 Live at Dell World, I'm John Furrier, it's looking at Angles of the Cube, our flagship program, we go out to the events, try to see them from the noise, I'm joined by my co-host Dave Vellante and Wikibon analyst Stu Miniman. Guys, let's talk about the keynote from Dell. Dave, I want to start with you, I got my notes here. What was your take? I actually couldn't get into the room, I got sidetracked here at the Dell Social Media Lounge and geeking out on all the analytics stuff that they're doing, but I tried to get into the keynote, it was packed, the door shut, Michael Dell did the keynote and then Bill Clinton came on, gave a really epic speech, Bill Clinton is just the master communicator. When I was growing up, I thought Ronald Reagan was the best ever, but Clinton is the master of all time. He exceeds him, doesn't he? He is just an amazing orator, but Michael Dell held his own and did a good job, what was your take? So I think that a couple things, John, first of all, I like the fact that Michael Dell started from the heart, he talked about being in his dorm room, started the company, he's got tons of pride in his company, as well as he should, and he started early on, right away with the customer, right? This is about you, thanking the customers. It was genuine, it wasn't some pandering, you know, smiling kind of really, but it was really genuine, I thought. So he was thankful and happy to be here and very proud. The second thing is, like Larry Ellison, he loves to talk about his products, right? He was, I wouldn't say pitching, but he was just again, really prideful about the products. Now, unlike Larry Ellison, he doesn't talk about the competition, you know, specifically. He also took a page out of Bill Clinton. He brought, you know, a video of Barclays, the CIO of Tulane University, T-Gen was in the audience, so some customers that he referenced, like Bill Clinton used to do, in many of his speeches. So we heard about Market Share and the data center, Dave. So a couple things I want to chat with you about, we heard BYOD, bring your own device to work. Here's Steve Foskett saying it's a done deal. What's your take on the data center? We just had IDC on. I think it was kind of body swerving a little bit when I tried to pin them down on Market Share numbers, but the data center is where the battleground is right now in the enterprise. Obviously, Converge Infrastructure is an HP kind of coin term. Dell is co-opting that, calling it a modern infrastructure. So Dave, I want you to get your take on what you think of their Converge Infrastructure, positioning and their Market Share. And then, Steve, I'd like to get your opinion on some of the products. So Dave, why don't you start first about that? Specifically Dell, right? Yeah, Dell's Market Share numbers. They said they were number one in servers in North American Asia and 64,000 units short of being worldwide number one in servers. I'm sure HP, Jim Godfrey would debunk that, but what do you think? What's your take on it? What's the smell test on that? Here's the issue for Dell, in my view. Dell is so huge, and it's not growing, okay? I mean, bottom line, it's client businesses declining, you know, it's storage businesses down. Dell's premise is that everybody else is storage businesses down. I don't believe that. I think the storage business is growing. We heard Crawford Dell Pretz say that the IT business is growing by five to seven percent. Five to seven percent this year, okay? So that means that Dell is losing share overall. Where Dell is gaining share is in the server business and the x86 server business, Dell is doing very, very well, and it's gaining share in networking. You know, Crawford pointed out, they don't have core networking, but they didn't have any networking. I hope he hears you. It's all right, where networking is really the excitement, the innovation happening in network tends to be at the edge or in the embedded space and with the force 10 acquisition and even what Dell had before for the small and medium business, Dell has some momentum there and the force 10 has been growing market share since the acquisition. And clearly that piece, how they counted, that's a growth area. So Dell's strategy is to use its scale and attack the enterprise in the number of spaces. Clearly the servers and networking space, the storage, it's not, that strategy is not working yet in storage. The other part of the storage strategy is to integrate. We've just seen a storage change. Derek Thomas is out. There's going to be some new leadership in there now. Right now it's, you know, co-leaders. Maybe that stays, but they have not figured out how to optimize that storage business. They've got great products and I still think Dell is dangerous because they do so much business in the small and mid-sized areas. Now in services, that's an area that's a big, big chunk of the company. I think what were you saying about half of the employees are in services? 