 Okay, we're back live in I'm not gonna say New York City is what's in New York City, but East Coast, but I'm John Furrier in San Francisco for the the drill down of the EMC v-spec launch. I'm with my co-host I'm Dave Vellante of wikibon.org and we're here with Cynthia Galant who is with Citrix She's the relatively new to Citrix new to Citrix VP of channel strategy and development. Welcome. Thank you. Good to have you here, so so let's talk a little bit about desktop virtualization VDI end user computing I Never really know what to call it. We don't like the term desktop. I fully agree now. Why why I think it's really the trends that are Driving it that are more important than the name that we call it I think calling it desktop virtualization has a real techie sound to it, right? But it's really all about the end user and their experience and what are the key things that we're triggering off of is that? Mobility workers want the ability to work any place in any time, right? And they have to access the desktop and their applications and their data And they want to do that from any choice of devices and that trend I don't think there's anyone that would argue that that trend has just gone crazy It's again It makes always one of the top CAO care about in all the surveys that happen So it's one of the first major applications to move to a private cloud for that reason Essentially managing it in that environment. It just makes so much more sense with all the rate of change that's happening Cynthia so I mean I see the channel discussion here is all about the services angle and I'm gonna site services angle dot-com Which we are the reference point for the disruptive change in services really no one's covering it like we are and we talk about VDI and desktop virtualization virtualization all the stuff But it is a disruptive enabler here and that is the cloud mobile social environment that we're living in you Mobile the proliferation app. I mean a kid can start a company two years ago and sell for a billion dollars I mean anything could happen really fast the virality social and the cloud so In the old days of IT Vendors made a lot of money selling desktops at huge margins the channel partners would roll them out I remember the days burning the disk and gold master CDs is now But that's all changing obviously with the cost of ownership conversation. So we're back to gen two of the desktop What's your view on this this transformation because desktops aren't going away? No, okay The PC is dead in the sense of that being the old boat anchor, you know Bloated software we've so we were talking about a synergy was this bloated desktop and the thin client is in but that's really about Virtualization where you have the apps that you want on a device Preference whether it's in your office or on the road talk about the transformation and how that relates to the channel partners Right because at the end they know this game People need PCs. They need mobile phones and devices at the end of the day to run their business apps, etc So what's your view on this transformation? Part of the transformation is tied to the transformation that we talked about in the session for v specs on the journey to private cloud and IT organizations the best term I heard in the industry was they're moving to become cloud service brokers They're no longer want to be the ones that are building and integrating So that to me is perfect opportunity for channel to really move into that direction to real instead of having IT Organizations integrate the piece parts that the the model that we showed in an evolution where they were picking their own pieces And putting it together. They want to get out of that business They and what cloud does more than anything else is speed the time to service delivery the requirements for that People expect now twice as fast that a new service So a new application coming online in a business people no longer would accept the timelines that would have been probably proposed in days past And so as a result having these integrated infrastructure Solutions that are validated pre-validated and then the channel partner who can really advise and play that advisory role To the customer that frees them because they have to be a broker of many types and they can sell their own services Consultative services Correct, and I think that's what you'll see is more of a shift to the channel partner of a lot of the traditional IT services that were Done in-house and their role will change change to be more of a broker where they bring in public cloud offers private So this gives the opportunity for the partner the reseller integrator to actually get more embedded in the client similar to how the desktop enabled them to Run the help desk for the big customer or get more involved in the internal operations What examples would you say is out there for a partner to be more embedded with their client and deliver some value? Can you give examples? Well, if you look at the health care industry and the electronic health records that area has moved very rapidly to desktop virtualization and the coming come bringing together the pieces from the major ISV's the Cerners and the Meditech and the epics and and then bringing all those pieces together in the infrastructure as talking to some of the virus here their role now is advising the client on how to get faster adoption of EHR electronic health records and Masking the complexity of the infrastructure and the components and the software that have to come together So it's a perfect opportunity for the services which drives more margins So share with our audience out there and because this is more something I've been really thinking about because I remember the days when It was a reseller channel of hardware and then some services and then, you know Break fix was the p-service and it evolved into much more consult of the delivery of services that were strategic and critical What is and then you think about the polarization the bar and the reseller and the distributor What is there a similar construction of the of the landscape out there in terms of what you call them? I mean is it what's an integrator? What's a reseller? I mean, you're not really you're reselling, but I it's indirect Sir, we agree direct sales. So how would you categorize the current channel for cloud mobile social? I think there's an opportunity and I don't know if I'm stealing someone's