 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Cover EMC World 2016, brought to you by EMC. Now, here are your hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are live in Las Vegas for EMC World 2016. This is SiliconANGLE Media's theCUBE, our flagship program, we go out to the events, extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, my co-host Dave Vellante. Our next guest is Michelle Allen Approach, who is the Senior EVP and CEO of North American Operators at those SC, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you very much. So you have been working with EMC now for about four years. What is this relationship like? Talk about the philosophy around what you guys are doing together and as a customer, what's going on? Right, right. So in year 2012, we founded this Enhanced Alliance with EMC Federation and it was really based on a joint view that our customer wants now to consume technology as a service, so first point. Second point, they want to have a full OPEX model and third point, they expect a full end-to-end and turnkey solution. So three major things really. And we were sharing these three views and that's why we created in year 2012 this Enhanced Alliance. We've seen that we have invested into a broad range of technology with our friends at EMC. To tell you the truth, in year 2012, we really began by deploying very massively VBlock everywhere, okay, that was quite traditional. Then we moved on to Enterprise Private Cloud, then after to the EHC, the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud and now we're working with EMC and VMware on the software design data center which we are deploying to our customer and particularly to our first largest customer, Siemens. I know Siemens was testifying this morning about smart storage and behind this smart storage is something we've built together through this Enhanced Alliance. So I wonder if we can pick up on that. So your philosophy is as a service, it's got to be an OPEX model and it's got to have end-to-end capabilities. Exactly, so that's really the three things we were sharing with the Federation which are the basis of this alliance. Which on the two of the three are sort of new for EMC, right? They're typically not as a service, typically not an OPEX model, but of course they have end-to-end capabilities. So talk about the value that ATOS brings to that relationship and what's the value that EMC brings. Yeah, so basically EMC is bringing first and foremost innovation. Innovation to the customer, faster and more innovation. We are bringing end-to-end commitment and we are bringing a single accountability to the customer and that's very important because we are integrating EMC and VMware building blocks into our solution under one single hat facing the customer. And that's the most important value. The last point which really has developed in the last, maybe 18 months is that on top of everything I have said, now customers are beyond anything what they want is business outcome. They don't want you to sell a new technology even if it's a cutting edge strategy. To tell you the truth, they don't really care about the technology. They care about what the technology is going to make them unable to do. So is it speed? Is it agility? Is it cost takeout? But that's a business outcome I'm talking about. So we hear a lot about digital transformation. You hear that everywhere. So how does that theme of digital transformation, what's the outcome that customers are looking for in that context? Well, so at ATOS we have named our digital transformation strategy Digital Edge. So that stands for engineer, design, gather and ends, that's the edge. We've built this digital strategy with the capabilities of our partners. As I said, the PC, the DDC, and another partner service now in order to fully give an orchestrated and automated service to our customer. Not only at the level of the infrastructure, but at the level of the infrastructure, the application, and the security gathering, all of that. So you're set service now? Yeah, I did. Okay, so they're embedded in that. Exactly. In this Digital Edge offer we have, it's a full holistic offer which is orchestrated by ServiceNow and in which we have the different building blocks. One is obviously the legacy infrastructure because our clients are complex and still have legacy infrastructure. EPC with EMC and the software design data center. Then on top of that, we're linking it with Public Cloud, mostly with AWS and Azure. So everything as a service, that's kind of the service now. Well, everything being into one hat. And you were asking about what's the value at the end to the customer. I mean, you really have now two type of companies. You have the brand new companies like the Booking and RBNB. The infrastructure and the application landscape is actually quite simple because it's brand new. So they have all the bright and shiny thing that have been issued in the last two years. Now, when you talk about Siemens, you talk General Electric, you talk whoever. They have a layer of infrastructure and application that they've been building for years. This is what our strategy is proposing, managing under one single ad, the old world and the new world, both at the level of the infrastructure and the application. Now, you made an acquisition, Xerox ITO, right? Can you talk about that? How does that fit into the strategy? Sure, so, I mean, before diving into it, ATOS today is making, it will take 13 billion, worldwide, 100,000 people, out of which, after Xerox ITO acquisition, here in the US, we're making 2.5 billion, 13,000 people. So really what it brought us here in the US was a jump from a situation in which we were subcritical in terms of size, footprint, capabilities to the first ATOS operation in the world, largest, larger than Germany, UK or France. So US is our first operation. What it was really was bringing the capabilities of ATOS and its partners to the Xerox ITO portfolio of clients because with 40 clients, you had most of the revenue that Xerox ITO was making in the US. And it was the first step of the strategy was materializing the synergies between the two. That's what we've been doing for the last 12 months because we closed the acquisition pretty much 12 months ago. The second step is obviously a very aggressively gaining market share and this digital edge offered that I was referring to just a moment ago. We just sold it to the largest agrochemical company here based in the US, 230 million on seven years. So it works. It's something that our customer are expecting which is bringing value. And obviously the third step is to carry on our inorganic development. ATOS has always been a very acquisitive company. We've been built through acquisition in our last 10 years and we're going to carry on doing so in the world but particularly here in the US. So where do you see the partnership with EMC going? And maybe you could describe, give us the journey if