 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell Technologies World 2019. Brought to you by Dell Technologies and its ecosystem partners. Good morning, welcome to theCUBE's coverage day three of Dell Technologies World from Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman and we're pleased to welcome one of our alumni back to theCUBE. We've got Jay Snyder with us, SVP of Global Alliances, service providers and industries. Jay, welcome back. Yeah, thank you so much for having me again. Oh, our pleasure. So we have been talking for, this is our third day of covering the event. Lots of news, lots of technology conversations. We know there's a big global partner summit. It's been a big part of Dell Technologies World. Thriving partner ecosystem. Give us an overview of Global Alliances and some of the feedback from the last few days of the partner summit. So fantastic, thank you again for having me. I'll tell you this, the feedback is off the chart. I've lost the ability to find new words to describe how excited our partners seem to be with the messaging that we've had here. But what's been consistent is best Dell Technologies World ever and best global partner summit that we've ever had. And I think the reason behind that is not just because we've done a great job presenting the content, it's because of the content, right? If you think about the partner ecosystem, it's interesting. We've always worked incredibly well with them and our partners love what we do and the products we make, but our messages have never been perfectly aligned. Think about the messages we have now on the main stage. We have four transformations in delivering outcomes and then we have multicloud and the multicloud strategy. And then think about what the partners do. They deliver the strategy around designing and defining what a multicloud architecture is going to look like and we're being the providers that actually deliver it. Our messages are perfectly aligned. So they're so excited to see that they are now at the epicenter of everything that we go and do. And the fact that I would say probably more exciting is our entire sales force is trained on those messages, understanding those messages and embracing those messages. So they're getting huge lift now from our sellers as opposed to kind of, I wouldn't say we were never at conflict, but we're more in parallel and now we're really lockstep. Well, does that make sense? It does Jay and you brought up a really good point. Congratulations, glad to hear everybody's in lockstep because I remember talking about the transformation of the channel. And I go back when converged infrastructure first rolled out, there are people, oh my gosh, I make millions of dollars racking and stacking and cabling stuff. I need to shift. Cloud, there was, at VMware's partner summit, one of the executives at VMware, every time Amazon wins, we all lose. So help fast forward today. Cloud, a big theme of the message, how do all of those partners fit into those environments and how have they gotten to over the fear of cloud and to be fully embracing and executing on multi-cloud? Maybe I should just set context too about who my partners are, so that would be helpful. So we represent in alliances the largest global systems integrators. So think about firms like an HCL, a Deloitte, an Accenture and I hate to leave anybody out, but there's 18 of them. And then we represent the cloud service provider ecosystem. So a couple of hundred cloud providers that actually do provide managed private clouds off-prem or public clouds. So they're super excited about the message because they fit in on both ends as I was just describing. They're the ones that are really going to have to deliver the strategy around what it's going to look like and how they're going to get there. Customers ask us all the time, hey, I want to get to the cloud. But they don't really know what it means. So we have to ask them, what are you really trying to accomplish and why? Right? And once we understand that, we can engage with these partners and it's a perfect entree for them to go figure out, articulate and design that architecture. And then last time I checked, we're actually not a cloud company. All right, we have great products. We have great services. We have great platforms, but we're not a cloud company. Right? We don't provide those types of capabilities. So when you think about being able to leverage multi-cloud. And I'm sorry, just to clarify, you're saying you're not a public cloud company? Not a public cloud company. You know, the private cloud, absolutely. So you're going to part of that. On-prem private cloud, right? But when we want to go off-prem and create that multi-cloud environment based on use case, now all those partners fit into that play. And they have the ability, through the capabilities we just announced with Dell Technologies Cloud, to leverage those hyperscalers. So where they used to see them as foe, they're now part of the solution. And they can deliver that solution through our new platform that we just brought to market. So again, it gets back to, we used to fight it, now we're embracing it and leveraging it and deliver a comprehensive solution. So starting Monday, when Michael walked out on stage with Pat with Jeff, the message over-lying, and of course with Satya from Microsoft, was collaboration integration. So really starting to see all the layers of Dell Technologies and its brands come together in a much more cohesive way than we've seen so far. In terms of what the partners are now enabled to deliver. What was some of the feedback on that? Do they feel that it's been made more simplified, that it's been made more streamlined, that it's opening up new market opportunities with the Dell Technologies Cloud and some of the related announcements? So it's a complicated question you're actually asking, because for years the partners have been saying, we'd love to view you as a single company. That's kind of the missing ingredient to really unlock the full potential. I think the first big piece, the big mover in this, is the Dell Technology Cloud Platform. It's really the instantiation of what Michael's been talking about for