 So, briefly talked with Frank, you guys are doing some partnering, great to see you guys out at the Unisys event last night, it's great. Yeah, you know Unisys is actually EMC's longest standing partner, probably 17 years now. So it's one that's sort of, you know, very close to everybody at EMC. Yeah, one of those companies that is still around, right, Joe talked about the waves and Unisys is a great company, wonderful heritage, good people. Yeah, exactly right. So, Howard, you've been called the grandfather of VCE, we talked about VCE when that was announced. Yeah, I know, the gray hair or the no hair gives that away. So we're also talking about the show, the big news coming out of the show is that we call it the sizzle and the steak, the sizzle is big data, Hadoop is a lot of cool things around flash, all these new announcements, but the meat on the bone has been the services, solutions, we're hearing a lot about partnering. So a lot of people are having conversations around the business models of services, you're running that, EMC, it's a big part of your infrastructure, you guys are information infrastructure. So you move from storage to this transformation, tell us what the update is, okay, from your organization and your vision for this year. Yeah, no, I appreciate that and, you know, to your point, it's, you know, cloud meets big data, a lot of conversation of what's happening, huge disruption and excitement in the industry, and what we're all about is what is, how do we really make this real for customers? The other thing that's happening is the transformation and disruption we're seeing on the technology side and on business model is also a change in a disruption and transformation for the individual, right, whether you're an EMC employee, our customers, our partners, what's really happening to their trade and, you know, that's really something that we take near and dear to our heart and, you know, we work a lot on helping to provide the training, the capabilities, the skills, the methodologies and best practices for our employees, our customers and partners on how do we actually help them make that journey. What has changed, question that I have and that's been coming up this morning and weeks prior is the disruption impact, the damage to this, that this inflection point is causing in a good way, the innovation. What is changing in the market now that's different? It's growing, there's a lot of services, you have, you know, new solution providers out there on the business model side and technologies are shifting. What is your vision on the new change that you're seeing in the landscape of the market? Yeah, so, you know, it's really causing everybody to need to take a step up, you know, infrastructure is important but, you know, as Pat described in his keynote and you'll hear more about this from Paul as well, it's really, we view this as three layers of infrastructure, application and user experience, the client side experience and what's most disruptive of all is all three of those layers are changing and being disrupted simultaneously and so what that means is, you know, whether it's our consulting capabilities to help customers map out their strategy and provide some of this knowledge transfer to our partners and our customers as well, to new ways of thinking about managing that infrastructure as we go through that journey helping to implement and integrate into customer environments, even the basic maintenance and support, the ability, you know, you just had Prasad on here earlier talking about solutions and shifting left and integrating with the technology. We have to do the same thing on the support side. It's really triaging in a very different way. It's not a very narrow what's happening on that disk drive but how is that impacting that overall cloud architecture that's been put in place. So it's really forcing all of us in the industry to raise our game. You know, it's interesting you talk about raising the game. Joe talks about his wave size. He talks about it every year and he talks about how the new players replace a lot of the old players. I feel like in having observed this industry for a number of years that the companies that have been around for a while understand that waves bring change. The thing that strikes me the most is we've had two service providers on today. We had Accenture and CSE. Both of them talked about VC. Both of them talked about Vblock. Now, it's interesting. I mean, years ago they would have resisted something like that. Well, wait a minute. No, we charge services for integration. We don't want the single logical block of infrastructure. And that's a mindset shift. They're actually embracing this change. What do you make of that? Well, I really think it is this sort of recognition that the value is moving up the stack of just plain plumbing. Customers no longer want to just think about how do I, or not think about, but they don't want to see in their budget how much do I have to apply to just making sure the system integration is working together and cables and adapters and all that stuff. It's very important. I mean, all this wonderful thing we talk about, about client-side access and applications and cloud service delivery, you need that underlying hardware to actually work and work together well. But that's not where value is created. Value is created up that stack. It's integrating the applications. It's the mashup of big data. It's getting that information out to the user in real time as quickly as possible. It's integrating new business processes. And this has opened up a whole realm of new capabilities that the SIs want to focus on. I asked Prasad the question. And I was kind of baiting him. I thought he'd maybe go for the bait. But he took the bait and he actually said, it sounds a lot like Intel. He came from Intel. This is an operating system. What you're referring to is innovation. You talk about applications and solutions. It's critical that that fosters the creativity with the marketplace. And you guys have had a specific strategy of not competing with this stack, up the stack. And you want to enable that. You got VMware out there as well. So is that consistently going to be the path going forward? And how do you guys talk about that? It is. And it's a great point. And our valued partners, Accenture, CSE, and others, they are embracing working with us, whether it's Vblock, whether it's the private cloud infrastructure offerings. Even working with our services organization as we partner together, because what we have said is we don't compete. We're not going to set up our own data centers to offer cloud services. We're not going to be in front in competing for that business value that they create. We want to actually help supplement. And what we're finding is the Accenture's and the CSE's and the Unisys and the others in our ecosystem really do want to provide that higher