 Live from Barcelona, Spain. It's theCUBE, covering Cisco Live Europe. Brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. Everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's exclusive coverage here in Barcelona, Spain for Cisco Live Europe 2019. I'm John Furrier with host this week, Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman. We're here all for three days. So we're wrapping up Cisco Live 2019 here in Europe. Guys, we're breaking it down. We had some great editorial segments where we unpacked everything here. But as we look back over the show, want to get your observations and insights into kind of what's going on with Cisco, the secret formula around why DevNet, their developer program, which also has DevNet Create, which is cloud-native, is growing very rapidly. Huge resonance with the customer base at Cisco. It's created a revitalization of Cisco as a company. And you can see that permeating throughout the organization with their branding, how the teams are organizing their engineering, their products. Is this the future model for all infrastructure companies that don't have a cloud? And why is that successful? And then other observations. So guys, we'll start with DevNet. A very successful program led by Suzy Weese, New Vice President and CTO, executing flawlessly how to transform a community without killing the old to bring in the new. Stu. Yeah, so John, it's been fascinating to watch. We've talked about the ground effort. A lot of hard work by a small team, build a community. Last year, over 500,000 were here. They're at 560,000 people using this tool. Four and a half years ago, Cisco, mostly a hardware company. It really, what I've seen over the last year or two, they were talking about software, but have really seen deliverables here. You talk about Cloud Center Suite, you talk about the DNA Center platform. If they're a hardware company, there's a disconnect between what's going on the DevNet zone and what's happened in the company. But we've seen rallying around software solutions. I've heard it from the partner ecosystem, from the customers. This isn't Cisco of a few years ago, very fragmented, lots of lines of businesses, lots of different things. I remember back when Chambers announced like, oh, we've got 37 different adjacencies we're going to go into. No, now it's solution suites and platforms, and DevNet, it is a unifying force of what they're doing, that's a great term, John. Love it and see that transformation of being a software company, that DevNet set some of the groundwork and we heard the CIO of Cisco saying that security and the developer activity are his partners in crime, helping him driving change. And they did a nice, clever play on words, data centered, and that's kind of a shot across the bow of the classic data center, which shows that it is a cloud world and data is the center part of it. And I think the API centric economy is certainly doing it. But Dave, I want to get your thoughts because you asked a question to Susie Wee, at DevNet, a very important question. Other companies couldn't be successful with developer programs. Cisco has been, what's the secret formula? I asked Amanda Whaley who's her right hand woman around what's going on and she said, well there's no secret formula. Well, guess what? There is a secret formula, they're being humble. It seems to be content, seems to be the unifying force of the community. They understood the need. They saw the future around cloud native and APIs being a very important connection tissue, connective tissue for this cloud native world and an upstream path for Cisco. They understood the future, knew the need and they provided great content. The sessions in the education are open and inclusive, very education oriented, but conversations with their peers have been key. theCUBE's been here talking to, they treat everybody the same, not the big pitches, real authentic and genuine content that allow people to learn and grow and connect with others. To me, I think that is kind of a consistent one of my observation. Your thoughts, Steve, on that. Yeah, so first of all, there is a secret formula and this is the new blueprint, or the blueprint that infrastructure companies should be following, Cisco's clearly leading there. I think it's content and community and they've used their programmability of their infrastructure and they've socialized that, they've developed the technology. They say big companies can't innovate. I mean DevNet is a real solid innovation and we witnessed all week people coming in, training, learning, these are network engineers that are learning new skills. They're learning how to be developers and that is to me a huge innovation in business model and technology. It's creating a flywheel for them. So they've created, they've come up with the idea that the network is a data platform and it's now also become an application development platform on which they're deploying applications all over the place. Edge, we heard applications being deployed in police vehicles and so this is a very important trend and from what I can tell, they're way ahead of other infrastructure companies, HP, I don't see this, they talked that game, Dell EMC, we talked about code, IBM trying to make it happen with the Blue Mix, Oracle owns Java and it still sort of struggles to own the developer marketplace. This is Dave, I love what you say there. I saw Jack Welshby a number of years ago and he's like, ah, people always tell me all