 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Dell Technologies World. Digital experience brought to you by Dell Technologies. Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Dell Tech World 2020. With me is Jeff Boudreau, the President and General Manager of Infrastructure Solutions Group at Dell Tech. Jeff, always good to see you, my friend. How you doing? Good, good to see you. Yeah, I wish we were hanging out at a Sox game or a Pats game, but I guess this will do, but you know, it was about a year ago when you took over leadership of ISG. I actually had, we had that sort of brief conversation. You were in the room with Jeff Clark. I thought it was a great, great choice. How you doing? How you feeling? Any sort of key moments the past 12 months that you feel like sharing? Sure, so first I want to say, I do remember that about a year ago. So thank you for reminding me. Yeah, it's been a very interesting year, right? It's been one year. It was in September, it was one year since I took over ISG. But I'm feeling great. So thank you for asking. I hope you're doing the same. And I'm really optimistic about where we are and where we're heading. As you know, it's been an extremely challenging year and a very unpredictable year as we've all experienced. And I'd say for the first part of the year, especially starting in March on, I've been really focused on the health and safety of the families, our customers and our team members of the team. And a lot of it's been shifting in regards to helping our customers around, work from home or education and learn from home. And during all this time though, I'll tell you as a team, we've accomplished a lot. And there's a handful of things that I'm very proud of. First and foremost, I'd say it's around the customer experience. We've delivered on our best quality and our product NPS scores in our entire history. So something I'm extremely proud of during this time. Around our innovation or innovation engine, we part of the entire portfolio, which you're well aware of. We had nine launches in nine weeks back in that May and June timeframe. So something I'm really proud of the team on. And then last I'd say it's around the team. And we shifted about 90% of our workforce from the office to home, from an engineering team that can be, 85% of my team is engineers and writing code. And so people were concerned about that, but we didn't skip a beat. So pretty impressed by the team and what they've done there. So the strategy remains unchanged. We're focused on our customers integrating across the entire portfolio and the businesses like VMware and really focused on getting share. So despite all the uncertainty in the market, I'm pretty pleased with the team and everything that's been going on. So yeah, it's been an interesting year, but it's really great. I'm really optimistic about what we have in front of us. Yeah, I mean, there's not much you can do or control about the macro condition. And it's dealt to us and we have to deal with it. I mean, in your space, it's this sort of countervailing things here. One is, look, you're not selling laptops and endpoint security. That's not your business, right? You're in the data center. But the flip side of that, as you mentioned your portfolio refresh, things like PowerStore, you got product cycles now kicking in. So that can be a buffer. What are you seeing with PowerStore and what's the uptake look like there? Sure, well specifically, let me take a step back in the regards to the portfolio. So first, the portfolio itself is a direct reflection in the feedback from all our partners and our customers over the last couple of years. And to ramp up that innovation, I spent a lot of time over the last few years simplifying under the power brands, which you're well aware of, right? So we had a lot of legacy EMC and legacy dollars. Really, how do we simplify it under a set of brands? Really over delivering innovation on a fewer set of products that really accelerating and exceeding customer needs. And we did that across the board. So from PowerEdge servers, PowerMax, the high-end storage, the PowerVault, all that we did in year one. And just most recently, as part of the big launches, we had PowerScale, we had PowerFlex for software to find and then of course the new flagship offer for the mid-range which is PowerStore. Specifically to PowerStore, the momentum has been building since our launch back in May. And the feedback from our partners and our customers has been fantastic. And we've had a lot of big wins against a lot of our core competitors. A couple of examples, one is Arrow Electronics, a Fortune 500 global electronics supplier. They leveraged PowerStore to provide, basically both enterprise computing and storage needs for their broader basis around the world. And they're really taking advantage of the four to one data reduction, really helping them simplify their capacity planning and really improve operational efficiencies specifically without impact performance. So it's one we're giving the data reductions, but there's no impact on performance, which is a huge value prop for Arrow. Another big customer is Dickinson Wright, a global law firm. And they're reporting to us that over 90, they've had a 90% reduction in their rack space and they've had over five times the performance over a core competitors' storage systems as they've deployed PowerStore