level value. And they're looking to us to provide the subject matter expertise around our information infrastructure offerings. So will you do knowledge transfer? I mean, you must some way, shape, or form. But can you talk about transferring knowledge to your service provider partners? I mean, where do you draw the line? I mean, some of this stuff is family secrets. But at the same time, you've got an ecosystem that's competing with the likes of IBM and, of course, now HP, now Dell. How do you manage that? Where do you draw that IP transfer line? Yeah, we actually don't sweat that too much in the sense that whatever it is we can do to help the ecosystem for the benefit of our mutual customers. I mean, we're certainly not going to go ahead and open up source code, for example. I mean, that is the lifeblood of the R&D organization and providing new and innovative technology. But the way that technology works together, I'll give you a great example. Working with service providers, we've developed a methodology to help think through, well, what applications and data really belong in a private cloud, a public cloud, a service provider type, hybrid cloud. And we've developed this capability to walk through applications, the security and the compliance profile, the functional SLAs required. That then essentially allows a service catalog to get developed. And then from there, customers can really map out their journey, first year, second year, third year, about which applications and data goes where. We're actually helping our service provider customers with that methodology and those best practices, and letting them take that to the marketplace. We have no pride of ownership there. We would like as many of our partners to help enable customers to get that value. So you play an interesting role. You run services for a technology company. Absolutely. And the services business is really multi-dimensional, isn't it? I mean, it is outsourcing, there's consulting, there's customer support services. Now there's cloud service providers. You're really seeing an evolution of that. Talk about that a little bit and how that's changing. And are we going to see future platforms emerge as service provider partners? Yeah. I think that's a great topic. And we've talked about this a couple of times before, but EMC is a technology company. And services and the areas that I look after for the company are very important. They're growing. They're adding a lot of value to customers and partners in the ecosystem. But the way I like to describe it is water finds its own level here. We're actually not trying to become a services company in lieu of being a technology company. We want technology to take out the steps that are necessary in services so that other value can get created. So we're not trying to be services for services' sake. We're trying to provide services to enable our partner ecosystem and have our customers get the maximum value out of our technology. Dave, you know what I love about interviewing with the EMC executive? We don't, it's not scripted. Howard's really good. I mean, he got the great answers. But try this one. I'm going to throw one at you. That's going to be a challenge. Talk about business model innovation because the common thread in all this service is people are changing their business models. And because the new technology, like cloud, like the new applications, are creating new OPEX opportunities to create efficiencies, at the same time with open source and other things, new user experience products. So that's causing some business model innovations. Can you share with the folks out there what's changing in the world? You've seen these cycles before. Michael Capellis was talking about it when we were at the analyst meeting around. He hasn't seen these types of inflection points since client server and blades. And those were big inflection points that caused solutions to change and services to change. So can you share with the folks out there your experience and vision around this notion of business model innovation and what it means to executives and folks out there? Yeah, business model innovation and business model disruption as well. And one of the things we're seeing just grow tremendously is new consumption models, which of course then drive the business model. So whether you're a partner or whether you're a customer, you might have been used to buying technology and integrating it yourself. Well, maybe you want to still do that, but maybe you want to not buy that technology as a box at a price at a moment in time. You might want to buy it in a utility type format, more as a pay as you go. You might want to do that just on the product or the technology side, but you might want to layer on services around that. And so we've seen over the last couple of years a lot of interest in the market for sort of a broader continuum of ways for customers to consume value that we offer. So certainly a capital purchase is still there. It's the predominant part of our business model. We've been leasing for many years, both capital leases and operating leases. But we've also built capabilities around a unique offering called OpenScale, where you can actually sign up for a certain amount of capacity of storage for a year, but pay on the drip until you get there for that year. And then we've even been working on models all the way to full utility. Now certainly we're building in cost of capital, we're building in risk premium, and all the rest of that. But for those customers that have so much variability, at least that's something we can offer, again, directly and through our partner. So business model disruption and innovation's all around. Yeah, and your partners, the guys we've had on, seem very receptive to that. Their customers want to pay by the drink, and they don't want to. Well, they don't make money too. I mean, the thing is, their business model, they make more money. I mean, we're seeing. Well, but they don't want to eat the whole risk either, and I think what I'm hearing from Howard is we're willing to share that risk with our partners. And not get in the way. Right. But the thing that's important here is it's risk sharing and risk reward on the other side. So we've got to have that balance, and that balance has got to be understood, and is understood by our partner ecosystem, and even with customers. You know, you have the conversation with the customer, and they understand all the puts and takes. Let's talk about big data for a second. So last year we were here, the journey to the private cloud, a lot of the customers I talked to said, eh, we're not really on that journey yet. But of course, as we know, we saw from Joe's little audience poll, a vast majority of people have started that journey. Now we're hearing about big data. And I think a lot of people in the audience are like, hm, big data, what does that mean to me? But I