terminology, but the term I use I haven't really seen it in print a solution provider and you you actually will hear some of the more advanced progressive resellers who have Adopted this model and that is the model that you talked about where they're acting more as advisors around the business Opportunity and masking the complexity behind it and bringing the pieces together that is is And when you call if someone be a solution provider, they could be a stand hardware reseller They they could be an SI, you know, they could be an ISV So I think this term that I'm finding when the channel is really around solution providers Because again it doesn't want to build anymore They want to get into Selecting the components and being that cloud service broker some public some private pull it all together And I would think whatever you call it desktop virtualization or end user computing There's a great opportunity for that because a lot of confusion around it, right? I mean people think oh Well, I virtualize my server So I guess I'll just use the same technology to virtualize my desktop and it's completely different workloads I mean think about what we do on the desktop versus what we do on the server, you know There's a lot of different IO patterns IO activity. It's gonna you're gonna have to size it differently Two questions is that you see in that and and specifically how or is the channel taking advantage of that confusion, right? Absolutely seeing that it's it's it's very very different than server virtualization for the workloads that you mentioned in addition The user profiling is very very important because there's some users who can operate with more of a standardized environment That's more controlled and has a limited set of application access and then there's others that need a more a more richer environment That might include more video and voice in that environment That's very different to size and it's important to profile the users as they put together the solutions for the whole desktop transformation and you know Citrix is in the unique Position to be able to deliver an offer for all types of users. We call that a flex cast capability Because it really depends on what the user is going to do and how they will access and what you want them to access for security And other reasons and that profiling is important and that's a great channel partner Activity so city talked about virtually everybody's you know looking at desktop virtualization or end user computing with Now with mobile. It's coming in at the same time. It's it's largely been confined to various niches They might be industry specific. They might be application specific Maybe you know help desk or claims desk or government where you need a lot of security Again two questions. Are you do you agree with that? Are you seeing that and and is that changing and how is that changing? They were definitely early adopter verticals where And they were triggers that happened so I use the electronic health records was a trigger and the money that was available even through a Lot of the government stimulus packages to go make that happen So that was a big group the financial services for a very different reason Their their users are super users. They have you know used to multiple workstations with video rich video experiences, etc So we're seeing those early use cases But now with both the decreased complexity of the solution the Decreased cost of the solution where it's rolling out now to SMB Organizations and you know having worked in SMB companies at one point in my life, too They don't want to be in the business of managing desktops They want to be in the business for what they make money for so if this now Technology has gotten to the point and it's mature enough now that SMB solutions are out there And it's perfect for the channel to go in and again implement even in the same SMB needs turnkey They need absolutely. That's channel That's perfect for the channel is the is the end user experience now with desktop virtualization Comparable to what I can have on my on my desktop. Yes still a big gap. No it is there You can make that promise to me as a user. You're not going to take away my functionality Yes, you have correct that The technology has advanced to that and what Citrix has done around Optimization and a lot of the the end-to-end and improving the network piece of it that has to deliver that There are a lot of components that come into it and again why it's a great channel opportunity because you do have to consider Whoever said it of the two of you it's I owe and I owe is end-to-end throughput think about how many things touch I owe So that's an important Opportunity for the channel to really go in so that you've been an entrepreneur in your bio You've raised money from venture capitalist and run your own business been founder So you know being an entrepreneur and now in the big company got a good view of the world What would you say to folks out there who were kind of second-guessing the channel opportunity saying hey? We're in the rut. We're in a you know downs markets changing I'll see it seems to be some hype companies getting sold for a billion dollars Instagram people criticizing that with Microsoft and We're in a bubble all this conversation is going on But if you were an entrepreneur right now, and you want you wanted to get it the the solution provider business What would you focus on and what areas would you do you see as an entrepreneur that are like wow? That's a that's a nice value of opportunity So I started of our business when I left a large company In the first recession. I always seem to start businesses in the research We always want to start a bar. We say we could just go buy a vax Remember those days But the trigger the trigger then great question was the large companies We hit the recession and the large company said we can't touch all these customers anymore We're getting you know 80% of our revenue from 20% of our customers We need the channel to cover the rest and I thought oh great opportunity and yet the Customers especially the ones that weren't Given that opportunity to have that high touch They you know they wanted that type of support that they were getting from the larger companies Similarly, I think the trigger and I don't mean to be repetitive is this whole movement to cloud the more successful IT organizations will be cloud service brokers They want someone else to assemble