 Okay, we're here live at AT&T Park, I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE.com, this is The Cube and we're Todd Palmer, Vice President of America's Sales for NetApp. Welcome to The Cube here at AT&T Park, you're a tech athlete as we say, on SiliconANGLE.TV, welcome to The Cube. Thank you, I'm excited to be here. It's a very, very cool event. So, you're a sales guy, what do you think about this event, this is pretty good for customers. It's fantastic, I mean it's a great opportunity for you to be able to socialize with your customers very, very casually, see a fantastic ballpark and socialize with a bunch of partners as well too. We have a bunch of reseller partners here and then also a lot of manufacturer partners too, so it's a great opportunity. So NetApp's here at Oracle, EMC got slammed, dunked by Larry Ellison during the keynote, just absolutely threw him under the bus. We'll see what Joe Tucci has to say when he does his keynote, but NetApp's a quiet little company that's kicking some serious butt. So what do you think about Oracle OpenWorld right now relative to your opportunity? It's a tremendous opportunity, I mean Oracle is the largest database platform in the world generating tons and tons of data, it's got to go somewhere, companies are looking for the most efficient way that they can possibly store it, turn it in information that they could use, so incredible relationship that we have with Oracle and the opportunity is just tremendous. So we did a bunch of interviews all day live inside The Cube, inside the show and one of the quotes I heard today was, big data is almost as hyped up as cloud and no one really kind of knows, there's more confusion at an all time high right now in the industry. So you guys are trying to sort that out with customers, what are you hearing around big data, cloud, storage, flash? I mean it's a huge, huge, gigantic opportunity, I mean if you just think about the things that are going on in our industry, everything is creating very very large amounts of data, whether it be those drones that go over the border or the drones that are going over foreign countries to look out for you know dangerous people that are out there. I mean if you look at every single one of the cities and municipalities they're now putting video cameras at every single street corner to see real time what's going on to make sure they're keeping their people safe. All that data's got to go somewhere. The massive ingest rate to turn that into information is challenging. It's a tremendous opportunity but it's a big, big challenge and there's not a better market to be in right now than the storage business. Yeah we heard from the Jet Propulsion Lab on NASA talking about some of the data that you're trying to get from the Mars trip and that Curiosity project. But how are customers buying right now? Because they can get a variety of things either direct from other folks but there seems to be a lot of complexity involved in acquiring technology that's required 100% in their business and growing with the data tsunami. But yet it's complicated. They got it integrated in. You guys are trying to do that with your sales approach. How are you guys tackling that and is it what mix of direct and indirect business is it? Well if you think about what we just talked about around big data right I mean there's a huge opportunity but it's a very complex solution. There's multiple manufacturers that go in there who what one person is going to bring that all together to make sure that it's delivering ROI for the customer. It can be implemented for the customer and it can be supported for the customer. I mean that's the role of the regional or the global systems integrator or the reseller out there today. I mean this doesn't become a reality unless they're an integral part of that equation. Tremendous opportunity and as far as NetApp goes we're a channel company. I mean the channel it's not an important part of our strategy. It is our strategy. That's how we bring technology to market. We firmly believe customers want best of breed integrated solution offerings. We only develop storage products. We've got a partner with the other manufacturers out there that make best of breed products and our partners bring those together and bring them to market. So this is a marriage made in heaven between our resellers our integrators and NetApp. Let's talk about the channel dynamics because in the channel business has changed. Channels being systems integrators solutions new boutiques if you will in the cloud space is coming on. They're solving customer problems but they need to work with a partner who can actually make it easier and make money right. It's all about for them how much profit they make and you know does the partner help me do that. How are you guys helping channel partners because you know the cloud is an opportunity but also it's a threat. How are you addressing that. Well it's a couple things right. I mean I think that all companies are starting to migrate towards the cloud right. If you were starting a company today you'd probably look at what are the services I can get without having to build an infrastructure in-house. I think everybody would and so our partners they have to figure out a way to monetize what's going on. I think a lot of our resellers and partners today are either going to launch cloud services themselves or if that's not a part of their business plans then they need to partner with people and resell or white label those cloud services offerings. So what we're doing is we have a whole big practice around educating our partners on what the opportunities are out there and then helping them in that decision-making process and regardless