 Live from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. It's theCUBE, covering VMworld 2016. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors. And welcome back to VMworld. We're wrapping up our first day coverage of a very exciting first day here on theCUBE of what's happening here at Mandalay Bay. I'm joined by Mark Farley, John Furrier and Sue Miniman. And gentlemen, let's go back to first guest of the day, Michael Dell on the set. The two of you had a chance to talk with him. Big takeaway from what Michael had to say about the deal that hasn't been done yet, John. Michael Dell was leaning forward. He's always engaging. And I got to give Michael Dell some props. He's authentic in the sense he likes the interaction, but he's so polished pro. He doesn't say anything. Because he's still like managers, like he's on the 90 day shot clock because he's so much going on in his business. Even though he's a private company, Stu, he's not public, he still really can't talk. He's almost acting like a public company. So he has to kind of balance himself between being communicative, being social, because he's very social on social media. But he can't say anything specific because the Dell deal closing, China is not closed. Rob Hope broke a story on Slip and Angle to refute the story that was on Bloomberg. Last week saying that China deals done, it's not. It's on track, as Michael Dell said. So the Dell EMC deal is not done. It's being held up by China. Discussions continue. It's on track, whatever that means. I take it to mean that it's basically being stalled and or being negotiated. Something's going on. Dave Vellante thinks that there's some concessions being discussed. But that's just speculation on our part, Stu. I don't know what you have to do. Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, John, you talked about how they're doing everything they can to be ready to throw that switch as soon as that China approval comes through. The stockholders have already approved everything. US and Europe have already approved everything. Dell's already changed the name of the company to Dell Technologies, which means that they're, you know, it's just the last piece. It's just waiting for the baton to be handed off from China. It sounds like it's mostly done. To John, your question, though, Michael is very engaging. He really understands this technology. John, as you've said many times, when you've got the founder at the helm, he is invested, it's his company. It's a lot of his money involved here. And boy, he understands exactly what's going on here. He talks to the product groups. He's really passionate about all the pieces. And VMware is a critical component. I mean, he was, you know, almost livid when I mentioned to him that some people think that Dell's going to sell off VMware. You know, two years ago, when we talked about- It was very aggressive to that point. You asked him specifically, and will you spin off VMware? People don't know what they're talking about, is what he said. Yeah, John, I mean- Look at the numbers, is what he said. When you look at, you know, for years we talked about the EMC Federation and VMware was the crown jewel of that. So if you bought that company, there were lots of people who said, well maybe Cisco should buy EMC and just buy VMware and get rid of the rest. Why would you buy EMC? If VMware wasn't a major piece of what you wanted, we understand where software is going. We understand what's happening, you know. Even if they wanted to sell us to, it's complicated. So much math involved. And plus VMware, given their announcements here, is very strategic. And so I see that not going away unless something medieval happens. But onto China point, I mean, I think it's my take. I think, much as my opinion, I have no source, I have no data. This is just my kind of gut feel. I think Michael Dell's being taken hostage on by the Chinese, you know, from a business standpoint, but negotiating concessions, investments in China. Because remember, Michael Dell said on theCUBE here, he does billions and billions of dollars in China, selling to China, it's a big market for him. So, you know, for him to go in and get the China approval, I'm sort of groveling going over there. He's got to, he's got to kiss the ring over there, get to understand, then probably going to get some concessions, negotiate and try to understand it so that the Chinese competitors can either catch up and or understand the dynamics. So I definitely think China's holding this thing up on purpose by design. That's just my gut feeling. Yeah, so how big a fly in the ointment is that, Mark, you think? I mean, this would have been a pretty big stage to have walked out and holding right and the big kumbaya moment didn't happen today. Yeah, they didn't have the big kumbaya, but I don't think it was that big a fly in the ointment either. It would have been a perfect scenario if they'd been able to announce that the deal had finally closed with Chinese approval, but they're still going forward. You know, they've still got a lot to do. They've got a lot of work. They've got a lot to look forward to. I don't think it's that big of a downer. But isn't it still kind of the elephant in the living room as far as VMware and it's not the first time Michael Dell was asked about what's going to happen in the future of this company and he's been adamant about it, very consistently adamant about it. Yeah, but a lot of the- There's still persistence. There's still that chatter out there. Yeah, but a lot of the scenario for this coming, you know, part of why this acquisition is happening in the first place is the position that EMC was put into, you know, with investors coming in and looking at selling off parts of the company. So EMC for the last year and a half, two years was looking at breaking up the company. Well, that's not really an issue anymore because Dell Technologies is a private company. They don't have investors pressuring them to sell off different units. So they can put it all together. They can run the strategy however they want. They don't have to worry about investors like that. They're fine, they're clear. Yeah, no, I just, I think when we look back at this, you know, a year from now, we're not going to be talking about, oh, what week did this deal closed? We're going to be talking about, you know, what did VMware do to move forward their product line? You know, what's happening in the ecosystem and the rest of this, you know, will kind of be, you know, left behind. And I got some notes from today. I think what's interesting, I want to, I made a little scribe on some key points. I thought the big thing that I walked away with this morning is that VMware realizes that the ecosystem is their strategic weapon and they're going to reboot that energy and try to make it so that everyone's making money and can be positioned for the next generation. And they use words like independent, IBM cloud deal on stage. And so I think that has been a kind of a cloud that's been hanging over VMware in recent years in my opinion. The notion of managed cloud is up in front and center and they're targeting operations people and they're doubling down on that they've tried in the past, been confused by some of the product offerings. And then IOT, I love that message. Pat Gelsinger was very upfront saying by 2019, there'll be more machine enabled devices versus humans connected to the internet. So he's kind of teasing out kind of a trend line that's going to be specific to them that they want to take advantage to on above their layer and the stack. And then finally, the big news is of all about Pat Gelsinger's keynote around cloud, architecture, cross cloud, they're calling it. Kind of a tongue twister, even Pat Gelsinger was kind of tumbled it a few times on stage, but cross cloud architecture, cross cloud foundation, which is kind of like a group of people and then cross cloud services. Again, it's still a tongue twisters too. That's going to be, I think their core thing. And I expect to hear from Pat tomorrow, him banging on the table, cross cloud, cross cloud, which is simply multiple clouds. Yeah, absolutely. Coming into the show, where VMware is going with the cloud, number one on my list here, Microsoft's going to come out with Azure Stack next year. VMware better have an answer as to how they, stay relevant, I've said many times, VMware's dominant in the enterprise data center, but as customers really figure out how to do an actual hybrid cloud in that deployment, if VMware can't move along and live in some of those environments, it's great to see them do expand their deal with IBM, but their service providers and then mature their channel to be able to get them to handle modern workloads and more environments, otherwise they could be left behind as, I hate to say, a legacy company. Stu, that's a great point. I think that's interesting. In fact, you heard earlier today that VMware is kind of talking about this notion of, finally admitting it, there's a public cloud and acknowledging it and making it part of the strategy. So it's almost like they're playing that 3D chess match against Microsoft. And if Microsoft plays it right, they could checkmate VMware. That is interesting. And I think, what does that mean to me? They're retooling. This is a retooling year for VMware. They kind of clean out some of the things that they had to pivot on in the past. What's your thoughts? You see it, you see it the same way, maybe it's a little bit aggressive, retooling. It's interesting, when VMware bought NYSERA, NYSERA can work in a multi-cloud environment. So that's some of the stitching in between. There's some management tools that they've bought over the years that showed promise to live in kind of that multi-cloud inter-cloud world. So it's good to see VMware finally speaking up and talking about that because there's a battle for who's going to win that orchestration war. You know, living in the data center, why Amazon's not there. Microsoft has a strong play. VMware should have a stronger play. They've based on today's news, though, Stu, cross-cloud architecture and IBM on stage, you would expect Microsoft to be a partner for VMware, right? Microsoft's definitely a partner for Dell. Very big partner for Dell. EMC's had an interesting dance with Microsoft over the years. VMware has had Microsoft as the number one workload in their environments forever, but it's not exactly a warm, loving embrace between Microsoft and VMware. And Sanjay Poon and John was talking earlier, and he made, I'm trying to figure out who's going to be up on stage, but apparently he wouldn't reveal. He said there's going to be a major software plan. I said, Microsoft, I said, it's going to be Microsoft SAP or Salesforce. And he says, one of those three. So I think Microsoft's already been on SAP, probably Salesforce. So I'm guessing Salesforce on stage tomorrow is going to be, that's my prediction. But this is the end user computing game. Will that ship come home? Will it sail or, Stu, will that ship sail? End user computing. I mean, numbers are up, performance is up. Yeah, well, you talked to Sanjay John and his group, he's ridden that boat and he's doing well with it so much that he's kind of increased what he's doing inside of VMware. So Sanjay's doing well. AirWatch has been a successful acquisition. Teams do doing quite well. So a good success story for VMware. And Sanjay Pune, I got to say, has really rose through the ranks, Stu. He's right now basically number two in VMware by my assessments of looking at the, kind of have the roles of responsibility. He's grown his business, is going to be kind of across from, he's taken on the head of marketing for VMware. That's been quietly announced. That wasn't really a big press release. They didn't really showcase that, but the CMO now reports up to Sanjay Pune, which means to me that they got this cross fertilization concept going on. And with the exit of Carl Echenbach, Bill Fathers amongst other talent, I see a retooling going on, kind of quietly in mid-flight here, Stu. That's my kind of little takeaway. Well, a lot of moving parts and two more days to really kick the tires on these things and find out where it all shakes out. So gentlemen, great start to a good show and we'll be back tomorrow and Wednesday as well right here on theCUBE. More from VMworld tomorrow. We will see you then, bright and early Tuesday. See you then.