around the world, really. And it's really been helping them to easily migrate workloads across. So the feedback from the customers and the partners has been extremely positive. They're really setting benefits around the architecture, the flexibility architecture around the microservices, the containers. They're loving the VMware integration. They're loving the height and the predictable data reduction capabilities in line with in line performance so no performance penalties with data efficiencies. The workload support, I'd say the other big things around the anytime upgrades is another big thing that customers are really talking about. So very excited and optimistic in regards as we continue to ramp PowerStore the second half of the year into next year, really is the full year for PowerStore. So can I ask you about that, that in line data reduction with no performance hit? Is that new IP? I mean, you're not doing some kind of batch from data reduction, right? No, it's new IP. It's all patented. We've actually done a lot of work in regards to our technologies. There's some of the things we talk about GPUs and DPUs and SmartNICs and things like that. We've used some offload engines to help with that. So between the software and the hardware we've had leveraged new IPs so we can actually provide the predictable data reduction but right with the performance customers need. So we're not going to have a trade-off in regards to you get more efficiencies and less performance or more performance and less efficiency. So that's interesting. Yeah, when I talk to the chip guys, they talk about the storage offloads and other offloads. We're seeing these alternative processors really start to hit the market. I mean, NVIDIA is the obvious one but you're seeing others as well. And you're really, it sounds like you're taking advantage of that. Yeah, it's a huge benefit. I mean, we should, you know, with our partners if it's Intel's and NVIDIA's and folks like that, Broadcom's it's really leveraging the great innovation that they do plus our innovation. So if, you know, the sum of the parts can, you know equal more, it's a benefit to our customers. So in the end of the day, that's what it's all about. So it sounds like COVID hasn't, you know changed your strategy. I was talking to Dennis Hoffman and he was saying, look, you know fundamentally we're executing on the same strategy. You know, tactically there's things that we do differently. But what's your, summarize your strategy coming into 2021, you know so we're still early in this decade. What are you seeing as the trends that you're trying to take advantage of? What are you excited about? Maybe some things that keep you up at night. Yeah, so I'd say, you know I'll stay with what Dennis said. You know, our strategy is not changing as a company. We probably got that from Michael and from Jeff and obviously Dennis just recently but for me it's a two-pronged approach. One's all about winning the consolidation in the core infrastructure markets that we participate in today. So think server storage network. We're already a clear leader across all those segments that we serve and our, you know we'll continue to innovate within our existing product categories. And you saw that with the nine launches in the nine weeks. And my point on that one is we're going to always make sure that we have best to breed offers if it's a three tier, a two tier or converge or hyper converge offer we want to make sure that we serve that and have the best innovation possible. In addition to that though the secondary piece of the strategy really is around how do we differentiate value across or innovating across ISG, you know Dell technologies and even the broader ecosystems. And some of the examples I'll give you right now that we're doing is if you think about innovating across ISG that's all about providing improved customer experience. A set of solutions and offers that really help simplify customer operations, right? And really give them better TCOs or a better SLA. An example of something like that's Cloud IQ. It's a SaaS based offer that we have that really helps provide great insights and telemetry to our customers. That helps them simplify their IT operations. And it's a major step forward towards autonomous infrastructure which is really what they're asking for. So customers are like, hey, very happy with the work we've done around day one. No faster time to value but now it's like day two and beyond. How do you really help me kind of accelerate the operations and really take that away from me. The other big pieces innovating across Dell technologies and we do this with VMware now live today and that's just spreading. So things like VxRail is an example where we work together and we're the clear leader in HCI. Things like Dell Tech Cloud where we built in VM, VCF or VMware Cloud Foundation in Tanzu delivering an industry leading hybrid cloud platform. Just recently at VMworld, I'm sure you heard about it, but Project Monterey was just announced and that's an effort we're doing with VMware and some other partners that are really about the next generation of infrastructure. You know, I guess taking it up a notch out of the infrastructure and ISG phase. Now, some of the areas that we're going to be looking at for end to end solutions to help our customers around six key areas. I'm sure John Rose talked about this in the