 Welcome back to our live coverage here at Cisco Live. This is theCUBE. I'm John Furrier with my co-host, Dave Vellante, covering Cisco for many, many years. 13 years up close this year, it's all kind of coming together. We're going to tell that story. And here we've got a great guest story. Chris Boots, SVP and general manager of collaboration devices, all the devices within the Cisco. All the cool stuff, John. All the cool stuff that we like. Collaboration software, WebEx, video, telepresence, which I've always dreamed of having that on my wall at my house. Thanks for coming to theCUBE. Thank you very much for having me. So let's get into, actually, the world of video has changed a lot. Everyone's doing video, video and video first. AI enables what we call it. You're in the middle of all the action. Telepresence really set the standard of quality back in the day. WebEx, well-known. What's the market drivers for collaboration and video that you're involved with right now? You know, there are a ton of market drivers. I think that during COVID, we send everyone home and everyone rotated to video, right? But now when we're out of COVID, we'd need people back in the office for certain tasks. When you're going to be creative, you're going to drive innovation. When you're mentoring people, and you want to create that magnet that pulls people back in without doing a mandate. You want magnet, not mandate. And when you do that, that means that if people are back, let's say two, three, four days a week, it also means that people are home one to two or three days a week. So it basically means that every single meeting has a remote participant. So you need to rethink your office. You need to rethink the technology. And you need to make sure that you have the tools required to be able to accommodate that hybrid work that you see. And that is kind of the key driver. And how do you use technology to make sure you don't build a barrier between people remote and people are in the office? So you can get everyone on the same page. So you got Taco Tuesday to get them back in, right? But then you're saying you got to have technology as well, but so explain the difference between like when we were all hybrid, right? Everybody had to have basically their connection, their WebEx connection or whatever. What's the difference now in the technology and in the experience? Yeah, so there are two things. So one is the tech. The other thing is you said Taco Tuesday. And I think that could be an interesting one. But I think the key driver is you want people to get back for the right tasks. But you also want to make sure that some of the casualties you saw during COVID, which was around innovation, was harder to do when you were not together. Mentoring people is harder to do when you're not together. You must make sure that the technology can actually support that. So I think that's kind of the key human driver. And then if you look at the technology piece of that, if you and I are miles apart and it's just the two of us, it's actually quite good. We saw that during COVID as well. When we have one square each, that's a very, very good experience. But when all of a sudden you have five people back in the meeting room, you have two people remote, they're all of a sudden at a disadvantage. So how do you break down that barrier between people then being remote and people being back in the office so that everyone is basically on the same table, that you can read everyone's facial expression, but also that you can ideate and whiteboard and do all those type of things as well and be on the same page. Okay, so today's keynote was very instrumental to me because it pulls together as a portfolio in that platform, enabling technology, taking the complexity of putting it in the platform. Chuck Robb has made a comment even, hey, we rewrote WebEx, collaboration is now there. Is there going to be a collaboration cloud? Because if you got security cloud check, network cloud check, is there going to be a collaboration cloud or is that going to be part of the network cloud? So today, collaboration has been a cloud for a long time. So if you look at WebEx meetings, you look at cloud calling, we're already doing that in the cloud and we did that during COVID, we're there today. The devices cloud connect and you can actually get the right features both out at the edge with the devices as you get it up in the cloud as well. So we're already there and it's been a driver for a long time to be able to do that. And there are a number of things that drive the cloud as well because you can really get features to scale and you can do a lot more when you do it that way. So that's somewhere where we're already, but we haven't branded it that way yet. Oh, I got it. I was kind of leading you on. I'm leading the witness. No, that's okay. I was all kidding aside, but a lot of people look at WebEx, look at that as WebEx from the old WebEx definition. Take a minute to explain what's new about WebEx. Cisco running on top of Cisco, there's probably some advantages. What's new with WebEx that's different that people may or may not know about, what's available, what technology's driving it. So I think that Cisco is in a unique position. Cisco is the only vendor that both has the meeting backend and the app and the device front end. That allows us to innovate to cross both the backend and the front end and really push features. And we've done that extensively. So over the last few years, we've added over a thousand new features into WebEx, both the meeting service and the front end as well. I'll give you one example. We made an acquisition a few years back of a company called Babelabs. And these are 30 people that geek out over waveforms. And they're very, very good at filtering out noise. They can filter out your lawnmower, they can filter out any type of noise, whether that's an ambulance or fire truck or what have you. But it can also optimize the voice for you. So we can lock on to your voice only. And because we both have the backend and the front end, we can actually get that tightly wound together. Then we have other things like socio, we have things like slider where you can do polls. And