 on the ground, presented by theCUBE. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. Hi, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are on the ground in downtown San Francisco for a special opportunity to talk to some of the senior executives at Ford that are really driving their mobility initiative. We got to meet with Dr. Ken Washington and Marcy Clevorn, both handpicked by the CEO, Mark Fields, to really help drive this initiative and Ford's evolution into the next stage of transportation and specifically mobility. So, John, what did you think? Well, first of all, Ken Washington was great. I did the periscope while you were interviewing him. Ken Washington is the Vice President of Advanced Research for Ford. He's a big player over there, driving the innovation strategy. And this is really going to be the true test of Ford's capabilities to transform that company into an old-line Detroit company, into an innovative consumer-driven technology company. And that, again, I'll say it again, a consumer-driven technology company. That to me is Ford's biggest challenge, the manufacturing, they got the manufacturing on, they got the supply chain, but really to compete with Tesla and Uber, they got to up their game big time. And then on the heels of those two incumbents in this new emerging area, you got Google, you got Apple, the self-driving car. So really, to me, the big story with Ford is their cultural shift, as we're reporting, in Silicon Valley by having the Ford Innovation Center now on its second year, doing some real work. Not like, you know, token, you know, check into Silicon Valley, you know, make some PowerPoint slides, fly back to Detroit and do a briefing. It's real innovation. They're going to triple their fleet in autonomous vehicles, really bringing in proprietary technology and Marcy Cleveland, the CIO who I asked, what are they outsourced, what do they keep? They're building their own data platform. They recognize the value of the data in the new model, and that's going to be key. To me, I like Ford's strategy, I like where they're going. Again, we got to get some more information, but overall, Jeff, I like their direction. They're speaking the right language. And Ken also said that they're using their own mapping software, their own sensor. He's a rocket scientist, literally, you know, he deals with very complex technology, sensor overload, so for him to come in and really be the visionary, it's pretty amazing. He's a very frequent speaker, he's really out front. To me, John, the thing that continues to amaze me is really the autonomous cars are fun and that's, you know, we see the Google cars driving around all the time, but really the multimodal mode, for Ford to really start to think in terms of from the time you leave your house to get to where you're going, depending on what's your objective, whether it's a quick trip out to dinner, whether it's you got to go catch a train, whether you need to get to the airport or you're taking a Sunday drive through Napa Valley, those are all very different kind of experiences that may or may not involve a Ford car directly, but they still want to be involved in all those transportation options. So it's really progressive, kind of getting out ahead of the wave a little bit. This business model changed also with technology change. So this is this modal concept, this being different modes of your life, different realities depending on your situation, is real, it's a very horizontal change in how the user experiences technology, transportation, ultimately the experience with the car. Here's my big takeaway from that. They need to move quickly to actually deliver the value on the behalf of the customer, otherwise someone else will. So their new multimodal thing makes sense. The question is can they do it? And the key is the innovation will come from Silicon Valley, it's going to come from technology, and it not going to come from old mainline, old ways of doing things. So GM, Ford, these car companies have to transform themselves and the users are smart, they can get it, they can turn on their phone, this sucks. If it sucks, they're going to tell everybody. If it doesn't connect to the stereo, it's going to be problematic. So the cars have to increase their interfaces to the user experience and deliver value, whether it's hailing an Uber or an Uber from GM or an Uber from Ford, whatever that use case is, this is their future. Well you asked an interesting question, which is is the car peripheral or is it a platform? Is it the world's biggest wearable and internet of things or is it an extension to your iPhone and the application suites that you're running on your iPhone? I think the question is a viable question. I don't think we know the answer yet. It's going to be interesting to see how it evolves, but it's very two very different ways of looking at that. Well I asked that question, it's kind of a hidden question, it's kind of a secret question. I want to kind of unearth some metadata from the people and that is this. If you look at the history of technology, everyone's trying to replicate Silicon Valley's big trends and they're very specific. Personal computers, networking, you name them. Personal computers, there was a lot of pretenders that weren't from Silicon Valley that tried to replicate personal computers. Never good and never was successful. Now we're living in an era where you see Apple Dominate, you see Google and you see Tesla, these new emerging alternatives to the old line traditional car manufacturers. So the question is, if Ford's view is that they're the computer and we heard Dr. Ken Washington say it's personal, it's about this smart mobility or smart car, that's