past, but things like cloud, edge, 5G, AI, ML, data management and security. So those will be the big things you'll see us lean into. The strategy is consistent, some big themes that you'll see us lean into going into next year. Yeah, I mean, it is consistent, right? You guys have always sort of tried to ride the waves, you know, vector your portfolio into those waves and add value. I'm particularly impressed with, you know, your focus on customer experience. I mean, I think that's a huge deal. You know, in the past, a lot of companies, yours included your predecessor, you know, you see, hey, throwing so many products at me. I can't, I don't understand the portfolio. So, I mean, focusing on that, I think it's huge right now because people want that experience, you know, to be more cloud-like and that's what you got to deliver. What about any news from Dell Tech World? Any announcements that you want to highlight that we can talk about? Sure, and actually just touching back on the point you had now about the simplification, that is a major tent of my in regards to your organization. So there's three key components that I drive. One's around customer focus and that's keeping customers first and foremost in everything we do. Two is around accelerating that innovation. Engine N3 is really bringing everything together as one team. So we provide a better outcome to our customers. You know, and that simplification effort that you talked about is core to what we're driving. So I want to do less things, I guess, better in the notion of how we do that. And what that means to me is, as I make decisions to move away from other technologies and we really leverage our best of breed IP, shared IP, that's technology IP, people IP. I can, you know, I can exceed customer needs in those markets that we're serving. So it's actually allows me to accelerate my innovation engine because I shift more and more resources onto the newer stuff. Now, for Dell Tech World, yes, we got some cool stuff coming. We've probably heard about a few of them. We're going to be announcing a project called Project Apex. Hopefully you've been briefed on that already. This isn't new news or I'll be in trouble. But that's really around our strategy about delivering simple, consistent as a service experiences for our customers, bringing together our Dell technology as a service offering and our cloud strategy together. And also our technology offerings and our go to market all under a single unified effort, which Alison Dool will be leading, you know, on behalf of our executive leadership team. So that's one big area. And then it's also another big one that I'll talk about is as we expand our as a service offers. And we think there's a big power to that in regards to our Dell Technologies Cloud Console. So we'll be launching a new cloud console that'll provide, you know, a uniform experience across all the IT resources and give users an ability to instantly manage every aspect of their cloud journey with just a few clicks. So going back to your broader point, it's all about simplicity. Yeah, so we definitely all over Apex and that's something I wanted to ask you about. I mean, this notion of as a service, it really, it's requiring kind of a new mindset, certainly from a pricing and how you talk about the customer experience. It's a whole new customer experience. You're basically giving them access to, you know, what I would consider more of a platform and giving them some greater flexibility. Yeah, there's some constraints in there, but of course, you know, the physical can only put so much capacity in before him. But the idea of being able to dial up, dial down, you know, within certain commitments is I think a powerful one. How does it change the way in which you think about how you go about developing products? Just in terms of, you know, this API economy, infrastructure as code, how you converse about those products internally and externally. How do you see that shaking out? So Dave, that's an awesome question. And it's actually front and center for everything we do. Obviously, you know, customers want choice and flexibility in what they do. And to your point, as we evolve more and more as a service, you know, specific product and product brands and logos are probably the way of the future. It's the services. It's the experience that you provide in regards to how we do that. So if you think about me, you know, in infrastructure, making infrastructure as a service, you really want to define what that customer experience is, that SLA that they're trying to realize. And then how do we make sure that we build the right solutions, products, feature functions to enable that? A lot of that goes back to the core engineering stuff that we need to do, right? And a lot of that stuff's about making sure that we have the right things around if it's around developer community, if it's around API rich, it's around SDKs, it's all about how do we leverage if it's internal source or external open source, if you will, it's regards to how do we do that? Now, a thing that I think we all, you know, which you're well aware, but we all have to keep in mind is that the cloud native applications are really relevant to both the on-premise as well as the off-premise. So think about things around portability, reusability, you know, those are some great examples of just kind of how we think about this as we go