 theCUBE presents Dell Technologies World, brought to you by Dell. Hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of day one of Dell Technologies World 2022 live from the Venetian in Las Vegas. They're excited, I don't know if you heard that. A group behind me, very excited to be here. Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante. We're very pleased to welcome Jules Johnston, the SPP of Channel from Equinix. Jules, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. And those people back there are very excited if you heard that. Big applause that we went live. So the vibe here is fantastic for the first live Dell Technologies World since 2019. A lot of people here, this expo hall is packed. A lot of momentum here, but there's also a lot of momentum at Equinix. Talk to us about what's going on. Well, so many exciting things for Equinix and this partnership of Dell sort of gives us a chance to share that with partners here throughout the conference. So we are very excited, as you said about, and we just renamed to the Fortune 500 this year, 77 quarters of growth consecutively. But underpinning that is having made huge investments in what is the world's largest footprint of global data centers, 240 of them on six continents in 66 markets, but then interconnecting them. So they have the connections that Dell customers need to the clouds. They have the connections that they need to all of their future SaaS providers. So that foresight to put together that interconnection network across our footprint has set us on the path we're on today, which we're very grateful to be at and really the things that are happening with Equinix and Dell together couldn't be more of the moment. Talk to me about that, the last two years, the moments of the last two years have been very challenging for everyone. How has the partnership evolved in that time? Well, you know, we together, Dell and Equinix, what we're doing is really helping our shared underpriced customers navigate the complexities of their digital transformation. And digital transformation is hard. You know, it's not one and done and it's not an overnight solution. And so what we are doing is partnering with Dell to think about putting a dedicated Dell IT stack in an Equinix data center to give customers that sovereign adjacency so that they can have that security proximate to all the clouds and everything else they need to participate in the ecosystem and then pairing that with these interconnected enterprises. So Dell and we are helping customers then be able to have some of their solution on-prem, some of their solution in the cloud, access public clouds and use that collectively to define what we're calling the intelligent edge together and that intelligent edge means so many different things to customers. But it is really our honor to work together with Dell to help each customer define that for themselves. Equinix amazing company. Like you said, it's, you know, I didn't realize it was that many consecutive quarters, but it's a 60 billion plus market cap. If you look at the stock chart, it'll blow your mind. Really incredibly successful. And part of the reason is funny. You know, 10, 15 years ago, people thought, well, 10 years ago anyway, the cloud is going to hurt companies like Equinix. And it was exact opposite. And that's because, you know, Charles Phillips used the joke, friends don't let friends build data centers, right? And it's not a good use of capital for most companies unless you're in the data center business. Now, of course, you have some of your own as a service offerings. What's the overlap with Dell? How do they complement each other? It's a good question because, you know, and we get that, are you and Dell in fact competitors? And no, we see them as wholly complementary. And in fact, we're working with Dell to bring to market things like what we call PowerEdge, which involves their servers and PowerStore, which involves their storage and then V-Rail, which is really the hyper-converged infrastructure. And those are just the first of a series of offerings we expect to bring to market with Dell. And if you think about metal, and Equinix metal that people sometimes think is a competitor, but what metal does for customers, is it really allows them to advance, have the equipment placed in our data centers so that they can access that capacity in according to spikes or needs that they have. That equipment in our data centers that's there for them to avail themselves of that capacity is most often Dell equipment. So we are really doing and executing that bare metal as a service together. What are some of the things that you're hearing from your partner community in terms of the partnership with Dell? Our partners must be excited, the momentum there. What's going on in the partner community? So that's near and dear to my heart, since that's what I'm responsible for, Equinix's global partnerships. And they are very excited about what we're doing with Dell. And to be honest with you, all of our top partners are also top partners of Dell. So it makes sense that we bring it together. So big categories of partners like the world's largest global network service providers, some of whom are here and who we'll meet with, the AT&T, Orange Business Services, those folks, in addition to the world's largest global systems integrators, Kindrel, Deloitte, Accenture, Wipro, DXC, all of these are partners that Dell and we will meet with together to further our, what we call Power 3, that together we're better because as much as Dell and Equinix are delivering, the customers most often don't have the experience they need to execute it without a partner. So they are relying on those partners to take what we're doing and make it their own. And so they're excited about it. It's a big opportunity for them