 Winston Edmonton here with Studio B at IBM Edge 2013. Got a very special guest, Joseph King with CAS7. Now, Joseph just got a very prestigious award from IBM. Tell us a little bit about this recognition. Well, thanks, Winston. CAS7 was awarded the Winning Edge Award for storage sales in the East. And I'd just like to say it's our second year winning this Winning Edge Award. Last year we won it in federal, this year in the East. So I guess we're really executing how IBM would like us to. No stopping you guys. Absolutely. And you take a look at that Winning Edge Award and the awardees that I'm sure you've been talking with, it really comes down to how are they doing in the market? How are they growing their business? But let's really get down to it. It's how they're executing with customers. And how are they really using whatever area they want, whether it be storage, pure system, system X, and transforming their client's business. And in a way that really makes an impact on a day-to-day part of that client's IT business. And in the end it really goes to their bottom line. So I think it's very important. Now one of the factors that I've noticed throughout with some of the companies that have gotten recognition is their mastery over the topic, the subject. Absolutely. They're able to really just relay all the information. So tell us a little bit about the expertise that you guys bring to the table. Well, I think if you take a look at CAS7 is, we'd like to say is we'd like to do the hard work in the heavy lifting. I mean, anybody can drop a box off at your door. I mean, doing delivery, let's be honest. That's not the hard part. Really making this integrated into a customer environment is really what's important. So let's talk about, for instance, we're working with a regional hospital role in Maryland, creating what they're calling the medical grade infrastructure, or MGI. Now what are we trying to do with that? So the MGI project was around a couple things. Meaningful use stage two, they needed to encrypt all of their hospital data. They didn't want to have to pick and choose. So we came up with a solution on just encrypting everything. That's encrypting data at rest. That's encrypting their primary data. And then they also said like, we want to get away from things like, you know, an active passive data center. We don't want to do disaster recovery. We want to have our data available to us, no matter whether we have a data facility failure or not. So we worked with them using IBM technology, virtual storage center, IBM DS8870s, and we created this medical grade infrastructure with them that's going to allow them to transform their business. So if you take a look, what is that going to do to patient care? So, you know, storm rolls through the area, might knock out that primary data center, you know, maybe someone's having surgery. Maybe they need to be able to take a look at what medicines is that individual allergic to? You know, what were some of the previous work that's been done? It's going to impact patient care. And I think that's just one example of the type of project that we do at CES Severin. That, you know, really, it's not fulfillment. It's really developing a solution that has a profound impact on a client. And that's really what we do. That's powerful. And it, you know, kind of hits right at home. We're from Dallas and just not too long ago in Oklahoma, you had the tornadoes that came through and leveled some hospitals. And so just like you said, you're talking about solutions that really empower these facilities to continue to operate because of these hybrid systems that kind of keep all this information, this data available. Oh, absolutely. And it's that impact that's important. And it's not, as we say in the industry, it's not the lead speeds and feeds, you know, of these products that's important. It's again, you know, creating that impact for your clients, you know, having an impact that matters. And that's really what we strive at CES Severin to do. You know, so again, you know, that's the second year in a row winning the winning edge award for storage. I guess we're must be executing pretty well and we're, I mean, we're just really happy. It's quite an accomplishment. It really is. So in a couple of years, they're going to have to give you a special ring to signify your consecutive wins. Absolutely, absolutely. Now, when customers come to you, I would imagine a lot of times they don't know exactly what they want or need. They're coming to you for guidance. Walk me through how this works, how this, you know, how you are gathering information and you determine what needs to be done. Walk me through that process. Well, I guess that's really the fun part of the job and quite honestly, why I do what I do. So you take a look at what's my role as I'm the vice president of pre-sales consulting at CES Severin. I mean, I have a top notch team. I have a top notch team. Average tenure on my team at CES Severin is about, is about 10 years. Average tenure of my team in the industry is probably closer about 15. Wow. All right, so you take a look at, and these folks are trained skilled individuals. They understand the technology, but they really understand business. Most of my folks that are solution architects for me, they came from running an IT business. So they're able to go into a client, take a look at, you know, what are your challenges? What are you really looking to do? Let me relate to something in my background that I was able to do. Now let's take a look at what we're able to do with great technology, like from our friends at IBM to really, let's solve that problem, to get that profound impact that we talked about with the medical grade infrastructure. They can immediately kind of just connect the dots of all these. Absolutely. Interesting, I like that. So I guess that would be the best practices. Have a team like yours. Have a team, if you know you go and you find the best and you really, it's a culture. So our culture at CES Severin is really to provide, we like to call it the intelligent answers. Provide those intelligent answers that are going to have that impact on your customer's business. They're going to have an impact on whatever their business is, whether that's healthcare, whether that's be manufacturing, distribution, insurance, and really