 Live from Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE at IBM Interconnect 2015. Brought to you by headline sponsor, IBM. Live inside theCUBE, I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE. This is theCUBE, our flagship program. We're out to the events to try to see through the noise. Our next guest is Phil Buckaloo, VP of Enterprise Mobile with IBM. Welcome to theCUBE. Hi, thank you, appreciate it. So, is mobile hot still? I mean, it's pretty explosive, you know? Tell us what's going on. Yeah, well, we see, you know, there's tons of things happening in the mobile space right now. Everybody is kind of realizing that mobile is helping change the way we all live, we work, we play. It's having big impacts on industries of all sizes, big and small. And companies that have figured out how to embrace mobile to change the way they interact with consumers or employees are really starting to see huge benefits in the way that they're getting their work done. Before you get into the IBM talk, I want to ask you one specific question. I was kind of joking a little bit. Of course, we know mobile's hot. Take a step back because mobile's certain, give a reality check for the folks watching on how huge mobile has changed business from a sense of how customers are interacting, how apps are changing. I mean, mobile certainly has been like the major catalyst that's sliced through all the issues of, and it puts it right in front of the CEO's face and says, this is the new way that you need to be thinking. Well, everyone, this is the way we've all chosen to interact with everyone and everything. We don't want to wait anymore. We want instant gratification. When I have an idea, when I want to interact with a business, I want to do it right now in one of the 150 times a day I reach into my pocket to pull out my mobile device. And so that's why in so many, the industry's now, they've seen it. They've had a taste of mobile. Everybody's got one or two mobile apps out there. And they started to see the impact it has on their business. And so now they're thinking about, okay, how do I get more of that? How do I scale that? How do I do more? Because there's so much opportunity. And the customers are connected. It's because the customers are connected to the mobile device. It's an innovative thing. And the mobile device, it's kind of a paradigm shift too, because so much is different about mobile. You can deal with context. You can anticipate what your client wants based upon where they are or what they've done. And that really allows you to build experiences that are engaging and really interact with your customers in ways that you haven't before. And that drives a lot of change through the pipeline on the back. All right, so let's dig this in. Interconnect, obviously, Blue Mix Cloud is a huge enabler for powering the edge of the network. We heard, you know, the speedboat racers using data with Blue Mix. So obviously under the hood, you got an engine of innovation with the cloud. Mobile's the touch point. What's going on here at Interconnect that's rocking with mobile? What's the key things that are trending? What conversations are you guys having that's top of mind? Well, what we've done is we've taken our technology and we've introduced a new platform. The mobile first platform is basically allowing us to help companies address all the challenges of mobile. We've made it more modular so companies can take only what they need. They don't have to start over. They can work with their existing apps, plug it in and it gives them the management, the security so that they don't have to recreate the wheel every time they're dealing with a new mobile app. You know, one of the challenges that we see is that, you know, customers, they built a couple of apps in the past but in the next 12 months, they got to build six more. We did some research and said that 85% of them have a backlog of up to 20 apps. And so when you start to think about what's in front of you, you realize, okay, I got to be able to secure things. I got to be able to connect to my back end. I need to be able to make these things better over and over again. And really those are some of the changes that people are looking for and that's why we're so excited. So I got to ask you, the consumer trend drives a lot of action on the mobile side. It's pretty obvious Uber is a great poster child of what mobile can do with data and new business, new way to think about business models, a new way to work, a new way to interact. But also there's been failures. I mean, mobile first is not a guaranteed path to success. I mean, if you missed the mark on UX and design, you could die. The founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, he started a couple of companies. Kevin Rose, Dave, he started more, they failed. So it's not about being the best, I mean, they're smart guys, they're super smart, but it's just a misfire. If you miss the mark, it's hard to win. So many people underestimate what it takes to be successful in mobile. You have to be able to create engaging experiences that people want. And that's really the driver. And a lot of people look at mobile and they say, all right, I just want to build an app. And so everybody will build one app or two apps. But then they start to realize that there's so much more than that. And it's not a one, mobile's not one and done, like a lot of application and IT projects the past. You have to be continuing to invest. You have to continuously innovate. To your point, app stores have also magnified the success or the failure of any apps because people can respond immediately on whether or not the app is meeting their needs. So it's really exacerbated. Is the app, mobile app, is it becoming disposable or is that a sign of a bad app or is that a sign of an app, is that okay? The mobile apps are evolving fast because there's so much in the industry where people realize they can gain a competitive advantage by adding new capabilities and new types of engagement through those mobile apps. And so you have to be ready to continuously innovate. And this kind of gets to some of the challenges of two speed IT. In the mobile world, you need to be innovating your mobile apps every two to three months. Whereas in the traditional world, you're in waterfall projects and these things are taking six, nine months. And so that's really one of the things that we've been working with our clients to help them address, to build a kind of a middle tier places to store your data that can take pieces of things from those systems of record that allow the mobile developers to iterate at mobile speed while you still connect because in order for an app to add value, it has to do something, it has to connect to those backend systems. And so that's really a way that a lot of our clients have been excited about what we've been