 The Cube at EMC World 2014 is brought to you by EMC. Redefine VCE. Innovating the world's first converged infrastructure solution for private cloud computing. Brocade. Say goodbye to the status quo and hello to Brocade. We're back, welcome to Las Vegas everybody. This is The Cube and we're live here at EMC World 2014. My name is Dave Vellante. One of the founders at Wikibon.org and Silicon Angles Cube is a live mobile studio. We go out to the events. We extract the signal from the noise. We're double clicking, drilling down into partnerships. A big part of EMC World is customers but also business partners that come in, innovate together, go to market together. You know, you can't do it alone in this business. You know, Joe Tucci talks a lot about co-opetition. So you got, you know, strange bedfellows like EMC and Oracle doing stuff together and then you've got other service provider partners and consultancies like Cap Gemini. So Terry Breen is here. He's the senior vice president of global strategic sales and partners at EMC and he's joined by Charlie Lee to my right, Charlie's in the middle who's the senior vice president and the head of global channels and partners at Cap Gemini. Gentlemen, welcome to The Cube. Good to be here. Good to be here. So Charlie, let me start with you. EMC World. Big show, a lot of customers here. You guys are a top consultancy systems integrator. Really, the rubber meets the road when it comes to value is really what you guys are all about, building solutions. Talking about EMC World and what it means to you guys. Well, EMC World has been a phenomenal for us. Last year we actually worked with Terry's team to develop some big bets between the two companies. We decided that we were going to make several strategic plays around all the federations of EMC around the business data lake with pivotal orchestration, cloud orchestration with VMware. Then of course we also had a major play around Latin America through Brazil. We built a joint business unit and that strategy was actually laid last year at this event and 12 months later when we fast forwarded this, we realized that the vast value and the great execution we had over the last 12 months. So Terry, talk about, let's go back a little bit because I remember when you guys announced the 2013 the deal in Brazil. What was the impetus? Why Brazil and how's it been going? Well, Brazil was fantastic because we wanted to not naturally a large opportunity but when we look at Brazil, CAP was trying to get in there a big way. We were, CAP got involved in an investment in a new company. They invited us to join them. So actually we have a venture. It's a joint venture between the two companies. We're attacking the market from a financial service perspective from an oil, gas, natural resources. And so this is a venture between CAP and EMC that we're about 18 months under our belt right now. So the impetus was opportunity. You go after it jointly, you sort of de-risk some of the opportunity as well. And so what's the uptake been? Well, I think one of the things that's great about the joint business unit that we built is that our ability to transform the clients. Brazil is really going from kind of the first generation, many of the companies are actually trying to jump to the latest generation without having to go through the second generation, which is moving to the cloud era. So one of the things that we've been able to do in that market is really work together to transform our clients as Brazil is getting ready for the World Cup and the Olympics to really join the latest generation, the greatest generation, the cloud era. And all the solutions that we built together, co-innovated together has really helped many of our clients there really realize that the cloud vision. So can I do one thing on that? Because you look at the impetus of it. You had a company by the name of CPM Braxas which was a Brazilian bait-built reseller, SI managed services company. Interestingly, CAP and EMC at the same time were both looking at that company. And then eventually, CAP took an ownership of view of the company and then we came in as an investor. So what it was, it's just Sarin Dipetus that we were all looking at the same company at the same time to expand both of our businesses in the same geography. All right, Charlie, talk a little bit about who we're talking off camera about the Federation. So it's not just an EMC partnership. The Federation is fascinating to me. I mean, it's so many companies. You see, we had Jeffrey Moran last week and he was talking about crossing the chasm, of course. It seems that this is a brilliant architecture that Tucci and team have set up to essentially navigate through the chasm and identify opportunities. But sometimes it's probably hard for a partner to figure out, okay, I'm a partner with this company and that company and that company. You recently, let's start there. Today, I guess you won an award, right? The Federation Award, what was that all about? So we won the Federation Award, Partner of the Year Award, and I think it really speaks to the fact that we work with the entire Federation. I mean, Cap Jim and I was one of the first assets to embrace the Federation message, which really means that when we work with each of the companies in the Federation, it allows us to