just getting down to that intelligent answer that has that impact, and that's what's really important. So you guys are out in the field, you're getting firsthand these topics and these recurring problems that customers are bringing to you. What are some trends that you're able to identify as you solve these problems? Well I think one of the ones, so let's talk about one in particular. So we like to say in this, and with IBM one thing we like to say is, let's try to just store less. So data, just the amount of data that an average organization has is just exploding and I'm not going to go into all the IDC numbers or all the Gartner numbers on all that. I mean they can go on with, here we know, it'll always be growing and it's never going to stop. So what are we doing from an IBM technology standpoint? Things like real-time compression. So we're able to go into a client and this is going to have a profound impact on them. What's it going to be able to do? We're going to be able to reduce their data load by 60% just by using IBM's real-time compression. Now you take a look now, what does that do? Now that's going to be able to sit there and tilt a cost curve for them. So maybe instead of them making that next large investment, having to make that next large storage investment, maybe in three months, maybe we're able to push that to nine months, 12 months. Now what are we able to do with that? We're able to use that capital that would have been tied up with that investment, use it to another part of their business in order to have innovation in another area. So maybe we're able to take that compression savings then use that into maybe data analytics. Maybe taking a look at, let's take a look at your organization and let's see you want to have more intelligence in your market and you really want to be able to squeeze that and that's what a lot of what you've seen folks like today, Jeff Jonas was doing a talk in the main tent this morning on that fact. So there might be like a direct impact where really what we're trying to do is we are free up that money for innovation. Try to get folks off that maintenance cycle, trying to get to where they're able to really innovate. For Mark, well that really is. So let's talk about savings as far as personnel because a lot of these solutions I would imagine enable customers to rely less on actual people sitting there and doing a kind of a mundane job. You're able to kind of have the software do that. Tell me about what you've experienced. Let's do a specific example on that. So around let's say virtual desktop infrastructure. So we've teamed with IBM and some of the great reference architectures that they've done in that virtual desktop space. Now what we've been able to do, we've been able to take a headcount that might be sitting there replacing PCs relatively mundane task and again, let's get to them for innovation. So we've been able to retask, retrain those people that might have just been delivering PCs, delivering monitors and gone to where they're really working in the data center, creating those virtual environments. Now what they're able to do, not access that data just from their desk, access that data on an iPad, on a tablet, maybe at home. Now, let's be able to do that where it's encrypted, protected. And now, if a laptop gets lost at an airport, maybe we're able to not have such a profound business impact and they're not gonna end up in the newspaper. So again, we've taken a headcount, retrain them into something that's innovative instead of mundane, again, profound business impact when you do that. This is real important business strategy. I mean, a lot of people I think, imagine IT as just kind of a necessary, the computer geeks in there doing the necessary. No, but this is so strategic because like you said, you're freeing up resources, you're able to advance areas that, prior to this, have not had the funding or had the manpower to move forward. Absolutely, Winston, and you take a look at is again, going from IT as being a cost center, as being a part of the innovation of an organization. And I think we really believe strongly at CS7 and when we talk with our clients about that, what we're talking about there is that business impact. The product will happen. It's defining what that business impact is going to be. And that's really how we, let's be honest, I think that's one of the things while we're executing that I think IBM saw in awarding us that the winning edge award two years in a row is that impact, so. So I know you have to run, but let me ask just a few more questions. When you talk to your customers, do you get the sense that you're still having to talk them into these things and really put it out there in a way and sell them? Or are they the point where it's pretty well known that these opportunities are out there and you're just making yourself available to implement these things? Well I think it starts, I mean there always has to be the first one. So Winston, there always has to be that first person that has to take that big step. Now at CES Severn, we've garnered through having project success after project success is having a customer base that's willing to take that first step with us. So we're typically able to find, someone was that first person who decided to take a look at encrypting their tape storage so they didn't end up in the Wall Street Journal when a tape fall off the back of the truck. There was always that first person who did that. But again, being able to show success in that track record and in there again, because CES Severn isn't looking at doing fulfillment, we're looking at providing those intelligent answers, those real solutions that have that profound impact. They'll go on a journey with us, a multi-year journey that we're really working together striving to hit those business goals that they're using, getting IT from being a cost center to being an innovator in business. I love that. So let's, for the folks that are watching and they want to do business with multi-year recognized IBM partner, what's the best way to get more information or get in touch with you guys? Absolutely. Our website's probably the best place to look, www.CESsevern.com, that's www.CESsevern.com. Perfect. Thanks Winston. Joseph King, appreciate it. Absolutely. Winston Edmondson Studio B, checking out.