 It's great to have you on. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Is your chair about to fall over there? Yeah, it kind of was. It kind of made me slip. So explain what you do at Center Technologies. I started Center Technologies about five years ago. Okay. We focus on the infrastructure. So we focus on, you know, really anything from client devices all the way up into the server stack, the storage stack. Okay. Really heavily focused in virtualization. And we're very service oriented rather than, you know, your typical VAR that's, you know, out to, you know, kind of order fulfillment type of deal. You're not a box flipper, huh? We're not a box flipper. We're not. We're actually not the best at box flipping. We're better. We really try to get in with the clients and provide a lot of value. So it's, you know, if somebody's looking at us to do that box flipping, you know, we're going to come across as very, very aggressive because we're trying to ask them questions on, you know, why have you looked at doing it this way? You know, really try to, you know, on any deal we walk into, we're going to try to really look at, you know, take it as a whole. Really, what are you trying to do? And let's wrap a whole solution around it, right? A lot of times, you know, we'll get clients that ping us and say, I want virtualization. Well, let's look at the whole thing and let's put together the best package we can for you. Okay. And you're a customer of Dell then? We're a customer of Dell. We previously were not before the Dell acquisition. Oh, okay. So we started with Compellent, right? We started with Compellent and kind of moved in with the Dell with the acquisition. So we're a Dell customer by marriage, I'd say. Okay. We didn't really get that divorce from Compellent, so we've been forced on this side. But it's been good, actually. To be honest with you, I think when I first got that call at 7 in the morning, Basie says, hey, we've just been acquired by Dell. It was like, ouch, right? This market's very relationship-driven. We had no relationships in with Dell, and we quickly turned that around, and really Dell is very channel-focused. Which is different than the other large manufacturers in my opinion now. How so? Where do you see the channel focus? What are they doing exactly? Well, they're trying. I think they realize that they've got more that their people can handle, and I think they're looking for outside expertise, especially from the storage side, right? I mean, we're going to possess something that they don't have, but now that they kind of look at us, they say, okay, well, can you start doing these other things, these virtualization, and they're moving a lot of their business to the channel, and so we're seeing a lot of progress actually dealing with the direct reps, the LEs, the SMB reps that are on the street, and... So, like, sell with guys, folks? Yeah, we'll go... Really, what we're going to... Sell with you? Or no. Really, what we're going to do is we're going to do more of that heavy lifting form, and so because we're not that order fulfillment, we're not just looking for these leads so that I can put it on my paper and pass it back to the customer and turn around and walk away. Yeah. We're going to make sure the implementation's done right. You know, at the end of the day, if you make sure the implementation's done right, it typically grows, right? Because it's done right, the clients fully utilizing it, they're getting the full value out of what's been provided to them, and it typically is something that grows and not just sits on a shelf, so to say. How'd you find competitor? Did the compelling find you, or did you start around the same time? No, no. So we... About three years ago, there was a particular individual named Greg Edwards that... He's a great, compelling reference, so he went from Harris County... So he went from Harris County to compelling back to Harris County, and now he just joined Dell. But he... Guy can't make up his mind whether he wants to be on the sub-mire or something like that. Exactly. When I started... Maybe he just wants to see both sides. Yes, wants to see both sides. Absolutely. And he does. And he's a heck of a salesman when it comes to helping us with reference calls. Oh, yeah. But he reached out to me when I started Center of Technologies and he kind of said, what is your storage practice? And I've worked with HPEVAs. I've worked with all the storage out there, actually, you know, from a technology perspective. And I saw the feature functions that it provided and how it would benefit organizations. And so we signed up as a partner with them and kind of went running from there. Are you also an HP reseller? We're an HP reseller. I mean, that's kind of dying down as our relationship is moving, you know, more onto the... onto the Dell side. Okay. So... The conference itself. Are you enjoying it so far? Yeah, I think this is the second one. I went to C Drive last year in Minnesota. Okay, okay. So, yeah, the conference is good. I think the message is good. I think, you know, really the overall... I would imagine the overall goal of this conference is really, you know, me not coming as, you know, I'm only going for... for a compelling, but really to see the entire Dell storage stack rather than just see it as compelling, you know? So did you look at the ecologic solutions? Sure, we've already... So the acquisition was kind of exciting for us. I mean, you got to imagine that, you know, let's say 10, 15, 20% of the deals that we would go into with Compellant, we were competing against Ecologic. Where, you know, there are places where Ecologic is absolutely a fit. It allows us as a business to have more tools in our bag to be able to provide our customers. And so we, you know, we go in and push the Ecologic line as well. I mean, it's a great storage. It's a different fit in different situations. So have you got the sort of education training now around where to position one versus the other? Yep, yep. So we... Do you get some synopsis of that? Yeah. So really, if you kind of look at it and kind of what I feel, you know, it's an ice-guzzy fiber channel, right? That's a question you ask the customer, which one do you need? Which one does your application