 Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering Microsoft Ignite, brought to you by Cohesity. Welcome back, everyone, to theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite, 26,000 people. We are here at theCUBE in the middle of the show floor. It's an exciting time. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Stu Miniman. We're joined by Barbara Hulmans. She is the Director of Global Ecosystem Strategy and Micro-Ecosystem Lead at HPE. Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE, direct from Munich. Yes, Rebecca, glad to be here. So you have two roles, Global Ecosystem Strategy and Microsoft's Ecosystem Lead. Explain how those work and how there is synergy between those two roles. Yeah. I mean, I started off with the Microsoft role, but what we figured out is that, actually the world is much bigger than just one alliance, and that's why we call ourselves an ecosystem. So it's all about driving alliances from different partners, speed SIs, speed ISVs, or also smaller partners in different segments and build a whole ecosystem play. So that's what I'm attempting to do. So how do HPE and Microsoft work together? So we've been partnering for 30 years, strong, strong relationship with Microsoft, and really nice to see also today some of the HPE solutions on stage and even deepening our partnership. We have several areas, probably three, four I can talk about in the next few minutes on how we work together with Microsoft specifically. Yeah, so Barbara, I think most of us remember back early if you're talking about windows and office and HP. Gear, what's now part of HP, Inc. Not sure as many people know about all of the places that HPE partners, obviously on the server side, it makes sense, but Azure is something and the Azure Arc announcement, help us understand Azure Stack and beyond where HPE fits with Microsoft on the enterprise side. Perfect, so absolutely we have still a Microsoft OEM business where we have actually servers attached with licenses that's not going away, right? We absolutely, it's a strong business for us. We work very closely around SQL with Microsoft and that's also where this whole Azure Arc announcement fits in, but it's more than just SQL, right? With this Azure Arc, for me it's a announcement around deepening our relationships. Both were interested in a hybrid strategy. I really like to hear from Satya today how important hybrid is for Microsoft and this announcement Azure Arc, that's in public preview now, right? We'll give some more details on that. So we'd love to work with customers on that. We actually are part of the public preview and if anyone is interested, love to hear from customers, please come to me, Barbara Hormans and we'll hook you up and get you into that program. That's really about the hybrid piece, right? That we both work now together. And Barbara, HPE, if my understanding, plays on both sides of it. It's not just in the data center with some gear there, but as you said, there's SQL, the application side, hybrid HPE plays across the board. Indeed, so I don't know if you know, but HPE is actually an expert MSP partner for Azure. We got that last year, we're very proud of it. I think we're one of 50 worldwide partners. That also means we can actually offer managed services, migration services, helping people to move to an Azure based cloud. And that actually came partially because of our acquisition of CTP, Cloud Technology Partners, but also Redpixie in the UK and they are now all part of our point next services group. And so as such, we have numerous customers that have actually helped into the public cloud, helped them to find the right place. Because if you, I don't know if you've seen the video from Eric Vogel, that was part of the announcement today as well around Azure Arc. This is all about finding the right mix of your applications. And this is where we work together and in the perfect fit. What are some of the biggest challenges you're seeing from your customers in terms of how you might, how Azure Arc might be the solution for them? So Azure Arc is hard to say at this stage, right? I don't work for Microsoft. So you probably have to ask these people. But again, what I understand, the vision is really that we will be able to manage hybrid environments in a better way. And again, this is what HPE, we have a lot of hardware of course, but we also announced that our hardware, all of it will be available as a service within the next two, three years. So we're moving in that direction in addition to Azure. And I think this will help customers to take advantage in the end. But it's hard to say, right? So on this, it's very new at this stage, the Azure Arc. Yeah. And this is a Microsoft show, not an HPE show, but I read somewhere that you had done a talk, Fear No Cloud with HPE. Are companies afraid? I mean, how would you describe the atmosphere with the companies that you work with? So I worked in the cloud space probably for the last 10 years or longer, I was on different parts of the industry there. And from the early adoption, really people looking into, should I trust my data in this specific, with this cloud provider, or which applications am I going to move? And I think today people have lost the fear a little bit, but they still don't know what to put where. And there is applications you do not want to move in the cloud. There's others that you, for you a specific company, you don't want to move and another company may do that. And that's what we're trying to help them, right? So you don't have to fear the cloud. You can actually, we can help you to adopt it at your pace, in your way, and so that you take most of the advantage out of it. Barbara, would love to hear any color you could give from the joint HPE and Microsoft customers. Very much the announcement today, I feel like it's completely, it's an update on the hybrid message, but HPE and Microsoft have been working together on solutions like Azure Stack for a number of years. So what's working well today? What do you think this will mean down the road as some of these solutions start