 Live from Atlanta, Georgia, it's theCUBE, covering Citrix Synergy Atlanta 2019. Brought to you by Citrix. Hey, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend. Wrapping up day two, wall-to-wall coverage of Citrix Synergy 2019. Keith, what a two days we have had. This was not a boring show. This has been really exciting. It has. My cheeks hurt from smiling. You know what? I've been to shows where the messaging can be repetitive. We did almost 20 interviews over the past couple of days talking to executives, three of their customers. Oh, actually more than three customers. We talked to four customers and all the conversations have been different and dynamic and exciting. And that's really great to say about Citrix again. Citrix is exciting. If I were a Citrix customer today, I'd definitely invite them in. And I didn't make the show, invite them in and have a conversation to find out what's going on. The intelligent experience is, as Christian said, they've been working on it for a few years, releasing it today. Not a surprise, but definitely a great start. Absolutely. You know, they came out of the gates yesterday morning in the general session really with this massive pivot for Citrix of really developing technology for the end user, for rather the general user, like those who are not power users, those who shouldn't have to become power users to do their job, whether they're in supply chain or marketing or finance. So that pivot towards that general purpose user, which is the majority of users, was very ostensible and it was welcome from, not just all the customers that we talked to, but the analysts as well. Yeah, I think it's one of those things that you look at, AI, you've said something repeatedly that interesting stat we heard yesterday that applications are designed for the 1%, the power user. And what we heard today was the basically commoditization of AI and ML. I've always thought that AI and ML at some point would get to the point that we can push it down to the user and the user would use AI and ML the same way that they use Microsoft Excel today. Citrix has kind of flipped it on me and presented a way to use AI and ML in a way that I had not thought of, which is to take processes, business processes, not IT processes, but business processes, package them up no matter what apps they're being used to deliver that process, package that up into a micro app and end users themselves will be able to build it. Christian Riley, Citrix's CTO, said he's mostly excited, that was a great question you asked him, mostly excited about 2019, putting this builder, the Citrix builder in the hands of not IT administrators but business process owners. So, and I wish we had more time on that front. I was curious, what does that do to shadow IT, empowering those business users just that, I wanted to get your perspectives on that. Yeah, so you know what, it's exciting and scary at the same time. You know, the idea that a business user can automate a process in which he takes data out of one system and puts it into another one on a surface is pretty cool, but I've been kind of keeping my eye out on this multi-cloud thing. What happens from a security perspective when a user builds something in AWS and they have Salesforce and they have their Oracle database online and they create a workflow, this builder will give them the capability to basically build a multi-cloud, I wouldn't even call it an app, a multi-cloud business process that becomes a competitive advantage to the business and then becomes a business critical application as a result. So, you know what, I see why the excitement is there, but from just the bureaucratic IT person that's over 20 years of IT experience just can't get out of me, there's a lot to kind of just be weary of and plan for. It's all good stuff. It is, but you're right, you bring up, you know, I just was kind of envisioning this proliferation of IP, of these sort of custom applications that lines of business users are going to be able to build a lot of enablement there, but then of course, in terms of this application exponential growth within a company, what are some of the implications you talked about security? We talked about that a lot the last couple of days, so that's absolutely critical, but in terms of that app proliferation, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, you know, think about interesting term, IP. Early 90s or late 90s and were just in e-commerce and it was very controversial. Amazon was patting business processes. The one click to purchase was a big, big deal. Competitors couldn't do that. End users who have a completely different perspective to, this is a tool. You know, it doesn't matter if this is a Samsung phone, iPhone doesn't matter, this is a tool so that I can get a business thing done. The results, you know, where we've put imaginary barriers, you know, the AS 400 and Salesforce shall never touch. Well, business users will destroy those barriers. They'll see these applications, they'll see these uses and then we run into, you know, typical problems. You will create a thousand of these in a single organization. How do you find them? Like, you know, app discovery, when you want a new app on your iPhone, finding an app to do a specific thing, you know, I can probably search for Flashlight on my iPhone and get, what, a thousand apps. Which one is the one for my process and best for my process? I can see that app proliferation been a problem in the enterprise. Something that we'll have to keep our eyes on. Another thing I was curious to get your feedback on is RPA. You were one of the first ones in Twitter to call that out yesterday saying, all right, if Citrix wants to be delivering the future of work, automation's going to be essential, and then voila, there's the intelligent experience. But something that we heard a lot yesterday as well, and we hear this at every show, is these massive workforce talent shortages that we're going to be seeing in the next few years. Some industries are already facing them. So looking at the talent shortage and then the concern over AI and RPA taking over jobs, they seem to sort of balance each other out. I'm sure it's not that simple. Yeah, we've talked about this an awful lot in my circles. There are some people who just won't be able to make the transition to delivering higher value work output. My son talked about a coworker who did not know how to maximize Excel. And you know, we look at that now, kind of you chuckle maybe a little bit, but that's painful. What happens when RPA automates their job, their job is definitely a process that can be automated. But on the flip side, we need people to write RPA scripts. We need people to, you know, we talked about, you know, there will always be someone to operate the robots. RPA is a definitely an area that we not only need people to create the robots, we need someone to maintain them. What happens when a regulation changes? You know, Christian talks about liability. If something is automated and we forget that it's automated, a regulation changes and we continue to go along with the automated process and we're in violation of a standard or a compliance law, we need someone to go in and