forward. But those modern applications were required modern infrastructure. And regardless of how that infrastructure is abstracted, you know, just think about things like disaggregation or composability or internet-based computing. It's just, it's a huge trend that we have to make sure we're thinking of. So as we, we disaggregate between the physical layers to the software layers and how we provide that to a service, you know, that could be, you know, think of a modern container-based asset that could be repurposed, either it could be on a purpose-built thing, it could be deployed in a converge or had to converge, or it could be deployed as a software feature in a cloud. And that's really how we're thinking about that in regards when we go forward. So we're talking about building modern assets or components that can be, you write once-reused many-type model and we can deploy that wherever you want because of some of the abstraction and disaggregation that we're going to be doing. Yeah, I mean, I could see customers in the near-term saying, I don't care so much about the product. I want the fast one. Or I want the cheaper one. Well, it's kind of what you talk about that. I talk about the SLAs, if you think about that, in regards to, you know, maybe it's not a specific brand or portfolio, you look into it and you say, hey, what's the service level that I'd want? And to your point, it's like, hey, for compute or for storage, it's really going to end up being a specific SLA and that's about performance or latency or cost or resiliency. They want that experience and that, you know, and that's what they're going to be looking for at the end state. And that's what we have to deliver to an engineer. So there's an opportunity here for you guys that I wonder if you could comment on. And that's the storage admin. EMC essentially created, you know, you get this army of people that, you know, are pretty good at provisioning loans, although that's not a really, that's a great career path for folks. But programmability is and this notion of infrastructure is code. As you make your systems more programmable, is there a skillset opportunity to take that army of constituents that you guys help train and grow and over their careers and bring them along into sort of the next decade, this new era? I think the easy answer is yes. I'd obviously that's a hard thing to do when you go forward. But I think embracing the change and the evolution of change, I think is a great opportunity. And I think there is. I mean, if you look, step back and you think about data management, right? And you think about all the, you know, all data is not created equal and, you know, and it has a life cycle, if you will. And so if it's on edge to core to cloud, depending, think about data vaults and data mobility and all that stuff, there's going to be a bunch of different personas and people are touching data along the way. I think the IT admins and the storage admins are just one of those personas that we have to help serve. And we talk about how do we make them heroes, if you will, in regards to their broader environment? So if they're providing, if they evolve and really help provide a modern infrastructure that really enables, you know, infrastructure as a code or infrastructure as a service, they become an IT hero, if you will, for the rest of the team. So I think there's a huge opportunity for them to evolve as the technology evolves. Yeah, so you talked about, you know, your families, your employees, your team. So you've obviously focused on them. You got your products going, hitting all the marks. How are you spending your time these days? Oh, these days, right now, well, we're in our cycle for fiscal 22 planning, right? And right now, a lot of that's above the specific markets we're serving. It's going to be about the strategy and making sure that we have people focus on those things. So it really comes back to some of the strategy trends we're driving for next year. You know, as I said, our focus, big time, well, I guess for this year is, one is consolidation of the core markets. Major focus for me. Two is going to be around winning in storage. And I want to be very specific. It's winning mid-range storage. And that was one of the big reasons why PowerStore came. That's going to be a big focus. And then it's really making sure that we're delivering on the as a service stuff that we just talked about in regards to all the technology innovation that's required to really provide that customer experience. And then lastly, it's making sure that we take advantage of some of these growth factors. So you're going to see it. Dennis probably talked to you a lot about telco, but telco and edge and as a service and cloud, those things are just going to be, you know, key to everything I do. So if you think about from poor infrastructure to some of these emerging opportunities, it's, that's where I'm spending all my time. Well, it's a big business and a really important one for Dell. Jeff Pedro, thanks so much for coming back in theCUBE. Really a pleasure seeing you. I hope we can see each other face to face soon. You too. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. And thank you for watching everybody. Keep it right there. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE. Our continuing coverage of Dell Tech World 2020 will be right back right after this short break.