47,000 they said. They've not figured out how to leverage that across the board as with John, what you call the tip of the spear. In other words, get in there and do big time consulting with CIOs. The way that IBM does, the way that Accenture does, they've not figured out how to do that yet. Stu, what do you think about this whole active infrastructure that you're talking about? Yeah, so it actually surprised me how much convergence is at the front of the message for Dell because if you look at the numbers today, Dell's behind not only the Cisco solutions that EMC is doing and NetApp's doing, but IBM, HP, and of course Oracle with their kind of application full solutions are all leading the pack. So Dell really, as Dave said, Dell's got a solid portfolio and they've got a lot of headroom to be able to grow that market. The active infrastructure, Dell has, I'd say they have a good portfolio, they have a good partnership message and they've been working out kind of their go-to-market strategy that they have there and they've sort it out the branding that they've got. I think moving Dario and really having that one group to drive the solution is going to be good. One of the metrics I really look at is if you look inside the big companies, they say, okay, I've got server, I've got network and I've got storage, but what is that organization that not only puts the solution together but drives it to market? So Dave and I were talking with Ben Tau about that earlier, I know you were talking with it about Dario, so they've got the organization put together, they've got the solution set, they're ready to kind of go out there and make some hanging convergence, which as you know John, Wikibon said is just one of those huge pieces of the market we're going to see that swing over the next five years from build your own to converge. I mean, I think my couple of observations guys is that one, they're really hanging their hat on BYOG, clearly that's their kind of a, you know, major message and also convergence. Now I think this is a mistake on Dell, Dave, I think that convergence, converged infrastructure is an old, it's a played out positioning. I mean, not that convergence is irrelevant, I just think that converged infrastructure is such an old, it's just storage, networking and servers. I mean, that's been around since going back, what, five, six years? 2009, it's old news, right? It's a played positioning because it's evolving and I think better messaging is what Michael Dell was saying around modern infrastructure. So, you know, my advice to Dell is I would get off the converged infrastructure, one, it's not theirs, it's HPs, two, it's played. And so, you know, to me, I think the modern infrastructure message is better, I think it should come up with something different, but overall, I think they're really tight with the servers, I like the data center focus. Software-led really should be the message, right? Software-led research that you guys have done, but the software is the key and they have John Swainson, who's supposed to be on theCUBE, he just canceled, he had a customer thing going on, but the message that Michael Dell on set on software, Dave, was, this is directly to the modern infrastructure question. So, you know, converged infrastructure is just a buzzword for the servers, but the software-led or as Michael Dell said, modern era, it says the transition to a modern era is from device to data center to network to cloud, all integrated with IT services and managed resources, that's software, that's systems management, those are the tools. So it's not just software-defined, it's systems management and a variety of the software. So Dell is absolutely going after the software as a differentiator, not so much converged infrastructure. So Stu, you're right, I think they got that out front. Not sure that's the right positioning. You know, I know convergence is not relevant, I mean, it's relevant, but it's evolving. So that was a big deal for me. I mean, John, to your point there, the big difference between the VSTART system that Dell had before and the, what's it, the, gosh, I can't even remember the term, they've got a new term for it. It's so good. That's great marketing, I need it anyway. There's a new management system, and that's the problem is, if you look at all these stacks, it's okay, it's the orchestration, it's how do I manage my infrastructure differences? Thank you, Dave, active systems, it's active infrastructure, is the umbrella term, and they've got VSTART and- And Crawford Dell-Pret, who's the chief researcher at IDC, was on theCUBE, Dave, he mentioned something around market shared, around the data centers, one big abstract item. Michael Dale actually mentioned that as, you know, I have my notes here, you said about the converged infrastructure or the modern era. He said it's all about data center abstraction, abstracting above the data center, focusing on workloads, QOS and apps, versus elements like ports, lund, et cetera. So we're moving from an era of managing ports, managing configurations to workloads, apps, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, John, to your point, talking about that maybe converged infrastructure is a little bit played, you know, didn't hear as much about modern applications as I thought I would. Okay, so we're going to stop here, take a break. Michael Dell's waiting on deck to have founder of the company that's named after his last name, Michael Dell, the CEO, founder of Dell Confuse, going to be on theCUBE right now after the short break, and we'll be ready for him.