be completely independent. So if I work with VMware, I could also work with Amazon. I could also work with other companies, IBM and so on. But when we put the Federation power together, when we're able to work, you know, Cloud Foundry, Pivotal on the big data front, when we orchestrate all of that through the Cloud with VMware and when we have the best storage on the market that we actually put in our data centers that we serve our clients and reduce the total cost of ownership of our clients, when we put that whole stack together, the power is immense. So it really gives us a flexibility as well as the value of the integrated Federation. So give us a specific example of where you're working in the Federation outside of EMC Classic, EMC II. Sure, we really work with all of them. We're one of the largest partners for VCE. We co-innovated a solution with Pivotal this year called the Business Data Lake, which is being launched. We also have an exclusive relationship in building the orchestration platform or brokering platform together with VMware. And then of course, finally, we're doing a lot of new work with the IG division. We're actually starting to build new Cloud solutions around case management for the government. And it's actually taken off quite well for both of us. If you want to keep a cap Gemini excited about our company, we got to bring the Federation to it. Think about what they do. Business consultant, technology consultant. You go after your industries like retail and financial services and manufacturing. For us to excite them, we got to give them every tool we have. And that's why we got to get the Pivotals and the RSAs and the EMCs and the VMwares and the VCs all involved to keep them excited because they need all the piece parts to solve their business problems. So you guys are obviously looking for partners that are like-minded. You guys have been talking all week about the third platform. So, but at the same time, you got a lot of customers that are sort of in N minus one, you know, generations. A lot of business being done there. How do you balance those two? Well, I think one of the things that Cap Gemini's doing a lot of and clients ask us all the time is that while they're managing that second platform, they're also looking for an edge. That edge is the innovation, which is maybe I will not embrace the entire third platform, but I need to start thinking about it. I need to start, you know, approaching certain areas. So maybe there's a pilot around mobility. Maybe there's a pilot around the cloud. Maybe there's a pilot around big data. You know, we work together around all the Federation because we're able to leverage the value of that second platform, the storage, but also take advantage of the co-innovation that we're doing around business data lakes and areas of cloud and also areas around mobility. You know, one of the things that we're trying to do in 2014 is to co-innovate around the mobility solution. As you know, you hear about the bring your own device culture. There's a lot of security concerns around that area. There's also huge amounts of opportunity around mobile device management and mobile applications management, and those are areas that we will continue to co-innovate between two companies. And then I would say too, is that we got to work with the Cap Gemini, it's the world, with Pacific Cap to be relevant, both in platform two and three. I believe three years from now, it's going to be the same subject. Just the distribution percentage between two and three will be changing, but our customers are still going to have plenty of activity on platform two, three years from now. So we've got to make sure as we're working together, we are jointly relevant in both of those. So what are the, let's talk about some of the trends that you guys are seeing in the customer base. You know, the big four cloud, mobile, social, big data. Let's talk about cloud because five years ago when you talked to IT practitioners about cloud, you know, they'd roll their eyes and a cloud, it's just IT. Everybody remembers the famous Larry Ellison rant at the Churchill Club. But now, and I speak to many, many IT practitioners, hundreds throughout the year, I give a lot of speeches and so forth. They're embracing the cloud. What has changed, Charlie, and what are your customers doing in that regard? I think that competitive and cost pressure has increased. You know, it continues to increase. And companies are looking for more of an edge all the time. I mean, we have a lot of our financial customers who are looking to look at the cloud as a way to be more competitive. They want to lower their cost of their non-core business, if you will. So we see a lot of customers going, moving their HR, moving their workforce automation, sales force automation all into the cloud, because it's not part of, considered part of their core business. And it really helps them provide a kind of a cost competitive edge. Charlie, let me follow up with you on that, because around that time, whenever it was rolling their eyes, you guys had a big, big focus on private cloud, and that's evolving. Talk about that a little bit. Well, obviously, we came at it directly private cloud. We actually really see it in three areas. We got private, we got hybrid, we got public. We actually need