from a revenue services and an opportunity for them to step into a next level trusted advisor status. So partners are excited and we're going to be spending a lot of time with them in the next few days. Do you see Equinix because these partnerships are not bespoke partnerships. It's an ecosystem that's organic and evolving and growing. Can it be, are you a dot connector in a way? Can it be a flywheel effect in your ecosystem? Well, I mean, so our ecosystems that we provide ride range of those from high frequency trading to connected cars to the internet things of many in content providers that we are, we do see it as our role to the 10,000 and growing customers that are in our 240 data centers on six continents that provide those ecosystems. It is our mission to continue to grow that and reach it because that does differentiate us greatly from another data center provider. And it's the combination of the ecosystem that you find and the people you can connect to at Equinix and then also the leverage of our fabric in order to be able to access your future needs. And there's a lot of technology underneath these, you know, it's that first layer one, I guess, if you will of the data center, right? And so a lot of your customers or your partner's customers, they just don't want to be in that business as we were saying before. I mean, it's just too expensive. The power requirements are going through the roof. So you got to be really good at managing power. You do. In fact, you know, so first of all, you're right. It's extremely difficult for them to also be able to make that kind of commitment to keep a data center they would manage themselves at the level that Equinix is able to invest. So it's very difficult for people to do it themselves but even show another point you mentioned actually about the power is near and dear to our hearts because Equinix is super committed to sustainability. And so we've made a commitment to wholly renewable energy. And it's something that we talk a lot about how we also help partners like Dell meet their initiatives or partners like AT&T meet their connected climate goals. So we are actually using that and coming together with Dell on that story and helping to amplify that with our partners. And that's, how do you do that? That's putting data centers where you can cool with the ambient air or is it being near the Columbia River? What's your strategy in that regard? And sustainability, I have to be honest here. I would be out of my depth if I didn't say. At the high level, yeah. So we are deploying some of the latest technologies about that and then experts, people who all they do is really help us to reduce the carbon footprint and be able to offset that, be able to use solar, be able to use wind, be able to take advantage of that. And then also to navigate what's available when you're in 240 locations on six continents, it's not the same options to reduce your power consumption and your burden are different in Africa as we just discovered with our main one acquisition than they are in India or than they are in other parts of the world. So it is for us a journey. And we've been assembling a lot of the talent to do that. But you're so large now, even a small percentage improvement can really move the needle. And I think because we are the largest, it is incumbent upon us to really set the standard and be committed to it. And we do see other people following, which is a good thing for all of us. Well, how important is that in your partnership conversations that partners have that same focus and commitment on ESG that Equinix has? Partners care a lot about it, but customers ask us both all the time. I mean, we increasingly see a portion of an RFP or a scope of work asking before I decide to go with Equinix and Dell, tell me how you're going to impact the environment. Tell me about your commitment. And so we are committed to it, but customers are demanding it too. So it's coming from the voice of the customer, which Equinix is listening to, we know Dell is listening to it as well. I'm sorry, what was that? That the sustainability of the ESG demand is coming from the customer, as you were saying. It both, I mean, we want to do the right thing and we've made commitments to it, but our customers are holding us accountable to it. And sustainability is now a board level priority. It is for us and it is for companies like Dell and it is for partners and customers. It really is, it's up there with security in terms of the board level conversation. Where do you want to see the partner ecosystem in the next, let's call it three to five years in your business, you can look out that far. Well, I think that they, our partners, and that I mean Dell's and our mutual partners, you know, we are, we've been listening to customers with Dell to deliver a flexible set of options for how customers would consume Equinix and Dell. So our partners are going to be integrating a variety of those in order to meet the customer where they are in that journey, whether they want to buy Apex as a service, whether they want to buy Equinix Metal, whether they want to have a customer, a partner put together a bespoke do-it-yourself combination with other services. I mean the customers are going to demand a choice of options. I think partners are going to embrace multiple versions of that so that they can, you know, to meet the customer where they are and take them. Well that's incredibly important these days to meet the customer where they are. The customers have a lot of choice. It is. But everything that we're all doing is for the customer ultimately at the end of the day. Yes, it is. And you know, the customers are getting savier but we are all still early in this journey as far as the edge. You know, I mean, I think we are all still, we're all still grappling that for