you get that out on the front end as well as the backend. So what we're doing is we're pushing features and functionality that goes across both what's in the cloud and out at the edge as well. I know David wants to ask a question, but I wanted to follow up on that. You guys have a great SaaS product as a platform. What's the developer angle? Because right now we're seeing cloud native developers wanting to get in, they got security in the CI CD pipeline. Is there a plan or thoughts around like I want to take socio, great consumption for like a web application for an event, slider integration with some APIs. I kind of feel like I want to code with it. Or roll my own or build up, take web as an isolated camera as an ISO. What's your philosophy on the developer angle on this? No, our philosophy is to be open and to have an open platform where we can actually expose APIs. We can expose things that will allow other companies to actually develop on top of our solutions to be able to add functionality. If you look at the Cisco devices, so the telepersons devices as well, that's an open platform. You can add third-party applications on top of that. But we also expose data from that. That can be temperature, it can be the number of people in the room, the number of things like that that you can actually use and use into other applications that you can actually develop on top of. So it's all about being open about those things. That noise isolation feature that you were talking about before, is that machine intelligence slash AI? How has the year of AI sort of changed the way in which you think about adopting AI? It's a two-part question there. So it's AI from A to Z. And at Cisco, we started a long time ago actually. Back in 2015, we started a close collaboration with NVIDIA. And on the video devices, we've been working on machine learning and AI and had those features out in our product since 2016. And we're building on top of that. And we just launched a brand new product this week here at Cisco Live, which is the Roombar Pro. And the Roombar Pro is actually running on the latest NVIDIA platform. It gives us 20 times the AI machine learning capabilities that anyone has had in the past. And that allows us to push the envelope even further. Then we use AI as well back in our cloud end of things. So we're pushing the envelope on what you can do on AI. That's around things like Babel House that we just spoke about or noise cancelling that we just spoke about. It's also around things like cinematic experiences where we're able to create an AI director that will pick the right image from any meeting all the time. We're doing things like meeting zones where you can actually define that in a space like we're in now, you can only see the three of us. We will filter out any other person that's walking around here and literally create a virtual zone. And we can use AI for things like that as well. And we're developing a lot of new features that goes into that. And there will be some interesting things there coming tomorrow as well, that you will see. So that would be super useful, but yeah. I was watching the Apple news yesterday at the Worldwide Developer Conference. One of the things that struck me was, this thing, the vision, which is the headset, you know, the Mac to find creating, you know, you created the Mac, Steve Jobs Vision. iPhone was connecting people with the smartphone. This is now a consumption, new kind of consumption. You guys have a similar kind of trajectory with Apple. You've got people created the, you know, the internet and the network enabled things to be created. You connect companies and people together. And WebEx and your side of the device is a consumption layer. That's going to change the content. You mentioned hybrid. That's the configuration of the participants. You've got group environments. The relationships between actors and participants in the connected interactions and consumption of content. What's your vision on this? Because this is like, this is a teaser to the future. The headset, I mean, it's telepresence kind of vibe in your face. You guys have telepresence at every demo. I get envy, I want that in my house. They look at my friends across the world. Video, the consumption. How does that change your job in terms of users consuming it, how they create content? It's got to be different. It's not yesterday's content creation. No, not at all. But let me be philosophical for a second. Okay, so what is the key purpose of technology? The key purpose of technology is to be the supporting actor or whatever business you're supporting, right? If you're into banking, the technology is to support banking. It's not to be above banking. If you're into healthcare, it's to support healthcare. So what we work at at Cisco is that our technology should always support the business you're in. So how do you use technology in the best shape for that? So we're trying to push the envelope. For a lot of things, let's say we took this table, we cut it in half, we added 5,000 miles. It would be really, really good to be able to see each other well. But we've also launched 3D and hologram that we have where if we were to discuss an object, I could hold up an object and all of a sudden we could combine seeing the three of us with actually manipulating, rotating that object to do that across those 5,000 miles. And we do that when that's useful. We don't do it because it's nice or interesting or anything like that. But it's really to support whatever business and enterprise that is using our tools and everything. So you see that kind of new change coming with content? Totally, but you need to do it right because you need to keep what we call the cognitive load low. You can do so many fancy things with technology. But if you over rotate, it gets complicated and you might lose focus on the actual thing that you're working on. So you need to strike that balance. Use the technology, keep the cognitive load down so that we provide the right tools for our customers. It's almost a challenge because the enterprise, the enterprise manager in you wants to make things more complicated, more features, gets to what we do in the enterprise, make