bringing to market. So how would you summarize IBM's mobile strategy, enterprise mobile strategy? Well, we've got really offerings that are tailored to the different roles that people have inside of the mobile space. You know, the top of the house, they're looking for transformation. How can I change the way work is done? And they're trying to figure out how they can put, you know, the best devices in the hands of their employees, recreate their business processes based upon location and the capabilities of the device. That really is at the heart of the Apple partnership is how we can work together with the Apple teams to take their strength on the devices and user experience that and really create new ways to work on the employee side. And there's really tons of progress there. And so that's really one of the areas in the transformation side. There's a couple of other areas. We're working with chief marketing officers and digital officers to create engaging experiences. We're working with the information security officers to figure out how to protect and to make sure that we provide a secure experience. And then for the application development teams, that's where the mobile first platform comes in really to help you work off that backlog of apps that's coming from the business. So if I unpack what you just said from a strategy standpoint, you're going after big ROI hits. Transformation, reduce risk. Yup. It's the CMO piece. People say CMO is going to be spending more than the CIO on technology. So you're going after boardroom level transformations. Is that a fair assessment? There's a lot of different needs at the highest level. That's absolutely what you need. You got to recreate the way your business works. Take advantage of mobile and data and social and the other capabilities that exist today and redesign your processes to create a competitive advantage. That's really what the top of the house is after. At the same time, we're working with companies big and small to address their mobile challenges. Just being able to acquire devices, bring them in, secure them, and manage them. All the capabilities that we have with MAS 360 that we're now calling the Mobile First Protect portfolio, that's really about helping companies of all size to get on board, to distribute apps, to really to work their way through the process of having mobile in their environment. Phil, I got to ask you, let's talk about customer roadmap because I mean that pretty much, it's not everyone's boardroom conversation. Top line, bottom line. So all the time developer hires are coming. The tsunami of data, drowning in data is a top conversation people are having. So it's obvious that analytics can be a driver for success, having mobile success, cloud success, great. Assume that they all want to go there. What does a customer need to do? What's the roadmap? Do you go just web response first? Do you go native apps? It's a Lego block. How do you do an app within the app? I mean, this is like a complex roadmap. Sounds simple, go mobile first, but what's the roadmap? What have you learned? A couple things. So along the way, we've learned that developers often want to use the tools they want. So the conversation is really moving away from how do you build the app. With our mobile first platform, we offer a studio that helps organizations build cross-platform apps using the latest and greatest web technologies. At the same time, we've added support so that native developers can build their apps with the native tools that they're familiar with. And third-party tools can also be used to help build mobile apps. You mentioned data, and that's really at the heart of what's needed to build those engaging experiences. That's why we pulled them a data layer from Cloud and into our mobile first platform. And so what that allows us to do is to pull data from lots of sources, internet of things, as well as from backend systems of record. Match that data up quickly. It's no SQL, so it's flexible and you can change it quickly as you need to change your mobile apps at mobile speed, not like you would need to on the backend systems of record. And that's what we really believe to help you bring in those insights that give you those differentiated experience that will give you the business results that you need. So mobile, as you said before, sort of changed the nature in which we interact. So it was a new platform, changed virtually everything in terms of our daily lives. Will IoT have a similar effect? Is it an extension and evolution of mobile? Is it orthogonal? I wonder if you could give us your perspectives on that. Well, in many ways, mobile is the touch point. It's the way that you interact with the things that around you. It's much of the human interface. At the same time, a lot of the same technology that's needed for mobile first interactive experiences is this system of engagement. It's a way to set up logic in the cloud close to where the execution is needed, as well as being able to pull information from those internet of things capabilities so that you can interact with the world around you. We introduced some capability recently with our mobile first platform called Presence Insights that ties into sensors and Wi-Fi access points, beacons, so that you can understand where someone is as they navigate through a store or a campus location, a manufacturing site. And that's really a way to marry the world of the physical world with what we've got with mobile devices and the capability for mobile devices. Phil, so how does this change your back end? And how much time do you spend thinking about that? We spend a lot of time thinking about that. You know, a lot of the early pioneers in the mobile era, they would take their applications, they would build an app, and they would wire it straight in to a web API, to an API they created for the web days, or they would tie it directly back in with things like master data management. Then there would be these mobile demands that would spike and it would hammer away at these back end systems and the mobile developers, they wanted to iterate really fast. But the time it takes to go through the waterfall processes on these systems of record that created this discontinuity. That's really why we've introduced the mobile first platform, so that you can take the pieces of data you need from the back end, shard it, shadow it, put it in that system of engagement, and then use that to interact and iterate with quickly with the mobile device. And that's what's allowed people to really move a lot faster than they have previously. So as John was saying at the top of the segment, it's very exciting, you know, it's a mobile's alluring. You just want to dive in, start building applications. Historically, I was a complaint about application creep, the application portfolio. We've got to rationalize our