 Live from Las Vegas, Nevada. Extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE covering IBM Edge 2015, brought to you by IBM. Hello everyone, welcome back. This is theCUBE's Silicon Angles flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the seismic noise. We're live in Las Vegas for IBM Edge 2015. This is day one wrap up of two days of wall-to-wall coverage. theCUBE here at IBM, this is our fourth year with Edge, we've been on the ground. We've been embedded in documenting the history of IBM's change, the transformation. Certainly the Edge show's changing. I'm John Furrier, my co-host, Stu Miniman. Dave Vellante has me stepped away for a meeting. Stu, Edge is all the rage now. It was a storage show. Storage now into Jamie Thomas is now much broader, more integrated into the organization. We're hearing things like IBM Z, mainframe, IBM Power Systems, big data. This is a different conversation than previous Edges. What's your take? Why is it the converge? Is it big data scale out? What's all the buzz? What's the story here? What's your take as the analyst covering the space? What's going on here at IBM Edge from your perspective? Yeah, so John, we talk about theCUBE. There's the big mega trends out there, like cloud and big data analytics and open source really transforming infrastructure. And you would think that a storage mainframe and power show, there's some out there that would say that these trends are leaving that behind. But really I came out of today is, IBM has really recommitted, not like they ever left commitment for these areas, but you want Docker, like let's run a Z13 mainframe with Z Linux and put Docker on top of it. You want to talk open. There's the open power foundation here. It's got over 200 partners in there. They're working with OpenStack. They're working with a lot of these big trends and of course analytics, huge play for IBM and starting to see how things like the storage platform portfolio and the rest of this segment here fit into this trend. So I tell you, I'm impressed. I think I took my eye off it for a little bit, looked back and I'm like, wow, it's really a new story that ties in with all the big trends that we've been talking about. Yeah, I had lunch with Eric Herzog, former EMC, former executive violin memory networks at IBM. He's doing a lot of the go-to-market on the storage side. It's very clear, Stu, that storage is shifting into much more a strategic unification role within the company. Obviously, you've got to store data somewhere and data being stored is now opening up new roads that are being paved in and of things, the persona on mobile devices. I interviewed the mayor of Memphis, talked about the big grant with Twitter data. He's talking about uses of data and the aspect of storage are now interrelated. This was a brilliant move and Jamie Thomas, who I love interviewing because she's such a pro. She's really amazing. She's brilliant. She's beautiful and she's articulate, but she said, this is what we're doing. We're being more strategic in the aspect of storage. And you can see that. And the conversations aren't about storage, speeds and feeds, certainly flash is a key thing. XIV and whatnot, some of the legacy stuff, certainly relevant, good traction, but not the transformative game changing. So I got to ask you, transformative, moving the ball down the field, what is the key thing here for IBM? Yeah, I mean, we've said for a bunch of years, when will the sleeping giant that is IBM rise in the storage world, John? And I'm not sure if IBM's ever going to say, we want to be the leader in storage, but what they've got is, it's a big company. With 400,000 people now, they really solid in the analytics, the whole smarter planet, smarter cities, something we saw really well today. You talked to the guys from Memphis, talking to customers using the Z in power. I mean, Walmart, talk about a global scale retailer that really loved how Linux and Z Linux and want to see ZOS be a technology that they can put into their global IT force. One of the favorite sound bites I heard on theCUBE wasn't actually on camera, it was before camera, was I won't say the person's name, for the sake of their career, but we were talking about our EMC coverage last week, and we talked about pure storage and how pures may not hit the skate velocity in terms of the valuation, whatnot. And the comment was, yeah, pure's trying to be like EMC and the comment was, I'm not sure EMC wants to be like EMC. And so that speaks to the shift in the vendor landscape where the smart money is moving to a different ball game. What's your take on that, and what is the new ball game? Yeah, so John, we've been talking a lot this year about how it's really going beyond products and going into platforms, open APIs and ecosystems, how these solutions can really fit together, and that really plays into IBM strengths. I mean, IBM has had huge partner ecosystems for years. One of the interviews that we did today, you talked about really the ISVs that are working on power. It was 2,000, no, it was 1,200 partners out there. I mean, IBM knows how to pull together large number of partners, how to weave through how they play together, understand those business models. I mean, the first time I heard the word co-opetition, it was linked to IBM. So IBM is long been one that knows how to move things forward over 100 years of innovation, and IBM knows how to keep up with the times and be relevant when it comes to these big trends. Yeah, we had Rosameleon, we had Jamie Thomas, we had Ken King, we had a lot of great people from the trenches, Stephanie Chiris. Doug Baylog here towards the end. Doug Baylog towards the end. We had Walmart on expert who basically said we reduced our cost from five to one ratio going with the Z systems, the ZIOS, custom software in the cloud with ZOS, five to one ratio down and cost zero