things harder. You guys are making it simple. That's the theme of the show. No, and if I can be humorous for a second, the geek in me always want to make it complicated. That's what we do in the enterprise. Exactly, but what we need to do is we need to push the right user experience. It's always about the user experience. It's always about the design. It's all about being able to have the right tools at the right moment. That's how you're winning. So you think about that vision that you just laid out. If you go back to 2019, I'm sure you had a similar vision. How did the two years of COVID affect that? Because it kind of forced you to over rotate to accommodate all this demand. Did it, was it a learning experience for you that you've been able to carry forward or did you have to sort of go back and say, okay, let's get back on track for that vision? What was the impact of that? So there's one thing that I really think was amazing during COVID, if I can say so. That is how well companies were able to execute during the years of COVID. If you look back at that, if you told me the beginning of 2019, the world is going to send home all their workers and they're still going to be able to deliver. I've said no way. That happened just incredibly well. The tools were there. I think we made progress. We probably made a decade worth of progress any year. And Chuck mentioned that on stage. You guys don't get enough credit for that. The network didn't fail. No. The supply chain challenges. The cloud computing vendor stepped up. You guys stepped up. I mean, huge success, totally. But all of a sudden, very sort of a big words, I put it like this. You went from having a few hundred Cisco offices to having 80,000 Cisco offices. So with that comes a challenge when it comes to, how do you manage that? How do you keep that secure? How do you make sure that you keep the integrity of all of your information? So where Cisco is unique is that we have some tools there. Things like thousand eyes that can do all of the network monitoring and security. You have things like a control hub that allows you to control all of the gear that you have out there. You have things like spaces that allow you to control all those spaces. And I think that where Cisco is unique is that we have those type of tools. You're the scale. You're the scale. By the way, on the whole real estate office, everyone working at home, that solves the homeless problem right there. Donate all the real estate to the homeless. And those go in the office. Now it's three days a week, but all kidding aside, the question I have for you just to kind of get things kind of wrapped up here is, Cisco has amazing networking. You guys have the collaboration. Cisco on Cisco should be like the highest performing system on the planet. And some are saying it could be better. What is your take when someone says, Cisco collaboration on Cisco networks should be tightly coupled, highly optimized, and engineered for maximum the best performance, the best developer environment. What's your best experience? What's your, because you run that top on top of the network. I think Cisco on Cisco is a great experience. And not only between our meetings backend and the device and app frontend, but also with the tools we have on networking. Like I just mentioned, when all of our gear is implemented and connected to 1000 ICE and those type of things. So we're there. But there's also another fact, and that is that the world is also open and interoperable. So we're driving interoperability in all of that. And we've come a long way in how we work with a number of partners as well on the interoperability side like Microsoft as well. But Cisco on Cisco, we're pushing the envelope. We are developing things that goes together, that goes across the meetings backend, the device and the network. And that is really our purpose. And then you said, somebody claims it can be better. I jump out to bed every single morning. Everybody wants it very bad. I jump out to bed every single morning to make it better, to make the user experience better, to make the design better, to do new things. The day I say we're good enough, then we probably lost it, right? You're never done. You're never done. You should never be done. It's hard. It's a hard problem because latency and you get all kinds of challenges. But if you look at the features, if you look at the stability, if you look at what we can do with WebEx and the devices and calling and all of the pieces we have, this is very, very solid. What's your North Star? You said you wake up every morning, make the product better. From a product design standpoint, as you look at it the next five years, it's going out, it's hybrid. That's a steady state, no debate there. That changes the equation. The headset vision, another consumption layer, content creators like us and all around us, content's emerging, you got AI content. What's your North Star as you go forward? My North Star is always user experience. You should have the right tool at the right quality when you need it for the right tasks when you're doing it. It's a huge difference when you're in an operating theater doing something on a patient versus a meeting where you're doing a QBR. You need to have the right tools for the right setup and never, ever forget the user and the user experience. That's where you need to, that's always the North Star. And then AI is a tool to get there. Machine learning is a tool to get there. Cloud services is a tool to get there. And those are tools, but never, ever forget the user experience. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, really appreciate it. Simple, easy to use, it's a great business model. It's a great business. Thank you very much, I had a good time. Okay, this is theCUBE coverage. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante on the show floor here at the popupCube at Cisco Live, breaking down all of the inaction, the keynotes, the analysis. Of course, our opinion, we don't hold back. Get the best guests here on theCUBE. Go to SiliconANGLE.com for all the coverage. You'll see the content there. We'll be right back with our next guest after this short break.