leadership meeting this weekend, so brought everybody together. So anybody who's anybody at HP is here, all the customers are here, certainly big European flavor. And we're here with theCUBE, this is siliconangle.com's continuous coverage where we go to events, we extract the signal from the noise, I'm Dave Vellante from Wikibon. Really we're focused on real time research and advisory. Check out the website. We just released a report on software led infrastructure. It's all the rage in the industry today, software defined networkings, the software defined data center. And we're really trying to put some perspective on that. We reach out to our peer group, our audience of practitioners within the Wikibon community, ask them for their input. They actually directly participate, we use a Wiki, you can use a Wiki, go ahead and hit the edit key and check it out. So we're here talking about services enablement. Let's see, I think it was around two summers ago, actually, if I have my timing right, maybe it was last summer, I lose track of time. But HP made a move to basically take certain components of services, really the product oriented service enablement and put it under Dave Donatelli. That was an important move because it gave that group more focus and it added another arrow in the quiver of what was then ESSN is now EG, a services capability, let's face it. If you had to break down the pie of why customers buy, we always talk about the product and the cool technologies, but it's the service that keeps the customers coming back. And we're here with Lou Berger, who's the Vice President of Services Enablement and Readiness for the HP Storage Portfolio within the EG organization. So Lou, welcome to theCUBE. Good to see you. So services, we love services, we have a site actually called servicesangle.com. As I've said before, if you had a, I always ask customers, if they had $100 to spend and allocate the value pie, how much would you put on services? It's always at least half, right? So it's a key piece of the business. Makes a lot of money for companies, but we tend not to market it and talk about it enough. You're talking about the customers, but so talk a little bit about your role in the organization and we'll really get into what's new in services. Okay, so I own the support portfolio for development for storage and then the enablement for all the products on the EG and the key to services, the experience. So we look at the experience customers want and develop and keep enhancing it as the world changes, the world moving from product-centric into convergent, from convergent to cloud and we're orienting a support experience to match that. And with that, it's of course a life cycle. So the support experience at time of purchase and then post, which we all are comfortable with, but then again, the installation, the implementation, the consultative services you'd expect proactively and orienting and simplifying the portfolio to make it easy for customers to understand the value and be able to purchase what they want and get what they want based on the experiences is everything we're focusing on now. So consulting, I look at as the tip of the spear, right, you go in and that's where you're going to have a lot of high impact interaction. You're going to set the strategy and maybe the roadmap and a lot flows from the consulting piece. If you don't get that right as an organization, you can make a lot of mistakes, you can go down a lot of bad paths. Talk about the consulting that you do, where that fits and what kinds of things customers are asking you to help them with. Yeah, so with the alignment to EG, we're directly aligned with the product divisions and think of us as professional services, enablement directly related to implementation, integration so we can give the most value to customers. Our customers are savvy. They can do these things on their own. They choose to use that because we bring something extra. Understanding of how to best leverage, utilize the assets once they buy them and then bring them into the future. And the alignment with EG has been enabled for us, directly related back to the assessment, design, implementation and post experience. So the focus has been directly back on that. How do we help customers move into convergent infrastructure and then direct them towards cloud? And it's in the world for all of us. So having the expertise, the people available, the safety of the HP experience with it is everything about what they're looking for. So Lou, you described earlier sort of the evolution from product to converge technologies, convergent infrastructure to cloud. So product, you know, get it. This industry is very siloed and has been for a number of years. Converged infrastructure brings together those different disciplines. Now you're in the storage enablement organization, correct? Or is it more EG? Well, I do both. So I mean, you need to do it. So help me through the, how do we go from product to conversion? What does that mean for your role? Okay, so I own the support and consulting for storage, but you also want enablement for all the products. And that's a good, so yes, when we think of support and developing support and installation and implementation service, we think product. And we still do today. Every customer move product into their environments will need to do that. But we need to look forward. So let me give you an example. On the service support side, customers are used to buying support to the product purchase. And each product, and depending on the product, it could have been a different support experience or a different support level, but ultimately supporting in environment. Converged infrastructure is many pieces. So we took a look back at our support portfolio across all of EG and said, there's got to be a better way and better way for customers to give what they want. Simplified the foundation, the reactives that we would normally give to a customer, what customers normally ask for, and then lay it proactive services more towards the experience customer wanted. My call experience is different. I want proactive advice on how I do things. I want a personalized experience and package those into simple offerings that would lend themselves towards converged infrastructure and would grow within a converged infrastructure. And then we took another look and we said what customers are moving toward the cloud and have large data center with specific requirements. So re-oriented the top of our portfolio to say, let's look at something we