to mature even further? Yeah, I mean, maybe moving to another area that HPE and Microsoft work very well together is around the modern workplace practice. And in there, we just had a really nice win with Porsche, the, actually in Austria, but planning to roll this out further than that. And HPE's team has helped them to move from their current up to date Microsoft 365 environment. There's a MOD in the UK and it's, I've asked twice if I can talk about MOD on stage here and they said, yes, another customer that we should help to move to a Microsoft 365 environment. So there's numerous customers that trust HPE with Microsoft in moving their information to the cloud. Yeah, so that's one example. Azure Stack, we have, you know, there's several customers. The hard one about Azure Stack is difficult to talk about the customers because a lot of them are in the government sector. And so, you know, there's a few that we can talk about, but they're mostly service providers, but the real big names, unfortunately, we can talk about because of the confidentiality. Yeah. Trust is one of the things that we keep hearing so much about at this conference. Satya Danella talked about it on the main stage this morning. In terms of the relationship that you have and HPE standing in the technology world, how do you build trust with customers and how do you make sure you are maintaining that bond of trust and also the reputation of being a trustworthy partner? Yeah, I think I love Satya's point on trust because that actually makes the difference between you just deliver hardware and you walk away. And this is probably, you know, coming back to Azure Stack, HPE as it's called now, right? You know, we've been told actually by Microsoft that we've accomplished with the customers from a delivery from a, you know, we don't just walk away and say good luck with the equipment, you're on your own. We really help them to and make sure it's working for them. So for me, that's the key that you can come back to a customer afterwards and the customer will actually have you in your office again. Well, Barbara, I think back for most of my career, one of the hallmarks of an HPE solution was that turnkey offering. We know from, you know, ordering through delivery, through, you know, up and running, HPE's been streamlining that. You know, I think back my entire career, cloud has been not necessarily the simplest solutions out there, so maybe give us directionally, you know, how does HPE partner with Microsoft and, you know, your customers to make cloud easier as we go through this journey? Yeah, so I mean, as I said, we're Azure Expert MSP partner. As such, we, you know, have done several, of course, trainings with Microsoft. We make sure that all people are educated on it. We have, you know, with RedPixie in the UK, it's now part of Pointnext, but I love to say the name because people really associate still with this a specific, strong and trustworthy team. You really build up a very good practice with Microsoft. There's, you know, local deal clinics where we really work in the specific deals, deal by deal on how we can make it better for the customer. So a lot of local engagement, but for me, that all happens in country, right? Me at a global level, I can only help them and steer it a little bit, but that's also for me, trust. It's a person-to-person relationship that happens in country, yeah. And would you say there are big differences, country-to-country, in terms of how willingly they trust you and then how long it takes to build that relationship? So I'm going to get in trouble now with some of the countries here. No, I, you know, there's some of them. Or even just Europe versus the UK. No, no, it's, no. I mean, with the US, sorry. I personally lived in Canada for a while. And so for me, some people are harder, you know, you need to get to know them, but then the trust is even deeper than some of the others. But I have to say it's all, we're, I mean, we're, I would say from, also if you look at HPE, we're really a global company, right? And from this goes from Japan to South Pacific to many countries in Asia where we're very successful with Azure Stack specifically and all the way in Europe, Middle East, all the way to North America, South America. So I mean, that's the nice thing about HPE, I would say for the customers as well, that they really get a global view and a global company they can trust. So you're here at Ignite from Germany. What are the kinds of conversations you're having and what do you think you're going to take back with you when you go back to the office next week? So the other piece, and we have a quite big booth here at the event, right? We have a very nice edge line, 8,000 with us, which is kind of a ruggedized us or a smaller version. It's kind of almost my handbag kind of to carry along, which has caught a lot of interest from the customers. So just standing there watching the customers, asking, what is it? Can you tell me more about it? The rest is, you know, I love the bus. I'm actually part of the Microsoft Advisory Council for Inspire, which is the partner event, right? But I love the bus to see here what's going on and always like to see how other people, what they do, what they do at these events. And then just Microsoft, I think it's wonderful, wonderful company, the inspiration, the story today was just end-to-end great story with great customer stories as well. So Kudos to the Microsoft team, well done, I would say. And congratulations, your gear was highlighted in the keynote this morning, so I'm sure that's driving a lot of traffic through for people to see the latest. I would hope Superdome Flex was there and then the Azure Stack Hub, both of them were there, so we worked hard for that. And thank you Microsoft for giving us the opportunity to be present in the keynote today. Well, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It was a pleasure having you on, Barbara. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, Stu. I'm Rebecca Knight, first two Minimans. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite.