 I see you, okay, good to see you. Bill Schmarzo is, we're here at theCUBE. Bill Schmarzo, theCUBE alumni at EMCF. Get your title, but you're like a chief consulting, engineering, services manager. Just keep talking, I like it, I like what's going on. I mean, you know, chief something. But tell us, you know, you go out and do all the engineering with top clients, these big enterprises, service providers. You come in essentially to kind of clean up the architecture, show them the future around big data. And so you see a lot of projects out there in the marketplace, so tell us, one, what's the state of your current job situation? How's the title of morphing? What are you working on? Oracle announcing a big data appliance. Spill your guts. Welcome to the water, Oracle, jump on in. The water's nice and cold. So I am the chief technology officer for the Enterprise Information Management Service Line. And in the area of big data, what we're seeing a lot is that customers are interested but confused. First off, they don't know what big data means. The first blush is, oh, that's about volume of data, right? And so they think about, you know, well, I don't deal with a petabyte of data, I only have a couple of terabytes. And so there's kind of an education process that we go through to help customers understand. When we say big data, what do we mean by that? And then the second area of the business, which I've been very heavily involved in in the last several months, is really helping customers understand where and how across their organization, across their enterprise, they can leverage big data, in particular to drive some key business initiatives. So that's kind of what I've been busy doing the last few months. What's the top pain points that you've seen out there? Obviously, big data's evolved from, you know, cool, you got some Hadoop, you got some proof of concepts. But you know, companies like Cloudera are growing, you got Hortonworks now in the mix, you got data stacks, you got Platforma, a lot of venture backed startups coming into the mix, EMCs, putting their toes in the waters with an appliance, you're in the storage business. Big data is stored on storage devices. Those storages are changing. What are the top pain points you're seeing with customers and what are their top killer challenges? Well, so I think one of the reasons why EMC jumped into the water, in particular in the analytic space, is because customers want to do more than just store the data, right? They want to get some value out of it. And so I think it was a very logical move for EMC to, in order to extend their value proposition to the customers and say, hey, we're more than just about storing data, we're about helping to get value out of that data. And so that's kind of the, you know, and I agree that there is the exciting, it's an exciting industry to be in right now because there is a lot of new technology coming up. There's a lot of companies who are deciding like Oracle has a jump into the water with both feet and the customers are going to be the beneficiaries. At the end of the day, they're going to be the beneficiaries of really understanding where and how they can use big data. So Bill, how real is this skills gap in terms of customers being able to exploit big data? And, you know, what are you guys doing there? So the skills gap is pretty significant. And it's because there's a new set of tools out there and a new set of disciplines required by practitioners, especially the data scientists. And parlance and process and everything else that goes with that, right? Yeah, there's, so let me give you an example. So I've been dealing with a large financial services company who has an army of financial advisors whose job is to, you know, give advice to their customers and bottom line is to get more customers to get more money under management, right? So they're trying to provide lots of good services and they have really mastered the CRM structured data space. They know how to glean data out of that. They know how to understand what the customers are trying to do and they use it to provide good advice to their customers. Really, you know, spot on advice. Well, all of a sudden comes all this social media data and they say, well, wow, how do we take advantage of this? And they look at it from two different perspectives. They're saying, how do I learn more about my current clients so I can make more meaningful, more relevant, you know, advice to them, recommendations as far as what sort of financial instruments they should be holding, but also giving their circle of friends who else should I be targeting, who's like them? Who may be a good candidate for the kind of services capabilities I provide? And so that's the kind of stuff I'm starting to see is that customers, they, for a long time now, companies have been trying to use data for competitive advantage, you know, trying to ask them really simple questions like who's my most valuable customer? Well, all of a sudden with all this social media data, you know, the most valuable customer may have one time been your biggest customer, most revenue, and then you've progressed and that became your most profitable customer. Well now, I think companies are going to the next step and saying, you know, there are financial measures out there that are better measures of how valuable customers meet, other than just how much revenue they generate, how much profit. For example, what's the network of friends that they've got that potentially I could go out there and recruit through? And so the definition of who's my most valuable customer is changing dramatically because of the kind of data that's available and the kind of analytic power that's out there to analyze that data. So we all hear about the up and to the right charts. Joe Tucci was talking this morning about 1.2 zettabytes, billion, trillion, trillion, billion, however you look at it. And most of that is unstructured. Now here's Oracle, which I usually think of as structured data, but of course now Ellison would say, well no, we've been dealing with unstructured data forever. Forever? Oh wow. I didn't know that. So we started with relation. Good for you. Then we went to Object and we went to, you know, unstructured data. Then the blobs out there, yeah. My question is, yeah, that's right. Is Oracle big data or is Oracle a boat anchor to big data? Wow. Well, I- You can say it's okay. It's okay. Yes, I can be honest. So first off on the positive side, whenever Oracle says there's serious about a space, I like to hear that because it just validates. Because they're never a market leader. They're a market chaser, right? So they're basically validating with a lot of companies that you've had a loft like Green Plum, like Caldera, like other companies have already been known for several years now that they, there's a market out there. And so Oracle jumping into the mix is just a validation that that market is real. And it's actually not just real for the Facebooks and Twitters and Zingers of the world, but it's real for the procter and gambles and the Merle lynches and the Wells Fargo as the corporate customers who really spend a lot of money on trying to figure out how to get advantage of this. So it's a great validation for the marketplace or somebody who is not going to define a marketplace but is going to chase after one. Bill, we've got 700 people watching us right now out there live, 708 viewers. A lot of them are in the enterprise space. Some are not. Some are gamers. Some are internet guys. They see all the big fancy Twitter, Facebook, you know, Groupon, Airbnb, all the stuff, the bubble stuff. And I'll say they see Apple. And they see the new culture going on. Your old school like us, you've seen the movie, you know, mainframe client server, business intelligence, data warehousing, all those old kind of fenced in proprietary technologies. What would you say to them about this new environment? I mean, because you're a Renaissance man in a way that you get tech and you're out on the leading edge and you're talking to customers. What do you say to those young kids and the new audience out there that doesn't have the history about what's really going on? Has it impacted them? Wow, that's a great question. So there's two bits of advice. One is, it's a new world paradigm out there. And there are technologies available out there that people like myself are trying to learn, like Hadoop and MapReduce and things like that, that the young generation needs to embrace, right? And needs to become what SQL was for me is to them. But what I'd also say is, don't forget the lessons of the past. Big data's not new, right? There was, I always like to tell a story about in 1988 when the retailers went from the Nielsen bi-monthly audit data to the scanner data, it opened up a whole new realm of the kinds of questions and the kinds of applications people could build. So there is a lot of valuable lessons in the past. And so, why do people build data warehouses, for example? They don't do it because they want to. I never met a single brand manager in my life who woke up in the morning and said, oh my gosh, I need a data warehouse, right? Never. But they wake up and they say, oh my gosh, I got competitive pressures, my pricing's out of sync, my market customers are shifting here. They've got real business problems and this new data and these new tools and this new generation of specialists out there can really help them get a handle as far as trying to answer those questions about who's my most valuable customer? Who are my most important products? What are my most successful campaigns? So right now, we're in San Francisco, California. We're at SiliconANGLE.tv. I'm John Furrier and we're here at Bill Schmarzo, veteran, again, I have said renaissance man. Bill, we've got Java 1 going on right now. I'll see they bought Java from Sun, MySQL, like you mentioned, what SQL was to you and Duke and these new technologies for the younger generation. There's a lot of developers trying to make sense of this new environment. How should they navigate the waters for them? I mean, obviously they have a lot of choices. We heard at VMworld, Cloud Foundry, David and I were just talking about that. So there's a lot of choices out there. There's also the consolidation. You mentioned the validation of Oracle, but also they're a consolidator. You know, they consolidate buying power. So it's the disruptive elements of startups, the young generation. How do you, what would you tell them to how they navigate the waters there? So the first thing is, you know, technology doesn't solve a meaningful business problem is a science experiment. And so as you look at what technology can do, I mean, that's what I would focus in on. I would try to understand, and I do what I do every day, right? I try to understand what technology can do to help my clients make better decisions, to monetize their data, monetize their decisions more effectively. And whether you're a startup company who's trying to, you know, embrace a new paradigm in the BI tool space, for example, a BI tool that maybe has more intelligence built into it, it's all about how you enable the business users to make better decisions. And so don't lose focus on the brass ring that's out there, which is if I can help people make better decisions, they will truly be the path to my door, or Oracle by me, and I'll get rich that way. So where's EMC? So I was at VMworld and I had a chance to meet you guys, the executives at the executive breakfast, and I saw Bill Cook there from the Green Plum Group, I also saw Sanjell Patel from Isilon, and my question was, Sanjell, I said, you guys are big data, not Green Plum. I mean, Green Plum is smaller compared to Isilon. Isilon's still doing a lot of big data stuff, so is EMC confused right now on the big data equation mostly? I know, I don't think at all. I think they understand the fact that there's a big difference between being able to house and manage data and being able to take advantage of that data to make better decisions. I actually, I really think EMC gets it. I think they really have the Green Plum acquisition. I mean, I wasn't around here when they made that, I actually joined after they made the acquisition. I thought it was a smart move on their part because all of a sudden, when companies think about data, storing and managing large amounts of data, whether in a single setting or virtualized across an enterprise, they think EMC, they think VMware. Well, what logical place to go that's somebody to help them understand how to get value out of that, then to work with someone like EMC who already has that sort of DNA and pedigree in their organization. So I wonder, Bill, if you could explain something to me. I want to dig into a little bit, share with us some of EMC's experience and your experience. We lived in a world of referential integrity and two-phase commits and a lot of discussion on data quality, for example. You don't hear a lot of discussion about data quality in this new emerging big data space. Explain why that is and what's different. So actually, I think the data quality discussion, the reason why you don't hear much about data quality today, because most of the companies that, it is again, my humble opinion, most of the companies that talk about big data are companies that really, their business is around ad serving. So it's the Googles, it's the Yahoo's, it's the Zingas, right, it's the Twitters and a lot of it has to do with the cost of a false positive. In essence, what is the cost for me to serve you the wrong ad? Well, it's zero. Yeah, it's zero, right? And so I think what happens is that they're at the very forefront, these companies, like the Googles and Facebooks and such, of understanding that the speed of decision is much more important than the accuracy decision. Probably true in fraud as well. If you're in the fraud space, making fast decisions that you're 90% confident with is better than being 100% confident and that takes you two to three weeks to make the decision. So I think that's reason why you don't see a lot of discussion on data quality because for a lot of those kind of business problems, speed is more important than quality. However, if you're making pricing decisions, if you're trying to make prescription decisions, you're trying to make product assortment and supply chain and procurement decisions, all of a sudden, the quality of the decision becomes a lot more important than the speed. And what we're seeing now is a shift. Companies are starting to have a lot more dialogue about, well, how do I ensure that the quality of my decision, the quality of the data that I'm based on my decision on is solid. Maybe not 100%, but as a confidence level, it's around 98%, 99% confidence level. What is your, this is more of EMC versus the rest of the world question, you know, obviously Hadoop is out there, you got these other approaches, Hortonworks and others. What's your, what's your angle on that? What do you tell the marketplace when they say, oh, you know, got Cloudera does this, they're doing licensing revenue now