of whatever is best for them whether they're going to build out a cloud business theirself like many are or they're going to want to be a reseller of cloud services then we're making the the introductions and the relationships with those cloud service providers so they can figure out how they can monetize it for their business. I think every single one of our partners has to figure out how they're going to monetize it because the opportunity is tremendous. Well certainly in the services side a lot of opportunity to wrap high gross 100% gross profit products around NetApp but how does that relate to Oracle? We're here at Oracle Open World and Oracle is in every mega-cow they've got 20 of the top 20 banks 20 of the top 20 blank insert the vertical Oracle's got 20 of the top 20 so how do you guys play with the channel relative to Oracle? I commented earlier right I think our customers are looking best of breed integrated solution offerings that's what our customers want. Well Oracle is best of breed in a lot of the products that they have best of breed in database best of breed in certain specific applications we're best of breed from a storage standpoint Cisco is best of breed from a server and a networking standpoint you pull all those things together with an integrator that can make them a reality for the customers I mean that's just a perfect synergy. Talk about the customer environment now so you've been in the sales business with in tech you've sold you've been a manager now you're managing the biggest reseller opportunity for NetApp what's going on the mindset of the customer what's the psychology of the customer they're getting bombarded with new stuff some case people might not even have vaporware on one end what's the mindset of the customer share your thoughts. You know I think it's a tough position to be in right now if you're a customer right you see the markets moving very very rapidly I mean all budgets are intense and they're being asked to do more with less every single day of the week I think they're looking for people to come to them with solutions to their business problems and help them in that decision and not figure out what they need to buy today but where is this going to go in three or four years from now we like to say future proofing their infrastructure or future proofing their decisions I want to make sure the decisions I make today aren't going to you know come down and bite me in three or four years from now so I think they're looking for either manufacturers to provide them that information or more importantly our partners to provide them that information so I think the customers really are relying on our partners or the partner community today more than ever before. You guys have a great opportunity to use the channels a great lever for NetApp but with that being said share with the folks out there some use cases where partners have really done well with NetApp. I think there's a tremendous number of FlexPod probably a primary example FlexPod for those of you who don't know right it's a best of breed integrated solution that included best of breed networking best of breed storage and best of breeding server platform with UCS it's a purpose-built solution that solves real world problems our growth rate over the product is phenomenal we're going to have over a hundred percent growth rate with FlexPod this year 1300 new customers two and a half customers today and the margin is tremendous because the partner's selling an integrated solution right when you go to buy a car you don't ask how much the tires cost so you're providing a real solution and partners are making significant margins as a result of it well my final question is really the most important one and probably the hardest question to answer is channel conflict I mean if a retailer smells channel conflict they'll run for the hills how are you guys addressing that channel conflict you know our partners tell us all the time they care about three things they want innovative products they want predictability predictability of margins predictability of your partnership and the third thing is they want to be aligned with your sales organization we focus a lot of time and energy making sure that we align at the point of attack and making sure that we're not competing against each other we're a channel company we want to do all of our business with our partners because we really need them in that business so I think by aligning our partner sales teams and the app sales teams that's how we figure out how to do it also this is many people don't know this but we have the best registration program in the business we register a deal we win or lose together not many companies will do that final final question is what's going to be your outlook for next year next year at Oracle Open World and VMworld when you have the AT&T park events what's going to be your accomplishments well I think the virtual infrastructure is going to continue to grow we're building you know use cases for Blackspot every single day of the week whether it be on Oracle or whether it be on SAP or whether it be on Microsoft applications that's a big big thing the second thing is I think that big data is tremendous I mean it's a it's a huge opportunity and it's changing daily so I think those are probably the two big themes next year all right Todd thank you so much for coming on to Cube here Cube interview here at AT&T park you're a tech athlete doing it congratulations thank you appreciate it okay we are here at SiliconANGLE.tv inside AT&T park for NetApp's customer appreciation event during Oracle Open World this is where all the tech athletes are customer appreciation this is SiliconANGLE.com at AT&T park