the last three years, which is I'm going to bring all this stuff together and create a force in the industry where we compete in the market together, not against one another. So we're seeing that. So the partners are ecstatic, right? They're seeing the best of all the piece parts come together in that platform. And we've told them that's the first step. But we have been working with them for years to provide what I'll call an umbrella effect across all the different companies to allow them to tap into all those resources. So in some degree, we've been doing it already. We've been playing that multi-cloud game and working cross strategically aligned business to bring those values to life. But now we put our money where our mouth is and we have simplified the approach with the product and the platform to make it easier for them to go to market. We do have a little bit of ways to go though. I want to be clear. So, yeah, and Jay, really good points there because I wrote an article recently about hybrid cloud, got a lot of history with it and simplifying a piece of the overall puzzle. But as you said, those hyperscales fit into it. Satya DeLop on stage, AWS, a strong partner on VMware, Google announcement, just a few weeks ago. Those SIs that are your partners there are some of the critical pieces because there's a lot of complexity out there and we need key partners to be a help to us to do there. The Dell Technologies family is a piece of it but those SIs are really the arms and legs that are going to go help all of the customers understand, try to get their arms around and hopefully simplify. And what I said is they need to turn from a bunch of point pieces into an overall solution that helped me drive innovation and drive my business forward not trying to manage all of the pieces. We had talked about it yesterday. I mean, IDC says that 62% of customers will have a multi-cloud architecture but for my partner ecosystem, it's more interesting to know that 70% of the customers are going to choose a provider to design, architect and manage that infrastructure. So if you think about that, seven and 10 customers will use one of those global systems integrators and or cloud service providers or more likely both to deliver on their vision and their outcomes that they need to achieve to change their business models which is, again, great for our business. How influential are your, is your partner ecosystem in terms of some of the announcements that we've heard this week? They're out, feet on the street. They're talking with customers about the challenges that they're having, emerging trends, AI, ML. What's that sort of synergistic partner feedback loop like that helps Dell Technologies drive forward? Yeah, great question. We run partner advisory boards in each major theater multiple times a year and these are the exact things we ask them. What type of trends are you seeing? We map it against our product portfolio and our solutions to identify where there's gaps. 5G is a great example, right? We're looking at where the market's going. I happen to have responsibility for a big chunk of our telco vertical as well within the company, so it's a hot topic. And for a while, we were honestly lagging in this particular space. If I think back two years ago, we talked to telco but we didn't walk telco. We've made a lot of investments over the last two years to build a product business unit, specifically around telco solutions. And I'm proud to say, especially coming out of Mobile World Congress this year that we have arrived. We have incredible products, solutions that really are exactly what our partners are looking for and our end user customers are looking for. And it's an interesting dynamic because a lot of our partners are our customers. If you think about the telco community that's really going to embrace and drive 5G, we both sell to them and we sell through them. So we love the fact they'll consume our underlying technology, but more importantly love the fact that we can use them as a route to market to expose hundreds, thousands of customers to those capabilities in the broader scale. Yeah, Jay, the networking is such a critical component of that service provider piece. So how much of that solution that you're talking about pulls in some of the aspects from VMware, NSX, the SD-WAN, those pieces seem natural fit to help drive that overall solution. Yeah, I would actually tell you that my opinion is probably the first products that we brought to market were really cross-company, cross-collaboration. You know, even before we got to the Dell Technologies Cloud we're exactly what you're talking about. Some of those networking assets, some of the security assets that VMware has integrated with some of our products, server technology to build some integrated telco-specific things for the core and the edge, which is really where they're operating, specifically around the edge. VeloCloud is going to be a huge piece of that SD-WAN. We see the telcos as a huge route to market again for that particular product and as a massive consumer of that particular product. We understand they'll have to cannibalize some of their own business, but it's the way the market's going. So the answer is yes. We're seeing great integration, great collaboration between our product business unit under Kevin Schatzkammer in telco and his VMware counterparts. And I think I said his name right there too. Yeah, I had to interview him once and absolutely getting that right was tough. You know, one of the things always at the show is just the feedback that you get from customers and from your partners. So give us the mood, you know, where are they, what are some of the key opportunities, challenges, what's the top of mind issues for your partners? I'm telling you, I can't make this up. The mood is off the chart, right? They've said consistently, best sessions ever. I was talking to one particular partner last night. I won't say his name, but he's worked in this industry for 30 years. He's worked for major companies, SAP, Adobe, Microsoft. This is his first time at Dell Technologies World, working as a partner of ours. He said, hands down, this is the best partner driven, partner