the components That's that's not their line of business anymore if they're going to be successful Because the expectation around service delivery has at least gone up to three orders of magnitude that the business is expecting Them to deliver services very quickly and to select from public and private and maybe even change it over time And that is right for a channel partner to come in on so so just drill down a little bit because I you know I totally agree with you by the way I see it from SMB all the way up to the large enterprises and service providers What is what area within those markets SMB up to the large enterprise you see is the most Lowest hanging fruit if you will Me I've talked to a friend the other day who's got a small business and growing business and his big thing was they got the panel of cubes out there for their desktop and He's running outlook things like he's got to buy more servers. He's hosting it on site So little things like that. That's just a different example But you know where is there was there obviously legacy problems that you can say that's a problem That's someone to go after well, I am biased, but I but being new to Citrix I made this move to this to this company because of the market opportunity that I saw and partnering with them at another large company I believe it's desktop virtualization and I again we said that whole transformation that's happening I every every company to open their doors every business every Educational institution healthcare institution has to address the issue of mobility in the workforce the multiple devices and Increased need for security and that is all what desktop virtualization is all about There is a hand-in-hand with a cloud though. You can't you can't have virtualization desktop without a back-end Cloud of some sort or a correct robust infrastructure You have to have some sort of centralized management around that or you would never be able to achieve the goals That you would have in serving the need of the end users. So the technology is there right now I think that's a great opportunity the end user need is there in spades. They want to move even faster I mean how many devices do we all have and come to the workforce with and want to access our desktop and our data and Applications a little bit further to mention so just about a little further talk about the customer needs first and then talk about Where you think the market is relative to how many people what what level of the market has moved over to this new environment? Is it still small fractions still? Adopted is it bigger adoption? Where is that point where? The I think there's still tremendous growth is probably the best way to say it if you you know This stats out there and people will argue over stats But there's still tremendous growth in this market and it's more about the business drivers That will have people go to this type of technology that are increasing even more so Especially I love the electronic health records because it touches everyone in every line of work and business and As we all see our doctors with that capability now, we're going to expect that in every environment Okay, Cynthia Galant vice president of channel strategy and development at Citrix Thank you for coming on the Cube great perspective great background Congratulations on the new role and market opportunity at Citrix. Thank you and thanks from the Cube We'll be right back with our next guest a quick break. We'll be right back. Thanks. I was born not too far from Quebec City. I like to challenge myself physically I like to challenge myself mentally. I think I need these challenges To to me they're a vehicle the vehicle that I can use to discover a great part of myself Things about myself that I didn't even know were there What I've learned in the years that I've been doing this is that there's literally literally nothing that I can do The mountain decides What happens? Because you don't reach a summit doesn't mean that you don't reach those those personal goals It doesn't mean that you don't grow Sometimes you learn way more Through those little defeats and if you don't lose sight of the the ultimate goal Then those those defeats. They're just little battles that you lose And you always have a chance to to regroup and then come back stronger Sometimes not achieving a goal is the difference between life or death. You need to have absolute trust In the equipment you have to trust the environment the mountain decides If you're gonna get up there you have to trust yourself that you're going to be able to accept That that decision that the mountain takes for you sometimes So I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 22 years old So quite a late onset and what that means is that my pancreas doesn't produce Insulin anymore, so I have to inject That insulin myself When I was diagnosed For the first few hours I felt defeated I felt that The the condition would hold me back I felt that I couldn't travel that I couldn't do the things that I love to do You have to make that decision that you will accept the disease and make something great with it There's only one difference between my condition and the mountain They're both obstacles, but the only difference is that there's one that I chose and there's one that I didn't choose I Chose to climb because I believed I would grow I would learn from it I would you know become hopefully a better person even the obstacles that you don't choose can have that same Positive impact on your life that achievement also as that effect to often Inspire other people and to me that is the most a single most rewarding thing in 2008 after five years of preparation after two months climbed I was privileged enough to reach the summit of Mount Everest and it was an incredible feeling it was a great sense of accomplishment and Also as a type one diabetic the message that I knew it would send to millions of People living with that disease around the world that anything is possible to me That was even more important this than the summit my goal was to climb Thalas Mountain on the planet and as soon as I took one step above base camp I was realizing that that goal when you reach the top. That's only half way Yeah, you come down. So Sharing the story Sharing the things that I've learned Taking those things back to my personal life to my professional life to me It's all part of the journey and I look forward to the rest of it