 Welcome back to JSA TV live where we are coming to you once again from the expo floor here at channel partners 2023 Having a wonderful time in Las Vegas, and I've got another great interview lined up here. We've got Todd Kallit He's the global Alliance manager of rack space technology, and then Jeff de Verder We've got cheap. He's the chief technology evangelist fancy title. Absolutely fancy title for the fancy shoes We have to give a quick nod to the shoes here if you can hold them up or if we can see Well, we'll have to at least I don't bend that way Yeah, let's take a photo and get it on our LinkedIn later, but they're custom-made sneakers So very well done. They are custom custom-made talking about all sorts of rack space history and rack space lure Yeah, great conversation starters. So yeah, let's let's talk about rack space It's a you know well-known player in the industry, but for those who might not be familiar What sorts of solutions do you provide for the industry? Yeah, so rack space is the multi cloud Services leader in the world. So we started very much as just providing we could just call it traditional hosting So we had and then and then became a leader in in managed hosting Which you can think of as rack space having data centers servers and smart people. It's a great combination We built a billion dollar business on that and really was the foundation of our channel business as well and that over time grew as the As the public cloud itself grew we've provided services not only for For all three of the major hyperscale cloud providers But we were one of the first companies to even have a cloud alongside of AWS Now we're in the top five of providing support and services for those clouds as well So when you think of rack space you can think about rack space is helping you Transform your workloads to make the best of the modern cloud be at public or be at private Yeah, just making it as easy as possible exactly. I wish I could say it was the easy button But we help a lot with that as easy as possible. It's possible We solve a lot of complex problems for people that are very challenged, right? There's a shortage of really smart people out there technical resources and the economy has driven more outsourcing for that We're helping a lot of companies just get better at what they do. Yeah, absolutely It's so glad that you mentioned that the technology shortage Staffing shortage that we're experiencing right now such a big thing. So I have to ask you about this You recently conducted a survey where you found that 69% of IT decision-makers are ranking AI artificial intelligence and machine learning as some of the top priorities for their organizations How would it what's driving that trend and how are you fitting into that? So it's a trend that us in technology have been watching for a number of years In fact, we've been at the forefront of helping companies be ready for this transformation but quite simply what's driven the the massive move to it this year is is the advent of chat GPT now it is on the lips of everybody who can you know use use a browser I mean think of it this way when you think about one of the most popular apps like your Instagram Instagram took two and a half years to get to a hundred million users It took chat GPT I think three or four weeks to get to a hundred million users and so that ultimately has Organization asking the question of how do I ask questions of my data because they want to converse they want to interact with their data the way they might interact with a chat GPT type chat-based service and Ultimately that starts with the quality of their data So it is it is launching a ton of great conversations and projects in helping companies transform their data clean it up augment that data enrich that data so that ultimately an AI can help feed some of the most important data back to them I like to call weaponize your data Weaponize your data. I like it. It's got a nice ring to it as well You know that you're collecting every day and it just grows every single day, right? Right which helps you make more informed decisions as you go along So there's there's a lot you can do to weaponize your data. Yeah, correct Well, the other way we look at the data You've heard the phrase and and it started a couple years ago And that was that that data is the new gold meaning. Hey, maybe there's something we could find in that data That would bring value but the phrase I much prefer is data is the soil that our business does grow up out of and so the way That we care for that data the way that we nurture that data is actually how we get better What we do and how we launch new services and offerings as a as any organization We could do a whole broadcast on chat GPT and other AI related technologies of that nature Are there any other technologies that you two are watching that you think have the The ability to really change our business great question, but At the end everybody's got their eye on the data and AI piece But if we really pull back and widen the the lens a little bit what we find is that while everybody has those those I'll call them the caviar aspirations They're still trying to figure out a lot of their nuts and bolts of what they're doing with their workloads A lot of those workloads are still running in their own data centers on old VMs on old hardware for companies that are not in the IT Business but are for some reason still managing a data center And so what we what I'm really excited about is that is that in the most current view People want to do more things with their workloads chat GPT has given them that excitement Secondly because of the transformation that occurred during COVID and there was a lot of digital transformation that happened during COVID The situation is right for some serious transformation and what I'm really excited about is people actually doing what they say they've been doing for a long time He's not very excited. It's just a perfect fit for that chief technology of Angela's title Really, you know passionate about what we're doing right in the you know the problems that we're solving for business are They're very complex, right and takes a lot of smart people and it's wonderful to see those transformations happen Right people have an idea of where they want to get to and where they want to be They have no idea how to get there right and again with the resource strain from it the personnel perspective It just makes it harder and harder and more challenging for them to do that right and everything is becoming so much more competitive You have to be really agile and technology is moving it You know breakneck speed right and the advent of machine learning and AI and how do you take advantage and use it effectively in your organization and again Monetize or weaponize your data and just really understand all of this information that you're collecting on a daily basis because all of a sudden your iPhone Your Android whatever every day more and more data right and it's just the nature of it So you know again, it's the gold the oil the soil. It's important and now people really realize that it is and Since we're sitting here at channel partners I can't let you go without asking specifically about the channel and how do you see the channel? For your for your team fitting into the bigger picture and what's to come in the next You know the channel I've been doing this for 20 years and the channel has changed more in the last 18 months than it ever has The advent of private equity coming into this world and changing our community It's very interesting right because all of a sudden they woke up and saw all this month of recurring revenue They all want a piece of it Because they know that it can they can grow those bases, right? You see all these roll-ups And so now where it's I think it's again kind of winding down You have the technology solution distributor brokerages now really six of them there used to be a lot but then you have these kind of master agencies that are Acquiring smaller agencies putting them all together to create greater resources back office personnel more sales and things that nature So it's really evolving and I think the the pace of technology is changing too And so you have a lot of the old guard who have built their business over the last 20 years They're selling their businesses right bringing in new blood and I know John Delosio was talking about that a little while ago on the stage that the next generation right we see this fast change that's happening and The younger people that are coming into the channel now have this opportunity to embrace it right and grow and take it to the next level And so it's really exciting time to be in the channel and you know for those of us that are it's been a incredible journey Right, I love the community the friendships I've made the people that you get to know and it's funny because people will just change logos on their shirts You know it happened But it's all the same people really and it is while it's small it really is Gigantic and the amount of revenue that's being created through the channel is it's phenomenal and the growth You know rate is incredibly high as well You know it's a fun place to be this is I think one of the better channel shows that it's been in a few years And certainly well attended. I think there were like 9700 people here So it tells you the power and you know, it's gonna continue to grow Absolutely, and Todd is our channel evangelist Where can our viewers go to learn more about Rackspace so there's a couple of places and I'll let Jeff Tom because again He's the voice and face of Rackspace So easy peasy just head over to rackspace.com you're gonna find everything you need to know about all of the products and services that Rackspace has now if what you really want is to go get smart about all this cloud stuff Just head over to rackspace.com slash Sol that's our thought leadership platform You're not going to get a pop-up to sell you something you can just go learn some stuff great articles You you cited some of our research we do that quarterly we've gotten to talk to over 1,400 it decision-makers in 10 different countries to gather that data We're in the middle of an incredible one right now around transformation of applications so that will come out in the June time frame and So if you head over to rackspace.com or rackspace.com slash solve you can find us there Great. Thank you so much. I enjoyed speaking with you both Todd and Jeff And I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here at channel partners Well, thank you for having us to the pleasure and we enjoyed it as well Yeah, our pleasure. Have a great day and thanks to our viewers for tuning in today. It's a TV live. Happy networking