like smart phone. That's basically saying we want to be Apple. So the question is, can they replicate Apple? Now I asked the question, are you a computer or a peripheral because Apple would view that the car is a peripheral to their platform. This is what we call platform wars. So this is going to be the beginning of the automotive technology platform wars and it's going to come down to vertically integrating the devices into the data and providing the best user experience. Can't replicate a personal computer, we've seen that history. Can the car guys replicate Silicon Valley's Apple and Google, it's in a tough, tall order, Jeff. Yeah, it's kind of ironic, we're here a couple weeks for the Super Bowl, we talked to Dominic Orr from Aruba Networks, now part of HP and they put in a lot of the mobility stuff at Levi Stadium and Dominic made an interesting statement about the way that we work today. You are at your office, you're on a call, you walk out the office, you get in your car, you want that call to follow you, you drive home, you get out of the car, you go into the house, your home office, your living area, you want that to follow and it's an interesting thing that he said where the mobile now is no longer the side dish, right? It's the entree and how really the power of mobile and connectivity is the thing that's driving this experience whether you're getting in and out of a car, in and out of your office, in and out of an Uber, in and out of a bus. If I worked for Ford or GM, I would think I could probably come in and coexist with Silicon Valley, to use my personal computer example because here's the difference. The users and user customers, the consumers have a relationship with cars. Some buy cars, some may not buy cars, we heard the example from the CIO. Her son gave the car back, it's probably Ubering around New York City. But this is now changing the game of what the transportation word, what transportation service means. It's not just the car but people have an emotional reaction and relationship with their automotive vehicle or in this case, now service. That is sticky and I think that is something that these guys can build on, Jeff. My view is it's going to be something to watch very closely because they have a shot. It's not a Hail Mary for the car companies to get in this game. How they play with Apple and what Apple's response is, what Tesla does, what Google does, we'll see. Yeah, the other thing, John, she talked about a little bit off air is having a digital engagement with a brand. If you look at financial services, most of us interact with our bank via our mobile app or our laptop. Nobody goes to the bank very much. That has become the primary way in which we interact with our financial institutions. So really for Ford to be progressive and start to really think about the customer experience of the interaction with that customer beyond the confines of the sheet metal and the rubber and the leather is pretty progressive that they want to build that relationship at a digital level and not necessarily the tactical level of sitting and driving a car. Great point, Jeff. We are bringing up some new research I'll say here because I'll start seeing it on the network on SiliconANGLE.com and Wikibon.com and theCUBE is we're doing a research on the following premise. Consumers and customers like to buy from companies that have digital assets and digital engaging assets in formats that are in the new model of social business or whatever you want to call it. And that is a premise that we think is true when based on our research, it's happening. We talked to Oracle at Oracle Open World. They got the GM person who's an Oracle customer. They want to put the assets in a digital format and provide engagement because that engagement will create a buying opportunity or a relationship opportunity. And that is something that all businesses will have to do is move to this new digital engagement format. Not the email blasts or the old models are doing things. It's a new way that people are engaging and consumers want to engage in that format. Yeah, well, it's exciting times. We've been covering enterprise tech for a long time. We're excited really is to kind of move into this automotive space, John, because obviously Tesla's actually building cars in the Bay Area, so it's not just software. They're bending sheet metal. You've got Uber, which is really changing the way the transportation works, the way we get access to transportation. And now you have Ford, you have GM setting up shop in Silicon Valley. He said they met, Ken said they met 200 companies in a year. Do the math. That's like four a week, 52 weeks in a year, right? So they're here, they're engaged. So we're excited. It's in our backyard. We're going to continue to stay with it. I think this is the third time we've met with Ford. We've met with GM as well. So it's exciting times. It's really about innovation, Jeff. It's really about innovation because innovation, we're not blind to only, we only care about innovation. I'll tell you why. Whether it's retail, car, whatever the application is, the technology of cloud and big data, internet of things is cutting across all aspects that touch the consumer and other customer. It's no longer a B2B versus a B2C or consumer. Technology in the cloud is enabling great new opportunities for new companies, new brands, and it's super exciting. Automotive, certainly we won't be covering what leather seats are the best in the car. We care about technology. And disruption and innovation. So great way to kick off 2016. So John, good to see you in San Francisco. Jeff Frick, John Furrier, you're watching theCUBE. We'll be back next time. Thanks for watching.