support? Because there are some applications that do not support ice-guzzy. And then it's, you know, how big are you going to scale and where you're going to grow to? Where the Ecologic has software, you know, pre-bundled in. The Compellant is bundled outside, but you become an enterprise license at 96 discs. So when you start getting to three or four Ecologic bricks, you need to start going into the Compellant. It actually makes financial sense to move that way. That's interesting. Okay, that's maybe an earlier transition than I might have thought. Yeah. Well, that's for me sitting down, running the numbers right when the acquisition happened and seeing where can I, because they really have similar messages, right? Yeah. The way it scales, absolutely. I've talked to a petabyte level Ecologic customers. And it's absolutely out there. It's just going to come where does each one fit? And so I sat down and ran the numbers and kind of said, you know, where are we going to fit each one? And within our organization, that was a big question that was always arising. Where do I, you know, we used to go in only Compellant, Compellant this, Compellant that. Now we go in and we have these multiple tools. And what about the scalable file system? That's on the Ecologic box today, but not yet on Compellant. It's also on the Loan Box. Power Vault. Power Vault, thank you. Yeah. So we're absolutely excited about that because that allows us to compete with NetApp. If you want me to be frank, there it is. I don't want you to do it. I mean, you know, NetApp is a, you know, where they ran, they started off as a NAS company and moved into the sand. You know, most of the devices we're looking at today started off as a sand and, you know, moving into that NAS and that Exynet product, that scalable file system product really adds to that portfolio. So it's huge and we're always getting questions for that. And is that embedded right into the box? Or is it an add-on head? I haven't been able to detail. I know when they announced it. We'll get a tech guy. We'll get a tech guy. I won't put you on the spot. Yeah. Well, we've already asked for demos. So we've fired off emails today. Okay. Have you been in the hands-on lab? Yeah. I haven't had a chance to go in, no. Well, you have to go because apparently they're amazing and everybody's getting a lot out of it. Yeah, everybody's talking about it. So that's good. All right. And your virtualization practice, you sort of started on server virtualization? Well, yeah. I mean, it's a big piece to our business where we're going to focus on VMware when it comes to the servers. And then, you know, there's multiple types of virtualization, right? You got desktop virtualization, application virtualization and server. Yeah. So we think Citrix does a really, really good job on the desktop and the application virtualization. Okay. So you have strong practices with VMware and Citrix. Okay. So I know it's the, you know, only first day for you and you haven't been to everything, but so far you did mention that you went to the keynote this morning. What is the one takeaway from that keynote or from the conference itself so far? Really, it's that fluid design, right? And how the, I mean, I know everybody says that. Is that word again? Yeah. I mean, we've heard that word for like, I mean, that was a whole thing. Because that was compelling, right? Because that was a drive of, that was the marketing pitch of C Drive last year, right? So I mean, everything we're seeing, we're kind of re-seeing it, but it's my biggest takeaway that I can bring back to the organization is really how do all these products fit together and then how, you know, the two reasons that I came here was that Exynet and the Ocarina, I really wanted to learn about those two products and how are they going to fit into that entire stack and that's what my biggest takeaway is going to be is I came Sunday on the CPAC, the Component Channel Partner Council or whatever and so we got, you know, we were kind of briefed on all that before and got to get really educated in those areas. So when we're talking about D-Doop and things like that, so Ocarina and data reduction and compression, you must be coming up against data domain kind of products or who else do you come up against? Or do you resell data domain? No, no. No EMC products for us. Never an EMC product. No, so we resell Exogrid. Exogrid is going to be very, very similar to Equalogic. It's a grid as in its name. It scales with you. Never really getting left behind on technology. As you scale it, you add performance. So it's a really similar message to the Equalogic line. We lead from that from a backup appliance, but we are definitely interested in this Ocarina and where it plays. I'm not so certain just yet it really plays into that backup world, right? I mean, it's how they combine all this together. Do you do much in the area of remote replication? It's kind of designed for remote replication? So most of our customers, I'd say 98% of them don't just have one system. They have multiple systems. And then if our customers can only afford one system, we actually developed a managed service model where we partnered with Cyrus One Data Center. Okay. And we rent a cage within there, and we allow them to remote to our compelling or our Equalogic. Okay. And we are their DR at that point. So the way we go a little bit beyond DR, we provide these clients with business continuity. And the way we do that is we'll spin their environment up and we'll pass their applications back to them via Citrix and be able to have that remote access to them. Okay. So. Awesome. Anything else? Well, you and I were talking about end devices and convergence and I'm just curious from your customers. So you've got laptops and you've got more and more of these kinds of devices that are being used and I don't know how many different platforms you got. You got tablets and you've got smart phones. Are you managing those environments for some of your customers or helping them doing the design? Sure. And really how, if you think about how do you do that? So all these devices are great. We have the hardware of the devices, but how do I get the applications to you? It really all comes down to that virtualized application. So