liked your answer when we were talking in the analyst meeting about what is big data. Can you share with our audience, what do you mean by big data? Yeah, absolutely. Big data is all around. And our customers are immersed in it whether they realize the definition of that or not. And our view of big data is certainly one dimension is the tremendous growth of that data in our customers' environments. Second is the more unstructured nature. It doesn't necessarily fit in rows and columns very easily. But I think the most critical dimension of the definition that we have for big data is the disparate nature of it. The fact that it's in multiple silos, multiple databases, multiple file systems. So you've got large volume growth, predominantly unstructured and disparate, it's everywhere. And by the way, it could be disparate inside the company but also data sources outside the company that you want to integrate and mash up and bring value. So our definition of big data is that. And what technologies can we bring to help better store, manage and protect that information? And then at the application and data layer, how do we help optimize and get value from it? So now obviously the move to the cloud caused you to rethink the skill sets in your organization. I mean, it's part of your title, Cloud Services. Maybe we'll get big data in there. I think you have the longest title at EFC. Yeah, I can add to it if you want. And so my question is, have you started to look at, and if not, when will you start to look at really bringing in those sort of big data skill sets, data scientists? Are you hiring people like that today? We are, as well as developing those skill sets. And in fact, here at EMC World this week, we're going to have a couple of hundred data scientists all come together and converge and share best practices and methodologies and what they're seeing out in the marketplace. And I know you're going to be talking to Tom Clancy here soon as well. Over the last couple of years, we've really upped the ante as well. It's not just making sure we have the best proven solutions and proven certifications and qualifications around storage, but we've added to that across our portfolio to the point where last year we added two new certifications, data center architect and cloud architect. And in fact, we announced our first cloud architect that was certified, a gentleman from Wipro Technologies that we'll be honoring in the next couple of days here. We have many more in the pipeline and data scientists is actually one of those next ones that we'll learn a lot from each other about what that really takes to help get value there. That brings up the, I see we're bullish on data scientists and we had a little big data group within our organizations as well, but it brings up a good point about training and talking about Tom's coming on board next. IT is changing, jobs are changing, new employees are coming into the workforce. That's changing the game a little bit. I mean, people have been kind of stale. I mean, past 10 years in IT, it's been, you know, do more with less, right? So now you've got that OPEX challenge, but yet new skill sets are required to run virtual machines with V-Plex or with V-Block or VCE. So how are you guys looking at that market of the training and support? Is it just throwing more dollars at more, you know, brute force training? Are you guys thinking about it holistically around using social networking? Tony talked a little bit about it, but what's your vision of it? Yeah, it's a great point and I'll leave most of that for Tom. I don't want to steal all of his thunder. You know, training is certainly one dimension of it, but really, you know, it's going back to what you said before. You know, there's a whole transformation and disruption occurring on the technology side, but it's happening on the people side as well. And change can be scary, but it can also be phenomenal opportunity. And those folks that look at it as opportunity are the ones that can then embrace and move forward. You know, when Sanjay and I did the panel up on stage last year, we actually talked about the transformation necessary in the workplace. And while it could be a very, very worrisome thought to the IT professional, what we're finding instead is there's more opportunity as this, you know, sort of paradigm shifts. And, you know, we're helping by not only describing that opportunity, but helping customers embrace that opportunity, helping our own employees embrace that opportunity, whether it's through career forums, training, certifications, all of those things. And Tom will talk about several more of those things that we're doing. We talked to Jim Vampos earlier about a concept called dog-fooding, which he claims, Paul Merritt's coin. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it's a great term where people, they say they use their own technology, get to know it. How much, and you guys are known obviously for doing a lot of, you know, eating your own dog food and taking all these new technologies in-house, how much has that helped you guys with your business? Has it given you a significant lead as you roll out new solutions? Tremendously. You know, we're close to 80% virtualized today, we're taking the last bite of the remaining mission-critical applications. Our new data center down in Durham, North Carolina, VBlock-based. We've got Vplex in place. Of course, we've been using our replication technologies for a year, but we absolutely, first and best is the way Sanjay talks about it. And yes, it helps us in, certainly as we tell our customers, cost-saving, faster time to value, do more with less. But the unique thing in a technology company like EMC, it also then helps inform our various teams. You know, our services teams, for example, do work with Sanjay's team on doing some upfront consulting, what works, what doesn't work, do the integrations, we get a lot of value back, what worked, what didn't work, and then also back informing our product roadmaps. And so, us being first and best, we absolutely get that value in our operation, but we get even more value how it informs our offerings for our customers. Great, we're here with Howard Elias, the president of EMC's services organization. Howard is talking about the transforming nature of the services business. We talked a lot about the waves of technology and how companies are adapting to those waves and how specifically EMC is not, as a rule, competing with its service provider's partner, it's enabling them, it's a technology supplier, and collectively, if I understand this correctly, that your ecosystem, EMC and its service providers can be much, much larger than any one company and deliver more value to the marketplace. It's really the strategy. Howard, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE. It's always a pleasure. Thank you. Great to see you. Thank you for your time, Howard.