right now we like to say that as customers are looking to define that, the footprint that we offer together with Dell gives them an awfully robust set of choices for now. And then we want to continue to invest and expand to be where they need us. Well that's the thing about your business. It's optionality. I mean you can't, I mean the cloud has a lot of stuff but you can't get everything you want in the cloud. You can. And you can put anything in your data center. That's, you know, IT. You can't but you may not know what you need yet. And so that's one of the things we spend a lot of time having our solutions architects and ourselves people together but don't talk about future-proofing their strategy. So future-proofing that combination of on-prem and in an equinex data center and maybe some public and future-proofing leveraging our fabric so that they might elect different SaaS-based services or cloud-based services a year, two, five years from now than they are even thinking about today. And they may expand their edge over time because they may sort of see that as at the customer end point. Today most businesses are still sort of using a footprint like ours as their edge. But that could change and so we want to be there when it does. Yeah that's a great point because you don't want to necessarily have to rip it out every couple of years if you can have an architecture that can grow. Yeah sure, you might want to upgrade it. Well and that's one of the most appealing things about services like Metal where they also, they do sort of prevent that sort of rip and replace but they also help people navigate the supply chain shortages that are going on right now. So this has been a trying two years for supply chain shortages and being able to take advantage of Dell equipment already staged at Equinex Data Center and partners can then bring their customers a quicker immediate response. Have you also seen, you mentioned the supply chain shortages. Some of the many challenges that we've experienced in the last few years. How much of a factor has the great resignation been? The labor shortages, the cybersecurity skills gap on folks coming to Equinex saying, help, we don't have the resources here to do this ourselves. We have been fortunate to not to be, if you're asking about how the resignation has affected us as a company. No, your customers. Or customers it has. Oh okay, yes. So it is a challenge for them but it's an opportunity for our partners. So what I see there is it's been challenging for customers to hold on to that talent but partners are filling that gap and we at Equinex have been fortunate to hold on to a lot of our best and brightest and so we put them together with our partners and we try to help customers fill those gaps. Well that's the most important thing, filling those gaps. You ever been inside one of these ultra-modern data centers? I have not, not yet. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Have you ever had a tour of one? I've never had a tour of an Equinex data center but I've seen some modern data centers that will blow your mind. Well I mean they come with all the requisite biometrics and mantraps and all of the bells and whistles that are actually the first layer of physical security but then once you get into the data center then we get into the virtual and the digital security that you would expect. So it's- Yeah, it's going, you know, it's not like you drive by the data center, it's a big sign is here's the data center, it's kind of, you know, they're trying to stay a little hidden and then like it's getting in, it's like getting into fork knots, it's probably harder and then, but then the, it's like this giant clean room, it's amazingly clean and just huge, blow your mind. Inside this data center is all the world's networks come together and peer and then we have inside there the most direct ROM reps to the cloud so you would expect there's a lot of wires and pipes running very neatly through a very secure, clean, pristine environment for sure. Amazing engineering. It is, we need a tour. You should, do you let people tour your data center? I will bring both of you on a tour. Awesome, I guess. I would love to, yeah. It sounds fantastic. We would love to. We'll bring a camera. Oh no, not allowed. No phones, no phones, sequester. So what are some of the things that you're excited about seeing and hearing the next couple of days as this is the first time we've all gotten to be together in so long? So, well, you know, we are excited about the conversations that we're going to have power of three that I was talking about. So, you know, we really pride ourselves on sort of having that combination add up to more to benefit the customer. And so this will be sort of a coming out party of sorts for Equinex and Dell will meet with in almost 20 different global partners that are really important to both of us. So I am most excited about those conversations and about the education I'm going to get on the ways they're thinking about integrating it differently because that is good choice for the market. That is good choice for the customer set. So for the enterprises out there. So that's what I'm most excited about. Awesome, sounds like tremendous opportunity. Lots going on this week. But thank you for coming on, it's my pleasure. An hour of Equinex and Dell better together the way that your channel partner program is growing and of course the momentum of the company. We can't wait to see what happens next year. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we will aim to deliver and thank you again for having us. Thanks, Jules. Our pleasure. For Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching theCUBE's live coverage, day one Dell Technologies World Live from Las Vegas. Stick around. We'll be right back with our next guest.