how can I run the applications out of a core, central location, update at one time and then pass it to all my clients? So we're kind of going back from, we're really going back to those green screen mainframe days, right? Sort of, yeah. Well, if you look at it, I mean the world works in mysterious cycles in my opinion. Right. But. So are you using the Citrix product for that? Yeah, we're using the Citrix product for that, for the app. Which is called Zen App. It was, okay. Zen App, yep. There was another Citrix product that you were talking about yesterday. Yeah, the day J. Hill had done it right up on. It was. Zen desktop? No. It didn't have Zen in it. It all had Zen. Anyway. Yeah. But Dell's got a solution called Case. Have you looked at that? We have looked at it and we have brought them in to talk to them. And where we kind of saw a fit for that was a client device deployment. Okay. Where we're going to take a little different approach to it and we're going to give you a dumb device. We don't care what device is. We're going to give you a Rubik's Cube and a monitor for you to view. Okay. And then we're going to, from a central location, we're going to pass the application back to you. Okay. So that is, you know, one time to update, right? We get the update to all the clients. It's client delivery or application delivery. You know, if there's a new application that we need to deploy to a new client, it's a simple F5 on the keyboard or reboot or there it is. Yeah. So. Understanding the network is pretty important there. Sure. And network performance. Sorry. I've just lived some pain recently. Sure. Bad network. So, yeah. Do you have a big networking practice as well? That's growing. That's growing. So, we're really our core competency, really, you know, relied in the server, virtualization, storage, you know, Citrix, Microsoft practice. It's, we're growing that on the networking side and really starting to get into much larger projects from a networking perspective. Okay. Any advice for someone who's sort of looking to, actually, why would you ever want to do this? Yeah. I was going to say. You're just going to ask him for advice on startups to get into the place that you are. For someone in Europe, you know, who wanted to start up a reseller, start up an integrator, similar to you, what would be the number one advice? Be different. There's a million CDW insight and SHIs out there. There's a million of them. So, some way you have to be different and differentiate yourself and really it's got to come back to, you know, we're called bars, right, where I think that term bar has gotten lost. I really think it's a volumetted reseller and really find a way, how can you add that value add back to the clients? Because that's truly what they're looking for. Clients want a partner. So, sure, the customers want a true partner. They don't want just the order fulfillment. So, you know, if you're starting up a company like this, you got to find a way to be different. Did you start out that way or did you adjust? So, I worked with several different consulting companies and I kind of saw the way they did business and saw that I really don't think that I was given the client 100% of the value that I should have brought to him. So, yeah, I started an organization based on how am I going to give that back. And really it's, you really have to, you know, you don't have to focus on price all the time, right? If I beat you by a penny, does that mean that our configurations are the same? They're not. And really it's adding that value back and then you're not so focused on price anymore. So that's, and I don't, to be honest with you, I don't mind helping people out. I mean, it doesn't bother me to say this. It's really the delivery that makes it happen, right? And from what I've seen in the industry, I don't see that many, and I'm a little biased, of course, but I don't see that many organizations on the delivery side of this. Everybody goes out and says, you know, they'll go into a meeting and oh, I want to have a relationship with you and come on. I mean, let's all be honest. It's all about can you deliver that? Yeah. And obviously you guys have. Well, we ask for the opportunity and if given the opportunity, that's all we ask for is to be granted an opportunity. If we are given the opportunity, we're going to get in there and prove ourselves. And it clearly is, I think your compelence is the largest reseller in the south. Is that right? Yeah, I think we were, you know, I think Dell's numbers are blowing that up, so I don't know where it stands today. But we were, you know, for the previous two years, we've been partners with them for three years. We're top five and we've floated between two and five. Okay, so you can still call Phil directly? Yeah. Okay. Or email. Actually, he was great through this compelling acquisition. We had a customer that was purely an HP shop. Yeah. And he sent me an email and said, I hate Dell. Is there any way that you can sell me something else? And he was really joking and actually Phil Soren reached out to him and gave him a call. And then, you know, something that was, I sent the email to Phil and I was like, I need you to call this guy to calm him down. And so he gave him a call and then actually the day the acquisition was final, he called him at 5.30 again and just wanted to make sure he was okay and let him know that we're not going to stop the innovation of the product and we're going to continue it. You know, I think, you know, we all, you know, I think that Dell is definitely moving in the direction that Vars really like to see him go in. So it's a different talk than I think I probably could have had three years ago. Sounds like it. It's very positive now. That's great. I'm not just saying it because there's a mic in front of me. It really is positive. It's just the camera. It's the lights. It's being in the middle here, you know, I feel. Absolutely. Chris, thank you so much. Thank you. We really appreciate your time and I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference. Don't forget to do those hands-on labs. You bet. You bet. Absolutely. Go ahead and break something. All right. Yeah. Put it back together. Okay. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.