you will of the partnership. Well, you know, we've just launched some months ago the second time of this partnership which we called Enhanced Alliance 2.0. So it's more innovation, more engineers being certified on your technology. Now we have 5,000 engineers throughout the world certified on new technologies and we make a really, really big bet on the software design data centers. With both your technology and now with Dell too at the level of the blades. And I would add that we, on top of that, we are, we had this rare situation in which this alliance is, at the same time, more and more and more large, larger, okay, on a footprint, on a geographical footprint and deeper in term of offers. So that's what we're going to carry on doing. What are some of the, you know, sort of high profile wins that you had or initiatives? I know, well, you've got something going on in the Olympics, right? Is it Brazil? What are some of the things you can talk about? Maybe some examples there. Sure, so the Olympics, every two years it's a great thing to be the worldwide IT partner of the Olympics. We've been the worldwide IT partner of the IOC for now 15 years. We still have, we've got our contract goes until year 2024. So right now we're working obviously very intensively on Rio and on Pyongyang because we are beginning working four years in advance before the games. In the games, what we are doing is that we are operating 80 application, 80 critical application. I'm not going to list all of them but just to give you an example, you know, for example, we are operating the system that beams the results throughout the world in less than one second. We are operating the system that is recruiting and managing the 70,000 volunteers working on a game. We are operating the system which is issuing and managing 300,000 accreditations to athletes, journalists, public that has a status actually of a visa. You can enter in Brazil with this document, it's as good as a visa. And finally, and maybe the most impressive to me is that we've built a security operation center based on data analytics technologies which is managing 200 IT security event by second. Meaning that by second on a game, London, Beijing, Sochi, there is 200 IT event coming in so you don't know if it's malware, spyware, crypto lockers, whatever. And this without any impact on the game. You know, at the end of the day, we'll be in front of our PC, television or mobile on the 14th of August for the 100 meter final. I'm pretty sure Usain Bolt will be in the starting block. So imagine 60,000 people watching in the stadium, four billion people watching the game on their TV or mobile, even more and more mobile by the way, tablets and so on. You can't have an outage. At the end of the day, you can't. I mean, it's simply not an option. So it's maybe the most demanding service contract that we're operating and it's a great, it's a great great experience. So now we've been introducing EMC into the Olympics. We're delivering the Olympics with EMC in Rio and what really Rio is changing is that we used to build the infrastructure of the Olympics each time another one at each Olympic if you want, okay? Each time a new one. Now with what we are introducing at Rio, it will be for the IOC, a build and reuse. And that's completely new. Now at the next Olympics, Pyongyang, we will then take that entirely to the cloud. So it's, you see, it's a progression. Yeah, progression and it shows that the most secure cloud is private or hybrid cloud. That's why it, because look, the Olympics with 280 security event, that's the choice they have made. And you need agile. You need to have also low latency. Exactly. So you have high performance environment. Exactly. That massive scale. Massive scale. What do you, what's the, what's the choice product there? Is it using some of the DSSD stuff, using the, the rack scale stuff? What are some of the products that you know? It's pretty much all of all of the above. We've been, we've been operating with the, with the full range of the federation. And I said, and I said, what is interesting is that it really evolved years after years. Anyway, that's, can you get the cube there? And we can get a spot to broadcast live at the Olympics in Rio. You will be my personal guest. Thank you. Okay, the cube is going to Rio. No, demanding is really understatement. That is such a massive contract. But in general, you have customers, they want as a service, they have mobile, they're consuming. What would you share your advice to others that are looking to do what you're doing? You have a lot of experience over the years, working with the EMC, that's great. But now that you're on the front edge, you're in the bleeding edge, but you got to ship, scale, and performance. What advice would you give others out there that are doing the same, that are in your book, that have the same customer concerns? Well, I would, I mean, I would begin with, as I was saying, with business outcome. What is it that you want to achieve? What is it that the technology you are bringing to the table, not take, I would not take an engineer position which is so proud of its technology, but really takes the other way around and say, hey, Mr. Customer, you know, what is it that you want? Do you want speed? Do you want agility? Do you want first that I take out cost? And what is it that I need to go through in order to achieve such a business outcome? That, to me, is the first important point and then design, you know, then design the solution that actually fit with this business outcome and which encompass, I'm really, really insisting on that, both the new world and the new world is all around us and the old world, because don't forget that there is still AS400 and mainframe all over the place and you still need to, for CIO, have a complete view and integrated view of the entire infrastructure. Michel Allen, take a minute to close the segment and share with the audience how they should engage with you, how do you engage with your customers and how do people take advantage of the greatness of ATOS? Well, we've built, I think, in the world and in the US, a very easy way to work with us. We are a company which is at the service of our customer. We are understanding humble, it's important, humility is very important, humble to our customer and we want to make it work. So, I mean, at the end of the day, beyond the technology, is really what is it that you do for your customer, even on a personal basis. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE, sharing your insights here. Thank you for welcoming me. EMC World. We are here, going to the Olympics. We heard personal guests. We're going to sit-up shop in the Olympics. Rio, great place. Looking forward to a great time here at EMC World. Wrapping up day three coming up, three days of wall-to-wall coverage. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. You're watching theCUBE. Looking back at the history of the world,