to play in all three. The activity is, there's still a lot of public cloud activity out there. We understand a different price point, different economics on that. So we, as a company, we really need to play in all three. I got to have a portfolio across three to be successful out there. Let's talk about another mega trend, Charlie, which is big data, you guys obviously involved in, sounds like co-development with Pivotal. Let's actually start there, and then talk about some of the trends. Specifically, what is that like doing that type of co-development? Where do you bring to the table? We kind of know what technology they bring to the table. Where do they leave off and you pick up, and how do you sort of connect? So I think when we first engaged Pivotal was actually before the company was actually launched. We actually started to exchange some ideas around big data. What are the challenges? I think what we really bring to the table is our business and sector expertise. We understand what banks are looking for. For example, banks are, after the disaster we had in 2008, are really looking for risk aggregation. How do I aggregate all the risk to the bank and be able to make decisions in real time? Well, that type of scenario requires a deep understanding of the business of the banks. And for us to, I think the main thing is that we were able to bring various business cases or use cases or new business models that would be valuable to our clients if the technology would be able to support it. So while engaging with Pivotal, we were able to give them a lot of insight on how the technology should be designed to tackle real world problems. So we were able to co-innovate around several use cases that are very relevant. And you bring that deep industry expertise that's the secret. Because you take those words big data analytics, we sometimes put them all together, break them apart. The analytics side of it is very industry specific. You're going into a retail or you're going into a telco or you're going into a bank. You got to be able to drive that analytics, you got to have the industry expertise. That's exactly what Capgemini brings that we don't have. We bring the horsepower behind it on technology, but we don't have the depth to walk into a telco or a bank and really help drive the analytics, which is exactly what Capgemini really brings to us. That's the power. Charlie, everybody talks about how organizations need to be data driven. You know, we take it as a fate to complete. And I think many actually are driving that way. But I wonder if you could characterize that. What's happening in terms of that notion of data driven? Is it people are sort of investing in new technologies that are going to drive new insights? Or are they rethinking their entire data architecture, their traditional EDWs? How do you see that playing out in the marketplace today? I think at the end of the day it's really more about new business models. When you look at companies like T-Mobile creating new cell phone packages that really disrupted the industry. They were able to do that because they were able to leverage the insight they gained from the data, the new data architecture. And they were able to put actionable plans around the insight. A lot of companies today, the traditional BI, it's all about finding insight, but then they don't do anything about it. Companies today are really looking at how can data drive a new set of business models that would allow me to gain a competitive edge. Isn't there a problem that customers face today in terms of the agility of that EDW, in terms of isn't that one of the reasons why they can't act on it? Because by the time they figured out the market has changed, or by the time they figured out the insight the market has changed. How is that changing? Yeah, absolutely. So in the past the way you looked at data is that every organization within the company had different data standards. So the first thing that a consulting company would do is do a consolidation, to do a migration, to do kind of a standardization of all the data. That takes a very long time. By the time that's all done, the market's changed. So the whole solution that we built, the business lake solution, data lake solution that we built with Pivotal is all about looking at it in a completely different way. Dump all your unstructured data into a huge data lake, forget standardization and consolidation. Leverage all the greatest technologies that we have with storage, the fast end memory storage that we have today to be able to give insights in real time without having to do all that long two, three year journey of standardization and consolidation. When we talk about big data, sometimes we talk about it as if it's a brand new concept. And in certain industries, it flat out is not true. I mean, you get into an oil exploration company, they've been dealing with big data for 20 years now. That big data, big deal. Yeah, a matter of fact, when we talk big data, they say, that's an old term for us. But what they have is they have access to the data problems, right? And that's, I actually think where the technology is changing rapidly, big data exists, but they had no access to it. Second thing is how do you drive something out of it? How do you make value out of all of that massive data? And