 Hi, this is Dave Vellante and we're getting ready to bring theCUBE to Dell Tech World 2022. This is the first Dell Tech World that will be held in person since 2019. And it's the first major Dell customer and industry gathering since Dell spun out VMware as a completely separate company without Dell ownership. Of course, the chairman remains the same. Now that Dell is untethered from VMware. It means its most lucrative asset is no longer going to show up on the income statement. Now with the client business as an increasingly large share of revenue for Dell over the past couple of years, thanks to the pandemic, Dell's gross margin line stands out more, going from the low 30s to around 20%. Now as part of the spin, Dell executed a special commercial agreement with VMware. Dell is VMware's number one distribution channel and sells tons of VMware software. So that combined with the fact that Michael Dell is leading both companies was plenty of incentive for VMware to make this agreement. The special commercial agreement sets certain terms and conditions regarding how the two companies will work together to maximize technical integrations, co-marketing initiatives, and other go-to-market opportunities. This was done to ensure that the relationship between the two companies remains as strong as it was prior to the spin. You know, it's interesting, people complained about the acquisition that Dell and VMware shouldn't be together, but customers, by all accounts, loved it. The other major change with Dell post-spin is it now is a much stronger balance sheet. It has paid down a ton of debt to where it's now considered investment grade by the ratings bureaus. This means lower interest rates for Dell on its debt and it also means Dell has more flexibility to do dividends and stock buybacks and M&A. Dell, in our view, will begin to do some more of these tuck-in acquisitions and beef up its software portfolio as it still relies heavily on VMware software for much of its data center business, but we think it needs to diversify. It's increasingly going to look to expand into cloud offerings with its Apex as a service. And Apex really is this as-of-surface offer, which is essentially Dell's version of their cloud and it spans on-premises, the public cloud, and ultimately out to the edge. So at Dell Tech World, expect the following areas to be emphasized, client solutions, it's around half of the company's revenue, so laptops and desktops and client side solutions have to be part of the discussion. It's a lower margin business than enterprise, but with COVID, been growing quite rapidly as remote work has become the thing. The other thing we expect to hear, the other theme is around ransomware, cyber resiliency, cyber threats are top of mind. Expect Dell to stress the importance of having sound security and data protection strategies in the post COVID era. You may see some specific offerings from Dell or perhaps even further emphasizing security in many of its products or both. Okay, we would also expect more storage innovation. Dell's legacy EMC storage business has been under pressure from the cloud and other competitors like Pure and some new entrants nipping at Dell's heels. We would expect Dell to beef up its as a service offering both on-prem within systems, aka boxes, and as part of Apex. Now Apex is going to be a big theme at the show. The as a service is going to absolutely be a big focus in our view. Dell has entered the market after HPE came in with GreenLake and Dell doesn't want to be overshadowed by HPE's all in as a service strategy. So expect Dell to provide updates on its progress with Apex, identify differentiation from some of the other players, aka HPE and announce new services across its portfolio. You'll likely also hear some discussion about the ecosystem and partnerships with some global system integrators and also some announcements about how they plan to appeal to the developer community. I think multi-cloud is another theme that you're going to hear. You know, sometimes we call it super cloud. We would expect Dell to emphasize the importance of its ability to serve customers irrespective of physical location, right? Cloud is not a destination. It's an operating model kind of thing on-prem public cloud across clouds at the edge. Some of this is going to be vision. A lot of it, of course, will be vision, but some of it's going to be offerings. Might see some things in telco and here's some 5G talk as well as some edge and telco partnerships to attack that 5G opportunity and other opportunities at the edge. You know, Dell's a large company. They, I think, very conscious of responsibility. So you're going to hear, I would say some, maybe not tons, but some fair dose of ESG, environmental, social and governance. This will likely be a theme as companies like Dell, they got to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion as well as the sustainability of the environment. They can move the needle. They may likely also get into privacy, things like that, maybe tech for good, maybe talk a little bit about AI for good, maybe even AI solutions, although we'll see, we'll report if we hear that. You're going to also hear about digital transformation like any conference and how Dell is helping customers transform their businesses, what maybe what Dell's doing internally with its own technology organization and its own digital transformation. Dell's role is to provide technologies and services that can accelerate those digital transformations. So you'll hear Dell position itself there, we think. And finally, channel partnerships and ecosystems. As Dell transforms to a cloud company that's going to redefine cloud, it has to, in our view, increasingly emphasize its ecosystem partnerships, which are critical component of cloud companies. Now, I hope as a company building out its own cloud vision and trying to reset the cloud narrative that we hear some focused discussion around developers. I've mentioned that before and how infrastructure is code is a key aspect of Dell's vision and offerings. Now, theCUBE will be there. We start Monday evening. It'll be late East Coast time, but it'll be 630 West Coast time. We're going to feature myself, John Furrier, Lisa Martin and David Nicholson as hosts. Monday is largely focused on partners. And then we go all day wall to wall on Tuesday and Wednesday with our typical CUBE coverage. Several key execs are going to be joining us, including of course, Michael Dell and Chuck Whitten, who's the new co-chief operating officer along with Jeff Clark, who was also vice chairman. He's going to be joining us. And several others from Dell's ELT, including Cheryl Cook, JD Davis, Allison Dew and a number of Dell customers, partners and several members from the product teams coming on to talk about the new announcements that they're making at the show. And of course, you'll get the CUBE's take on all the keynotes, the product announcements and the vibe at the show, what's happening in the hallways and in the evening events. So tune into theCUBE.net, check out siliconangle.com for all the news and coverage and we'll see you there.