application portfolio. Do you see, or any customers talking about, is it too early, a backlash, application creep, and how are they dealing with it? Here's the way it impacts them. It impacts them because they start to see their ratings for the apps. Either in employee app stores or external consumer app stores, they see them start to drop because they're not able to keep up with the changes on the platform side. They're not able to iterate and add functionality as fast as they need to on the front end because they're dealing with a lot of challenges on the back end. And that's really a major part of our value proposition for the Mobile First platform, is to take out all of that from their hands. Let us do the plumbing. Let us do the integration with the back end. Let us, you know, create that middle tier where you can iterate and move faster. Let us do the security between the device and the Mobile First platform. So that you can take your developers time and energy and focus on solving the business problem. And the customers that are really leading have been able to do that. That lets them work off this backlog of all the apps that are needed in terms of demand that's coming from the business. So as it relates to the Apple relationship, what's the, can you help us connect the dots? Which means you got IBM, you got Apple. You talk about Apple providing the devices. You guys are providing that infrastructure. And then connect us to the developer pieces. Really the, where the rubber meets the road in terms of innovation. So absolutely. So the Apple teams, obviously they make great devices. And so the partnership with Apple has been where we're working together to take some of our deep industry expertise, some of our knowledge of analytics, marry that with the device and create a set of Mobile First solutions. In December, we released the first 10 of what will be over 100 Mobile First for iOS solutions across a number of industries that really are targeted to make the employees' life easier while solving a business problem and addressing those pain points using analytics and the full capabilities of the device. How about your non-IOS strategy? Where does that fit? IOS first plus citizen? So from a platform perspective, we created a tailored version of the Mobile First platform that ties directly back in to iOS, so native iOS. Swift developers can build the applications using all of their knowledge of the iOS platform. And there's a very natural way to integrate back with our Mobile First platform. And so that's been very well received as a way for organizations to build. It's basically the platform on which we're building these Mobile First solutions. And so there are also individuals inside of companies that they'll want to do these things for their employees, but they may have B2C type applications where they've got to support all of the platforms. And that's where the full Mobile First platform provides that ability to link with all of the different major platforms in the world. How would you describe the customer sort of discussions that you're having? I can see some saying, okay, we want to go faster. IBM, great, you can help. We love the Apple relationship. I can see some others saying, we dove in. We need help. We're a little over our heads. Our strokes are not that good. Help us. We get that a lot. And so everybody's done some mobile development. It's so hot, everybody's done something. Maybe they haven't done it themselves or maybe they've hired some agency to build a mobile app for them. A lot of times that comes, it's sponsored by the business, maybe not really well coordinated with the IT teams. They want to gain control of those applications. That's why we took our portfolio and we came up with the SDKs. You can recompile those apps and then you'll get the analytics to be able to troubleshoot what's happening with the device, to see how it's being used in the environment without needing to start over. So you can really bring in some of this management, security and the integration capabilities that you need from where you are. And that's really what a lot of our clients have been very excited about because no one wants to just throw away what they've done so far. They want to be able to progress and then add in capability as they go. So I got to ask you, do you like the term data lake or data ocean as a better metaphor for the future of big data? I mean, a lake is bad. You can always go to the system of record, but systems of engagement is about the front lines. It's about mobile. This is not my core set of expertise, but what I'm excited about is what we have from IBM in this space. Being able to take a mobile system of engagement like what you have with Cloud and use data works to be able to hook back to dash DB to get that refinery to cleanse all that data. That's why I'm so excited that mobile first is a part of the overall IBM story. I mean, you heard about all the capabilities that we have with BlueMix to be able to run higher clouds. So lake stream into the ocean. You could go there maybe with that. I think I'm all about the refinery. I'm all about cleansing the data and improving it because that's what gets you the outcomes that you need. Awesome. Well, first of all, congratulations on the success. Thank you. Mobile is going to continue to be on the agenda item. It's not going away anytime soon. It's really harnessing everything else around it. It's the edge of the network. It is internet of things. I mean, it's right in the wheelhouse. A phone is approved, mobile's mobile. Well, we're so excited. We feel like we've made such good progress. We're like a leader in 19 of the leading analyst reports. And so we feel like we've made good progress. Our customers have got great deployments. And so we just know that it's early and we've got so much more that can be done with them. You can bring a lot to the table right now. It's obvious. But share the last couple of seconds left of the segment. What's the vibe here at the event? For the folks, no, not here. What's it like? What's the vibe? What's the, are people pumped up? What are they talking about? What are they most excited about? What's just a quick general sentiment of the event? The folks are really excited because they've started to see the results. They've started to see the impact. You know, we've got so many references and clients that are here speaking on our behalf. They've started to see, okay, well they were able to pull that off. And they're seeing this success and they have this ROI. And that's really what gets the people that I've spoken with really jazzed up because they know this is real and they know they can get some results right now. All right, Phil Buckaloo, VP of Enterprise Mobile at IBM, congratulates inside theCUBE. We'll be right back after this short break. This is theCUBE, keep watching.