and getting a great client base, growing like crazy. Pat Gelsing was very clear to us in his multiple conversations. He wants to own the business and be a leader. So you guys don't have sharp elbows, which is good. I, you know, I initially, I initially accused you guys of being a little bit of sharp elbow, but then you guys have a competitive position. MapR is at your approach you're taking, Cloudera has their approach. Could you just explain for the folks out there, what is the EMC position vis-a-vis Cloudera and Hortonworks and others? Well, I think the EMC position is that Hadoop is not a spot solution. And I think you see that in how we, in our green plum messaging, for example, we talk about, you know, integration in the same environment of both SQL structured data and Hadoop front structured data. That we don't see Hadoop as a business by itself, but as a piece of a larger business. And that, and that has to do with the fact that those kind of this SQL and the Hadoop together allow you to solve a lot of different problems you couldn't solve before. So I think our message is really about, you know, it's not just about Hadoop, it's about the bigger thing we're trying to do as far as help customers take advantage of that data from monetization perspective. Can we learn anything from, you know, picking up on that, follow up on that? Can we learn anything from the whole Linux evolution? I mean, basically, the world left Red Hat alone to kind of do its thing. The world doesn't seem to be leaving Cloudera alone. Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know what to say, to be honest with you. I think it's an interesting answer either. I don't have the answer. The answer is not leaving Cloudera alone. So the competitive pressure is still there. So the incubation of the ecosystem. So there's more competitive pressure on this sector. It's still embryonic or growing. Even in the Red Hat era, there was competitive pressure, but just Red Hat got out so big and so fast, made some strategic partnerships with IBM in the early days. It really helped to lock up a market position. It's still the Wild Wild West and Hadoop space. So do you think that means just a bigger pie overall? Oh, I think what'll happen is you'll see faster innovation and eventually you'll see consolidation. Most marketplaces end up with one or two leaders and three or four followers. We'll eventually see that too. I don't know if that'll be 18 months or three years from now, but I think you're going to see massive innovation in all kinds of fronts, whether it's in the capabilities of Hadoop itself or the integration of Hadoop back into standard BI tools. The BI tool vendors, by the way, are standing on the sidelines letting this thing go past them by. So I think you're going to see a massive amount of innovation and it's going to be an interesting marketplace with 18 months from now. Who knows who's going to be standing? Bill, I have a question for you. It's not going to be standing. Oracle will always be standing. This is the most important question of my line of questioning. You have a son that plays pro baseball. That's right. So one, how's he doing? What do you think of the Red Sox? And two, who do you think is going to win the Super Bowl this year in the NFL? So, my son is with the Oracle Orioles organization. He's in the minor leagues. Orioles. And I'm sorry, the Orioles. Orioles. The dreaded Orioles. Yeah, the dreaded Orioles who knocked the Red Sox out of the playoffs. Of course, of course. He and his friends are feeling pretty good about the role they had to play and deciding who was going to win. Did you see the end of that game? They were dancing up and down like it was the World Series victory. You know, credit to them. That day of baseball was the two extra in games and four teams playing for two spots down to the wire. There could not have been a better day of baseball in the history of baseball. That's why the Wildcats are such a great, great thing. How about football? What do you think is going to happen with football as the Patriots were in town here beating up on the Raiders? We have a good team this year. The Niners beat the Eagles. Vic was shocked. What do you think is going to happen to football? You know, I could go with the Packers. I think the Packers have a solid team. They've got to repeat. They're going to repeat. I think they're going to repeat. I mean, anything can happen because injuries can change, but they've got a solid offense and good solid defense. They play in a division where it's tough, but we're seeing like Minnesota looks very exposed and very weak. The Bears are always kind of, they show up one week, no show up the next week. So I think it's a Green Bay year, but I got to tell you. World Series, World Series. Who do you like? Yankees? I like Philadelphia. They're struggling. I like Philadelphia. I think they've got better pitching. They hit the ball better. And of course, given my background, I believe pitching in end of the day wins. Does your son pitch? My son's a pitcher, yeah. Lefty