call data center care and enable customers to do a full environment, look at what they want, how they're going to approach the converge, the legacy and the cloud infrastructures and build a way of allowing customers to enable us to enable them better. And that became the three portfolio. So take me through an example. I'm particularly interested in the converge piece and the cloud. Maybe some of your favorite engagements or ones that you see that are common. How do they start? And because they don't end, you don't want them to end anyway. So take us through that cycle. And I know it's not a sequential cycle. It's a sequential line. It's a cycle, right? We are constantly improving, but talk about, give us an example of that process. So we actually talk about our service experience as life cycle. The customer is considering adding or changing their environment into a new green field that could fully converge. We would advise, and most customers ask for some assessment design or workshop offerings, which we have today. And what's the objective of that assessment? Is it a business case? Is it a design? It can vary. A workshop, it would be an opportunity to have that discussion. What do you plan on there? What's your objective? What's the business case you want to solve? How do you approach it? What are the gotchas? What are the things you need to consider? Because you are moving this into your environment. What's the key? I'm going to interrupt that flow and I'm going to come back to it though. But what's the key to that? You got to have the right people in that meeting, right, that initial perception. If you don't have the right people, you're going to make some assumptions that are wrong. So is that a correct statement by me? And how do you get the right people there? And how do you pull it out of them? That's absolutely true. So it's a partnership between the customer and us at the time, giving the right advice on who should be there for the right reasons. Because you are correct. Making a decision with the right stakeholders. Even that early can impact you later and require research. So it's the planning and the expertise you bring into that workshop when you actually go through the planning stages. Right, okay. So you have obviously a system. You guys have done this before. You're setting the objectives. You get the right people there. And the outcomes could be a business case if that's what they want, right? The customer generally will want some kind of ROI before they're going to get into it. The assessment is a way to actually essentially reduce their risk, make sure they're going to hit their goals and plan the project out. Is that right? Absolutely right. So if you go from a workshop into an assessment, you go into the environment. You actually do a full design and understanding of what exists, where the gaps are, what the requirements are. So that when you go into implementation, it becomes a seamless program managed event as much as possible. So you go from workshop to an assessment design and then implementation. So you must get a lot of constraints put on you. As a service, we can't do that because. It might be financial consideration. There might be compliance issues, all of that. Is that a fair assessment? And how does HP help its customers navigate through all that? Well, those are the design points you work through in the workshop, acknowledge it and then the assessment and design to understand the knowledge that costs, gaps, and depending on the industry, whether it's a compliance or security or any of the other things people consider, and then apply that in the design. So, conversed infrastructure is all about simplifying, right? And eliminating a lot of these mundane tasks that I have to do, but from a planning and design and an assessment standpoint and even an implementation, I guess not so much the implementation, but the upfront stuff, is it more complicated because you've got networking people, storage people, server people? How do you deal with that? That's a great question. I would say it's transformation. Transformation demands change. To move from a complex place to a simple place requires transformation. It's like that old statement. The thing I, you know, the paper you write, it would have been shorter if I had more time. It's exactly right, it's exactly right. But the ultimate goal is there. You would, you will and you would simplify. And if you think of even the storage space, moving from disparate devices into, the P7000 launch, where you now have the opportunity to go top down to bottom with one single platform, simplification, moving in the migration, the transition, those are all the things we do to help you get there. Simplify. Ultimately, the goal is to make it easier. So what about some proof points? What's the outcomes been of some of the engagements and what are you seeing as it relates to, say, for instance, converged infrastructure or cloud? We're seeing a tremendous success in customer interest and application of it. Customers, as you know, maintain the legacy. It's an investment. And then begin to make the transition. So it can be as simple as a converged stack that we sell as an appliance like Format, where the success is a little bit, or the implementation goes a little faster, or a full look to meet a business need. But ultimately converged is seeing tremendous, it's hard to apply to a specific customer without talking about it. But we're meeting the customers using the goal. There's simply said. How do they quantify it? Is it cost savings? Is it speed to deployment? What are the primary metrics that they're drawing? That's a great question. So in the case of a converged infrastructure, they'll live it as a package in appliance Format. It could be speed to market. You're bringing it very quickly. It's easier to implement and it's very structured. In the case of a larger converged infrastructure, it could be that transformation. But ultimately, you measure it on its savings, its simplification, its meeting the business needs, ultimately, and because it's converged, it gives you the ability to grow. Great. Hi, Lou, we're out of time. I really appreciate you coming by. Services is, we love the services angle. It's a key part of the value chain, value proposition. So congratulations on your successes. Really appreciate you coming on. Thank you. All right, keep it right there everybody. We'll be back with our next guest live from HP Discover in Frankfurt. I'm Dave Vellante. This is Silicon Angles, The Cube. We'll be right back.