I think that's where there's a tremendous amount of work. We do some of the technology, these guys do it tremendously with industry insight. So what's changing in terms of the access model? Is it the, it's technology obviously, and then maybe we can talk about people in process, but maybe we could drill into that a little bit. I think it's speed, I think it's technology, I think it's being able to bring all of it together, various different forms of it. And we couldn't do that. I mean, think about the large data warehouses we've all built over the last 20 years. Wonderful amount of information, no one could get anything out of it. Or you could, but it would take, you know, large runs of information, and it was just, it was just not nimble enough. So Charlie, how are organizations, I mean, I look at people process technology, Terry, I see you as technology, and you guys as people in process, and there's, I know there's overlap there obviously, but how are people specifically transforming their people in process to take advantage of this new data opportunity? Well, I think it's quite a bit of a challenge for our clients, because in the past, the realm of possibility wasn't there. Because of technology, there's a limitation. There's not enough storage, or it's too expensive, or it's not fast enough. Now that the storage market's completely changed. We continue to see cheaper and cheaper storage. We have technologies that can actually deal with petabytes of data in milliseconds, right? All that's possible, so the realm of possibility has shifted from the technology limitation to the business limitation. Can business analysts and consultants and customers think fast enough to create new models of what to do with the data? What can we do with all this data to create new opportunities? And I think the governance around that is what's really key today. You hear a lot about the skill shortage specifically around data science. Is that an acute problem in your customer base, and how are companies dealing with that? Absolutely. The traditional big data engineers, if you will, are the ones that analyze the data. Today, that person has to understand programming. That person has to understand advanced mathematics, analysis, statistics. When you combine all of those skills that's together, it becomes kind of a super human that's very difficult to find. So, I think it will take a couple of years for the industry to really start building a new set of knowledge and a new set of skill sets and engineers that can really be qualified as what we call data scientists. It's just really a lot. You know, when you think about the data scientists, we have someone on staff in our group, so I think we do a little bit of the priming of the pump, but the big pump's got to come from the Cap Geminiers of the world. Yeah, you guys have some educational programs. You know, I saw Tom Clancy in the flight out here. All we can do is prime the pump. That's where the horsepower's got to come from. Last question, I'm going to ask each of you what you look for in partner. So, I'll start Terry with you. As a technology company, large technology and services company, what do you look for in a partner? I look for a couple of things. I look for executive connections. I'll tell you with Cap, we talk weekly, monthly. We have QBRs, quarterly business reviews. We operate all the way from the very top, all the way down into the field. Interestingly, we just decided to change some employees. So, their portion now, aimed back at EMC, just came from EMC, we work that together. We love it, and so I like that. We were not stealing. No, no, no, we work that very openly. I think the second thing that we really need from a company like Cap Gemini is industry expertise. That's not what we are. We're a horizontal company, and so when we go into a retail company, or we go into a telco, we need the expertise of a Cap Gemini, and that's something that we desperately need, and that's what we have great respect for these guys for. All right, Charlie, what do you look for in a technology supplier? Not just even EMC, but generically, any technology company. Well, first of all, innovation is extremely important. We want partners that can co-innovate with us, not just innovate in silos. We look for partners, you know, I'm going to use Terry's term earlier today, companies where we can build a mutual trust, because you can't do business together without trust. And then finally, we want companies that are willing to do something different with us, differentiated plays and differentiated markets, as well as in areas where we can really create a big bet together, right? So, having that mutual commitment, once you find that big bet is extremely important to us, just like what we do with Brazil, like what we do with Pivotal and VMware, having a mutual financial commitment and then executing on it. That's what we look for. Big bets, the big bets can pay off, but big bets sometimes are risky, so you working together, you can sort of deal with that risk and identify the upside and minimize the downside. So, thanks gentlemen very much for coming on theCUBE. It was great to have you. Thank you. Keep it right there, everybody. We'll be right back with our next guest. We're live here at EMC World 2014. This is theCUBE. We'll be right back.