or righty? He's a righty, so he curses me and he goes to bed every night. I didn't make him a lefty. Pally Grant, of course. Palo Alto High School. My boy is the catcher on the varsity team. So final question. This is getting back to Oracle. Took a little change of pace. I had to get the sports question in. I know you're a big sports fan. I see it on the sidelines every week. If you were at Larry Ellison's staff sitting in the front row, he made a comment on the keynote. Yes, they always mark her. He's going to make the numbers. And he's the billionaire. He walks in, you know, off the boat, off his son's, you know, he said, uh, wedding. So he flew in, probably hung over. Um, so, so you're on Larry's team. What do you say to him? If he says, Bill, I really need your advice. What should I do with Oracle? What do you say to him? What's your advice to? Well, I would tell him to split him up. Yeah. Split him up, you know. Lower prices. Lower prices, yes. Break into smaller divisions. No, I mean, Larry's a very competitive person. You are too. I mean, obviously he races boats. Obviously you see his competitiveness on stage. You know, he's very much performance. He thinks he can win the game. He positions the competition really well as Dave was pointing out. So, you know, Larry's a competitive person, but he said, hey, I want Oracle to be a monster house in the future. What should I do? Well, you work for Oracle in this scenario. Okay, well, so. Not EMC. So put it on the Oracle hat. I think that Oracle's a very scary competitor, right? And they're a very scary company because they can bring to bear so many resources. I think their move into analytics is a good move for them because it helps at the end of the day, whether you sell ERP systems or you sell database software or you're selling exadata boxes or whatever you're selling, customers end of the day are trying to make better decisions. They're trying to gain competitive advantage. And one of the best ways to deliver competitive advantage is through analytics. And a combination of analytics with a strong consulting force that knows how to go in and talk to a customer, speak their language and make certain that the solution that they're putting in place really drives business value. So my advice to Larry would be double down on analytics. So I think it's a key place to go. And, you know, that's also self-serving for me because I believe analytics is the place to go. Yeah, that's your religion. What about how they handle in Sun, obviously? The key notes was all about Sun microsystems. Kind of reference to IBM, but kind of an implied HP, kind of look at, we got hardware, kick and ass. They have Java one going on at the same time, got MySQL. How should they handle that? That's an open source play and it's causing some angst in the community. What do you think they should do about that? There's a lot of questions buried in there, John. I'm not sure which one is third. Java one and MySQL. Okay, well, Java one and MySQL is a smart move in their part. I mean, I think it's a way for them to lead an open movement, be seen as good community players while in reality not taking their thumbs off the direction of what's going on. So, you know, it's open as long as they want it to be open and it's open kind of in their direction. So, you know, it's a good move in their part. It's smart. And, you know, and the hardware move is interesting because it's part of me that says that Larry probably has seen enough of Apple to realize, you know, maybe Apple wasn't wrong after all. But the fact that I can integrate and optimize my software from my hardware allows me to do things differently, right? Special purpose versus general purpose, right? Right. And what would be wonderful for my customer I deal with is if Oracle would go the next step in the Apple maturation, which is a go to simplicity because Oracle right now is anything but simple, right? All their products are hard to implement, hard to use, and I always come back to the Apple iPod, right? Yeah. There it was. It does a few things to perfection. It broke a market, it created a whole new market. So if there's any advice I could give to Larry Ellison, if he's trying to follow and map what Apple has done, what Steve and Josh have done, go the next step and think about simplicity of purpose. All right. Bill Schmarzo with EMC, obviously EMC, validating the big data space themselves by jumping into Hadoop, really one of the first big, the first big vendor to jump into the Hadoop space where, you know, it was dominated by Cloudera. Cloudera obviously is a sizable lead and then following that, a bunch of players came in, MapR, DataStacks, you know, kind of the anti-consider crowd, but you know what, at the end of the day, innovations evolving, consolidation, I'm sure your M&A teams got the short list going. So Bill Schmarzo, thanks for sharing your knowledge and sports trivia with us. Appreciate it. Great to see you, Bill. Take care. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. That was a pleasure.