the time that big companies can't innovate. He's like, well, maybe big companies but what are companies made up of? Companies are made up of people and people can innovate and I think that's the key there is it was very people focused, absolutely content. When you talk about what were the big sessions here? Oh, they're doing Java, they're doing Kubernetes, it's like, okay wait, is there a connection to Cisco products? Absolutely, is it a product pitch and a product training? There's plenty of that going here, people need that, people build their careers out of Cisco but this new career, big question I had coming in is it's a multi-cloud world, infrastructure developer and everything, Cisco's a piece of that, how do they make sure that they get stickiness with them and helping them to build their career and move forward, there's going to be some nice activity there and you get a good glow and Cisco makes themselves relevant in those communities. The other observation that I saw and I want to get your reactions to it guys is that we saw scale, we talk about it all the time in theCUBE, scale is now table stakes to compete in this global landscape but complexity with multi-cloud and these things is there and in every major inflection point in the industry, abstraction layers and software and or hardware advances, certainly Moore's Law Kickstand helps that but it's been software abstractions that have really moved the needle because that's where you can have complexity and still remove it from an integration standpoint, from a consumption standpoint, this seems to be Cisco's buying into this across the companies too, software, not just hardware, they've decoupled it but they all work together, this isn't the magic of DevNet, it's the magic of APIs, it's the magic of an internet operating system, your thoughts? And look, we talked to a number of the companies that were acquired by Cisco over the last few years and I think those are helping to drive some of the change, you have, of course, APTI is the big one, Duo and Security, companies that born in the cloud and helping to move that change along the way and as John, as you said, that unifying factor of we're rallying, it's not just the new chip steps standing up on saying, okay, we spent millions of dollars in developing this thing, everybody go out and sell that, it's now, there's co-creation, you're seeing that evolution of that partner ecosystem and it's a challenging change but Cisco is moving in the right direction. It starts at the top too, Stu, and I wanted to make a point, we learned also, and this is learning for me, Chuck Robbins is behind all this, okay? The CEO has identified DevNet and said this is strategic to our company, all new products now that are introduced at Cisco will have API support and a DevNet component. This is a radical change from Cisco of the past. This means that every solution out of the box, literally, and software will have that in there. So with APIs and DNA center, those are two areas to me that I think will really be a tell sign. If Cisco can execute on the DNA center and bring in APIs and a DevNet, a real supporting community behind every product, I think the programmable network will be a reality. So help me squint through this. You know, we talk to a lot of people, we go to a lot of shows, we're getting the Kool-Aid injection from the DevNet crew here, but there's real substance. We're going to challenge some of the other companies that we work with, some of the other infrastructure companies. The IT business, it's like the NFL, it's a copycat league. So will others, so HP is going to say, oh, we got APIs, EMC, Dell, they're going to say the same thing, but what's different here? I mean, clearly you see it in the evidence of being able to cultivate a community of developers. Is it because of the network? No, it's management. HP has people, I've talked to them on theCUBE, that believe in CloudNative. The company just doesn't fund them properly. They get the smallest booth at the events. They're actually in a partner booth. They're part of an ad jungle, something else. HP and Tony O'Neary, I don't think is funding open CloudNative, or certainly the marketing people or product people are not funding developers. Well certainly not to the degree that Cisco is, obviously. Visible signs of any kind. We go to all the shows. What about Dell? What about Dell EMC? I think Dell EMC is kind of keeping it open, but there's no coherent group. I can't, in my mind's eye, point to one group saying, wow, they're kicking ass. They got bigger problems now. It's how do you consolidate the portfolio? Michael Dell's stated goal is for Dell to be the leading infrastructure company out there. There's a big hardware component of that. Absolutely they participate in open source. They have some developer, APIs are great, and they love standards, but this is a software movement. Infrastructure's code is where they're going. VMware, they've made some pushes and moves in this space. With developers, but where are they with developers? They have the operators on the IT side. So, back to Dell for a second. I think Dell Boomi is one signal. I've seen some sign there, but then, and that's still relatively new, but there's no one, there's no DevNet for Dell. On VMware. You can go to labs, this is someone that's helping customers learn to code, do that kind of activity, but broadly across the Dell family, haven't seen as much. I think VMware has a good ecosystem. I think