failures. Active, active, amazing stat, and the cost advantage of the other solution was failing. So like, it had a failed solution that cost five times more than what the Z did. So I think the notion of having power servers is really a big deal. And then on the lighter notes, do we interview the mayor, AC, we had the mayor from Memphis, AC Wharton Jr. with Jen Crozier, Vice President of Global Citizenship Initiatives, where they won the Smarter City grant. So again, this is the new way. This is not about the speeds and feeds, it's about the outcomes. So just, you know, interesting take on all of this. Yeah, so John, this morning before you came, we actually had the other keynote speaker talking about energy and real, you know, great, you know, smart sensors, internet of things, said that the company, their power distribution out of power generator for 120 years, the company remained unchanged. And then the last 15 years, just, you know, radical change the way they do their business and technology powered by IBM is what's driving that change. You go back to the tape, beautiful thing about theCUBE is you can go back and look at the earlier footage. You'll see them as we said years ago, four years ago, IBM has to get storage in the mainstream, in the epicenter of the action, use the systems knowledge and advantage, use softwares and enabling opportunity to disrupt the transformative markets while floating up the existing markets that have traction. They're doing that, Stu, and I got to say, it's an impressive strategy, it's a shift, and they're configuring it from a consumption model that's consistent with cloud. So I'm impressed by that, but I want to get your analyst take on a letter grade. A, B, C, D, I mean, what would you give them? Yeah, so John, in true analyst mode, I got another day left here, John, so I really want to dig in because when we talk about what's real in hybrid cloud, what's going on with things like hyperconvergence, we're going to have Eric Herzog tomorrow. I know we talked to him a little bit at Interconnect about hyperconverge, but when I looked at EMC, EMC's got to play, at least one play in every, and they check the box. There's a couple areas I want to hear some more from IBM, so I'd say today, good solid B. I think I like what IBM's doing about pulling these threads together. The show's now 6,000 people, and it feels like 6,000, but it's very different. I know people that went to the IBM mainframe shows for years, fanatical people that go to that, and it reminds me of the super computing shows. It's a little bit nichey, but it's customers that like what's going on, and IBM pulls together some of these different disparate pieces. Some of the shows, it's kind of like you've got one corner over here, one corner there, I think of like Oracle Open World, it's like the Java people, we shove them up in the Hilton because they don't want to interact with everybody else. This is a nice cohesive show, and I like what IBM's doing there, so good grid so far. Let me give you my take on this. Following IBM going back to the 80s, I got to tell you that's interesting. Old words will become bad words, and then they come back to being good words again. I'll give you a few of them. Data processing, that's an old term, that went south, went away. People come up pipelining data, data processing, that's an old IT term. Glasshouse, not sure that's back. Big iron is a term that used to be referred to the mainframe, big iron. We had Walmart saying, hey, you know what? It runs Linux, I get developers on there. I want big iron, I want big freaking servers. Yeah, the Walmart guy actually said, come on, it's really just a big server. I mean, it's a big box, it's a big server, but boy can I do it. Have you ever heard a customer say, I want less compute? No, I mean, the whole point is what cloud brings is infinite scalability, so. So John, one of the big points is, how does IBM and everybody stay up with what's going on with Moore's Law? So, getting off of some of the x86, pushing with power, pushing with software. Yeah, here's my take, here's my take. So, it was said on theCUBE, the threading is a big deal. Threads make software run great in a distributed computing environment. So I think the software enablement game-changing equation will start to emerge and you'll see breakthroughs. I think that having the kind of power and the big iron, the big servers and the ability to construct apps horizontally and vertically in a seamless way with choice is a good consumption. But more importantly, with the threads, with the cores, software opportunity will be big. And I think you're going to start to see things that you wouldn't have seen before, whether it's Internet of Things, whether it's EMS and city of Memphis using data and now bringing data, multiple data sets in, in real-time, I think you'll see a lot of innovation and efficiency. So to me, I think it's all going to come down to software and we've always been saying that on theCUBE. So, anything else too, for wrapping up day one? No, I think John, real good here, such, we always say the tough thing about theCUBE sometimes, it's the context switching. So there's so many different pieces here, a lot of areas to dig into. I mean, it's meaty content. So, you know, this is not high-level business stuff. Some of the shows go a little bit more business-focused. This is, you know, in the weeds, you know, get the geek stuff done and, you know, kudos to IBM for bringing that out. Okay, that's a wrap from day one. This is theCUBE, live in Las Vegas. We are on the ground covering live, all the live-action IBM magic. And fourth year in a row, great story, coming together, unifying and growing and scaling. Great stuff. This is theCUBE, wrapping up day one. Stay tuned and stay tuned for tomorrow for another full day of coverage here on SiliconANGLE.tv. We'll be right back tomorrow. Stay with us.