content, partner event I've ever seen in the industry. So excited about the focus Dell Technologies has as a company on our ecosystem and the types of conversations we're having to actually not just sell to us, but sell through us. Right, we're really, I think we've really worked hard to view our partners, not as customers, but truly as partners. It's all about the business we build together, not about the business we do together, if that makes sense, right? Well, that trust of relationship is absolutely table stakes. It is. For any organization. It sounds like you guys have really done a tremendous amount of work in the last few years to get that to the highest level that it's ever been at. I would agree. I think we've come a long way from where we were. We have a lot more work to do, it'll never end, but I'm super excited with what we've achieved. I think our partners are too, because the results they're getting are fantastic. I talked about the profitability of our business and their business together, which means what we're selling has value, which is fantastic as well. So it's good to know that we're not just winning in the market, but we're winning with high value. And again, it gets back to where this conversation started, which is everyone's talking about transformation and outcomes. It's hard to deliver value if you're not delivering an outcome or vice versa, right? Jay, one of the areas that I think your partners and the solutions that you're helping bring into market would have some good opinion on is this move from kind of the capex to the OPEX model. One of the things we look at the cloud announcements and it's like, okay, wait, which of these are as a service? Which one of these can I do financing on and which one of these are mostly built on in the hardware? Where does that fit into your overall discussion and what do you get feedback from your partners and the ultimate end users? It's literally in every single conversation we have. So I can't think of a particular partner conversation that doesn't center around a variety of things. One is always our technology. One is our go-to-market engine and how we can leverage that. And the other is commercials. And it's not the price, it's the consumption. How are we going to consume your technology? capex, OPEX and everything in between and that everything in between used to be one or two things, now it's 10 or 15 things. The models have gotten very complex and very dynamic. So it's top of mind. And the beautiful thing is a few years ago, the only way to get a consumption model or as a service model was through my partner ecosystem. Now Dell's done a good job to catch up to some degree but to truly deliver what a lot of the customers are asking for, which is pure OPEX, no capex, pay as you grow models. We're still leveraging heavily our partner ecosystem to be able to deliver that. And the challenge for us is to be able to keep up with them. They're moving at such a rapid pace and the dynamics of those models are changing. We have to evolve as quickly to be able to offer what our competitors are doing. I'm excited to say so far so good. We're doing a great job of that but I would agree with you. The commercial model, the consumption models are top of mind in every conversation had to today on how we're going to structure these things. And it's really exciting because when we do it right it tends to be not only great for Dell and great for the partner, but great for the customer. So it really is, it's the classic win-win-win. One of the things that it seems that Dell has been, technologies has been working to do for a while now has become this sort of one-stop shop for all things IT. Partners, are they looking to have that single trusted source? Do they appreciate now that they've got that, that they can really go to Dell technologies and enable their customers, your customers to transform IT, security, workforce. We've heard a lot about workforce transformation. Are they now seeing Dell as this, hey, this is this really one-stop shop. We can actually deliver everything that our customers are looking for. They're definitely seeing it because we're telling it to them all the time, right? But yes, the answer is without question, I think one of the big drivers for our business has been the ability to aggregate the breadth of Dell technologies and bring the full portfolio to bear to them. I'd love to see them all standardized on us exclusively. That's my job, right? That's what we do. We try to eliminate white space and own all market share. We'll never get there, 100%. But we've seen, you know, we look at a variety of metrics in our business. We look at revenue growth, profitability growth. We also look at white space, which is what you're talking about. Have we consumed the white space where our competitors used to be with inside our partners? And we've seen massive growth there in the last two years, significant growth across the board. And the reason is, because of what you just described, we now have an economies of scale advantage and a breadth of portfolio advantage where it just makes sense for them to bet on us to get what they need, right? Whether it's a pivotal capability or a VMware capability or a Boomi capability, when we have that, everybody pointed in the same direction, the story is just so much more powerful and I'm not going to say they're buying it, they're believing it and they're seeing it in the field. So again, I talked about it earlier. If we can transact at that level, at a Dell Technologies level, it means more value to our partners, but ultimately they can provide more value to their customers. So they're more profitable and our customers get better solutions. So yes, yes, and yes. Everybody wins. Well Jay, thank you so much for joining Stu and me, sharing the tremendous momentum that you guys have achieved. We look forward to hearing next year. I do too. Even better news. It will be. Thank you again for joining us. Thanks for having me. Great to meet you. Thanks Stu. For Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching us on theCUBE Live from Dell Technology World 2019. Day three of theCUBE's two set coverage continues after this.