they have good technical people. I don't think they need a developer program per se. I think they need more of an operator program. I think that's VMware world. When you go to VMware world, you see a lot of the partners and how they integrate in. So, who are the favorites in the developer world? Obviously Microsoft. I mean, to me, it's Amazon. It's just a kid in a candy store. If you're a developer, you're all over Amazon. They have great stuff. They're always introducing new candy to the kids all the time. New services, Amazon number one. Azure, I think, not so much in my mind. I think it's a lot of legacy there with Azure, but they are, they're putting up the numbers on the profit, and you know what, might stand on Azure. I think Azure's sandbagging the numbers, but the growth's there, and it's going to be a matter of time. So I think Azure is on the path. And they have the legacy developer program, world class, Microsoft. Microsoft is in the Cisco kind of wheelhouse. If they can transform their existing developer community to be cloud native, they hit a home run. John, you were talking about like IT ops out there. Microsoft does great in that. They've got a lot of big push there. They absolutely, the .NET developers are there. You go to the build conference, they play. We go to the KubeCon and a lot of the developer shows, Microsoft's just strongly there. Let me clarify my point. Let me clarify my point on Microsoft. Yes, they have a pre-existing, huge development. They've been successful, been a core competency, no doubt. Cisco had a developer community, all networking. So I think Microsoft has that legacy win, but they have to transform and go to the next level. The question is, do they have that? So with Azure, I'm saying they got it. What about Google? You guys were at the Google Cloud Show last year. We'll be there again in April. Yeah, you got to put Google in the mix, no doubt. I mean, no question. And what about Red Hat? Would IBM on the developer front? Yeah, I mean, look, when you talk to developers and a lot of the training they're doing, if you've got Linux skill sets, you've got to leg up in a lot of these environments. There are a lot of developers. It's not like people at Red Hat Summit are like, oh wait, here's my first hoodie and I'm going to learn to start code. They're already there, they're in this ecosystem. Red Hat, huge part. Everybody we just talked about, Red Hat has strong pieces there, and that's one of the reasons why IBM bought them, Dave, is to help ride that way. That's expensive, but they got the ingredients now. Check, I love those guys. Google has a lot of developers, they contribute heavily in open source, but in terms of a Google community, that's really the CNCF in my mind. I think they're doing a great job stewarding CNCF, but there's not a lot of people, users in the Google ecosystem, they got tons of developers, and that's an opportunity for Google, in my opinion. Well, so let's bring it back to Cisco. So are we in agreement that they've got a leg up on the other infrastructure competitors? Yeah, I do. I think they have a- Particularly as it relates to developers. They have a huge leg up, but I think it's even bigger than that. I think that this company is going to skyrocket if they crack the code on network programmability. They're at the early stages now, you're talking about intro to Python, they get more advanced classes, give them 24 months, if they continue the momentum on DevNet, that's the tipping point in my mind. Two years, they could own everything and just be a whole nother level company if they crack the code, because the network is the value, payload, network effect, this is the new normal in today's- It's a great challenger, I mean, it's really not. I mean, the networking companies for years haven't been able to, the Aristos and the Junipers haven't been able to unseed them as the leader. They still got 60% of the marketplace. VMware and Cisco. VMware, right, VMware and Cisco. Because VMware and Amazon, that's a lethal combination. I think that's what I'm going to watch, the frenemy action between VMware and Cisco, because I think that level of where NSX and what Cisco's trying to do with intent-based networking. Kind of. Well, now that there's a hybrid infrastructure, does that eventually become a multi-cloud play? Maybe it's a few years off, but yeah. Absolutely, and look, we watched, a year ago, we were saying, okay, Google's a strong partner, Cisco, how about AWS? Well, they're integrating with Kubernetes, they're starting to do more with AWS. It's always a interesting partnership with Amazon. Cisco's got lots of products in the marketplace. They're growing in that environment, but Amazon's learning from everybody and can potentially be a threat down the road to where Cisco is. And I'd love to see Cisco doing more in the Microsoft space too. We'll be watching Cisco over the year, going to continue to go deep on Cisco. We've got the Cisco Live North America show on the calendar. San Diego. This year in San Diego, so we'll see theCUBE there for multiple days as well. Of course, we'll be following all the traction software defined, everything as the world goes. Completely cyber, dark, encrypted, whatever it is, we're going to be covering it. Well, thanks for watching. And I want to give a shout out to the crew. Good job, guys, well done. Thanks for watching theCUBE here in Barcelona. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman. Thanks for watching.