quickly make a change. Who are these people? Where is that talent coming from? And then this place workers, how do we find work for them to do this value add that they can make the transition to do? So it's a lot of complicated questions yet to be answered. Well, another thing that was really obvious the last couple of days is the breadth of customer success that Citrix is having. We were able to talk with, as you mentioned, four customers from the Miami Marlins, so Major League Baseball, two financial manager, a wealth manager, company Schroders in the UK. We spoke with Indiana University based here in the States and what they're doing to enable end users like you and me from students to consumers of wealth management technology to baseball fans is radically different, but at the same time, it's all about delivering this experience that's personalized, that's customized and tailored to what each individual wants to achieve. And this is without even giving the new product from Citrix. We had Dana Gardner, an analyst on earlier today who said that Citrix really needs to toot their own horn. There should be a Citrix inside. I remember early SaaS products from companies like ADP. I'd get support calls on it. I'd go to an end user's desktop and they said, I'm using this ADP software. This is before software as a service was really a big thing. And I looked at them, oh, this is just Citrix going into another, going into a data center somewhere else. Today, that is very much a SaaS service and Citrix is the underlying foundation of that. So it was no surprise from a technology perspective to see what UI are doing or is that effort was doing or Schroeder or even the Marlins. What was surprising was the impact they're having, you know, the providing accessibility applications to rural parts of Indiana via 200,000 endpoints from a university. This is not, you know, you think of 200,000, there's a lot of cloud company SaaS companies that would love to have 200,000 devices accessing its infrastructure. So extremely diverse set of customers that Citrix has and the capability even without the products announced today, pretty exciting. I'm excited to hear in the next, you know, six months or so from those beta customers who've been testing out intelligent experience and seeing what other enhanced business outcomes they're achieving. Also wanted to get your perspective on what you heard over the last couple of days with the perspective, how does it change the game for Citrix from a competitive advantage standpoint? Yeah, that's what we need out that VMware is either going to acquire or quickly announce a RPA type solution. This is something that businesses will care about. This is not something that can be ignored. UiPath, which is a complimentary solution to Citrix just got a $568 million roundy. Let's put this in perspective. We're hearing software companies get $60 million rounds to create hardware. This is a software only company, AI machine learning that does RPAs, robotic process automation. Investors are seeing the value in this company enough that they're going to give a software company who doesn't have buildings, they don't have, this is just to invest in sales people and R&D, $568 million to make it happen. You're going to see competitors like VMware, Citrix is a friend, I'm sorry, Nutanix is a friend of me of Citrix, you know, they go to market a lot together but they have their frame solution. Citrix has, I think, put all in and said, you know what, VMware, Nutanix frame, put up a shut up. This is a seismic move in the industry. So I gather that you're leaving here pleasantly surprised by some of the things that were unveiled. I did not expect Citrix to move so quickly into RPA or robotic process automation and this is not something that they thought of last minute. So, you know, Christian said they've been working on this for three years. So this is something that they've given quite a bit of thought to if the same thought hasn't happened already at frame, that competitive solution for desktop as a service or if it hasn't already happened in VMware workspace and their set of VDI solutions then Citrix is obviously three years ahead. Any of your thoughts on the announcements with respect to deepening relationships and partnerships with Microsoft, with Google? Yeah, and some of that is catch up. VMware has had a solution with Azure for quite some time bringing desktops as a service there. So VMware has a slight lead on that. But Citrix, you know what, Citrix is still a verb. Even when customers are using other solutions, they say it's like, it's the Kleenex. I'm like, I would like Citrix access. It's horizon, it's frame, whatever I want. I need to get my job done. And I hear that I have to get a Citrix account to get it done. So I think Citrix has definitely caught up with both Nutanix, when Nutanix has their frame solution and VMware with horizon, with solutions in Azure. And then what went under that, what went, I think, unnoticed is that Citrix partnered with VMware to deliver the Zen desktop solution in VMware's VMware cloud on AWS. So that went unnoticed over the past couple of days. But again, more choice if I were a customer looking at VDI desktop workspace modernization, I'd be pretty excited about my options in a competitive landscape. I think they did a great job of positioning themselves as being enablers of the future of work. We talked a lot about today's workforce with five generations of active workers. We saw a great example of, I guess, a baby boomer with Dr. Madeleine Albright on stage this morning, 82 years old. Yeah, see, she a baby boomer. She's of the greatest generation. I think she's that fifth, that, you know, that fifth oldest generation, 82 years old. And I hope, I'm not as sharp as that now. And I'm a little bit more than half that age. So it's not looking too good for me. Me neither. But how she talked about when she was Secretary of State, didn't even have a computer on her desk. And now she's riding in driverless vehicles. And presenting at tech conferences, and with respect, this is not always all right, but what can she have to offer us? It was an engaged audience. Even with her slight leaning on political policies, she got some, at the end, she got a standing ovation at a tech conference. So, you know, it's an amazing testament to what you can offer no matter your age. Exactly, and Citrix is doing a great job of being able to deliver and enable their customers to help all of their workers at any age, at any generation, just get the stuff done. Keith, it has been such a great time, such a pleasure working with you for the last couple of days. Thank you for being my partner in crime. Turned out better than we hoped. We said we were going to have fun. I think we had more fun than we thought we would. I agree. Well, thanks so much. Safe Light Home, I know I'll see you at the next show sometime in some city soon. You know theCUBE is at four places right now. I'm pretty sure we'll be in the same location pretty soon. I think so. Keith and I want to thank you so much for watching theCUBE's two-day coverage of Citrix Synergy 2019 from Atlanta, Georgia. We've had a blast. We hope you've had a blast watching. Thank you.