 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with coverage of SousaCon Digital, brought to you by Sousa. Hi, and welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman and this is theCUBE's coverage of SousaCon Digital 20, getting to the end of a full day wall to wall coverage. We've been, rather than everyone getting together in Dublin, we're talking to Sousa executives, their customers and their partners, where they are around the globe. Happy to welcome to the program, Rachel Cassidy. She is the Senior Vice President of Global Channel and Cloud. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure to be here. All right, so love getting to talk a little bit about the channel, talk about the whole go to market piece. Maybe start a little bit, if you would, channel and cloud, how do those two go together? Talk to us a little bit about what your organization does. Okay, sure, that's great. So I think this is something new for Sousa, so at the beginning of this calendar year, we actually saw a lot of synergies between how we were going to market with our full end ecosystem and really pulling in all of the different partner types, include our route with supporting our customer digital transformation to the cloud. So that allowed us to pull all of the alliances together that really support and that transformation. So under this charter, we're basically looking to fulfill and support our customers, regardless of what route they want to use to help them through this time of digital transformation, enabling them in whatever type of cloud environment is best suited for their business, whether it's hybrid or completely public, they're born in the cloud, et cetera. So that's what our team is focused to do. Excellent, interesting to see how those pieces are coming together. Of course, one of the big discussions is moving more towards that cloud model. We've been saying for years, public cloud really is that bar that everything gets managed at, everything from the consumption model to pricing and everything of the like. I know one of the pieces is that you have a new partner program. Could you lay out what's changing? How's that all work? What does it mean to how SUSE is going to work with its ecosystem? Great, yeah, so we're very excited about this. We're releasing or unfolding slowly our SUSE 1 partner program. And this is one holistic partner across all of SUSE's. I think historically we had some different programs that address certain go-to-market routes or what have you. And we're pulling that all together so we have this larger all-encompassing offering. Already to date, we've just soft launched a brand new partner portal. So there'll be a easier look and feel and ability to use our systems. Coming soon, we'll also have an updated learning management system behind the scenes. So you'll have easier and more access to different types of training to support the different roles as you kind of build out your channel and cloud strategy within your organization and all of the supporting services and solutions that support that as well. The other big change that we're doing, and this is a preview to what's coming later towards the end of the summer. So this isn't released yet, but I'm giving you that precursor here, is a different approach. So we're not going to categorize our partners by I'm an IACV or I'm an ISV. What we're going to do is focus on specialization. So how to sell? Are you a seller of a solution? Are you a builder? So you're building integrated solutions that other partners in the downstream channel can sell. Are you a managed service support or services provider or CSP? So we'll have those different areas of specialization that then our partners can opt into one or more and make their business more impactful to their customers and we'll support them along that journey. Yeah, so sounds like that move is to kind of align more with what you're seeing customers, I'm assuming. What do you expect that change to have a ripple effect to SUSE's business? Yeah, I think it allows us to have more of an impact with our customers, make our end and offerings more strategic. It also allows us to really leverage and create relationships across the full partner ecosystem. So it's not just a SUSE specific solution, but we're looking at what are the use cases that our customers are trying to solve and how do we put the different parts and pieces of the ecosystem together to help them get to that next date of success, whatever that looks like for them. And oftentimes that's the trifecta of a multi-partner solution that then we can package, bundle, support and enable our partner ecosystem to support customers on as well. Excellent, Rachel, how are you seeing some of the changes in that ecosystem impacting what you're doing? We talked a bit about cloud, AI of course is a big discussion point for the event this week. So how are some of those larger technology trends impacting your channel and go to market? Yeah, I mean, the first piece is I think the different partners are changing their businesses. Though a traditional IHB, they're looking and expanding their offerings into more services or MSP type offerings. So they're looking to really engage and support their customers through that digital transformation. And that's what the partner program and how we're aligning our organization is in support of. And then the other piece on the technology roadmap, we're looking to move up the staff and be more and more impactful with some of those application driven solutions. So ML and AI, et cetera, and how we can be a bigger part of that and enable our partners to be successful in that as well. And then on top of that, I think the other compelling factor that we have to offer is true source initiative. I think especially now in this marketplace we're seeing a lot of more, it was already becoming mainstream, if you will, but now with COVID-19, it is a catalyst for innovation. And we are all about true open source opportunities and offerings. And that's what we're also enabling our partner ecosystem and our end customers jointly together around so that they can also be successful. Yeah, I've had some great conversations covering SUSECon with your partner ecosystem, talking about the digital transformation, talking about the impact of data. Is there, are there frameworks, maybe some new training that you're rolling out? Maybe you can expand a little bit on that digital transformation discussion, how you make sure that you've got a whole list of solution for customers between SUSE and its ecosystem. Yeah, great, great question. So one of the things that we're doing is we're calling them SUSE One partner stack and their modularized integrated solution stack. And we're doing these basically top down and bottom up. So from a market demand perspective, where should we be playing? What are the partners that we should be interlocking with to create those end-to-end solutions that meet high market demand opportunities and challenges that our customers face today. And at the same time, we're also building and defining these from the ground up. So what are the asks that we're seeing from the field without any marketing support or anything, just kind of proactively coming to us, help us solve this problem and pulling those parts and pieces together and then also making them very modularized so that they can be almost like a Lego block, if you will. So you can plug and play the pieces that are relevant to your specific solutions. And in the partner world, if you have your own storage offering or whatnot, you can use that or you can use art. So it's very modular and it also really helps to address very tailored specific solutions. We're starting these kind of a horizontal play. So looking at some of these new technologies, like you mentioned, what are we doing in AI, et cetera, to help support that partner ecosystem in the end-to-end solution. But then the next wave of this is what can we do more of that's repeatable and scalable to help our healthcare providers or automotive opportunities as well. So the next iteration, our next-next will be to have these solutions, Suzu One partner stacks, if you will, for vertical offerings as well. And then of course, sorry, you also mentioned training. So all of this, you know, it's not just us building it in the back room. We're doing it in the field with our customers, with our partners, and then all of the different supporting components that you need to be successful from how to support, you know, do-it-yourself marketing kits so that we can empower our partners to build this into their solutions or services are also part of this. And then enablement is a key, you know, table stake for all of it. And not just on the parts and pieces, but the end-to-end offering and also looking at that role base. Like what do I need to really help my customer understand the value of this end-to-end solution all the way down to, you know, the support technician or the deployment architect. Excellent. So Rachel, both in the keynote and the conversation that I had with Melissa, there was really a celebration of SUSE being fully independent now for a year. I'm curious what impact that has on the ecosystem and, you know, how does just being an independent open source company impact the relationship that you have? I think we've seen a nice uplift in excitement and opportunity from just that. So, you know, when people choose or go or embrace an open source option, it's because they want choice. And we are now the largest independent open source company in the world. And we're offering choice and flexibility. And all those values that are key in the open source culture and world are part of SUSE's culture, which I also think is really important and it resonates, you know, through our partner ecosystem, but also then extends to our customer. Excellent. I want to give you any final words you want to share with the ecosystem as to what they should be looking for. You gave a little bit of a hint for some things coming out in the summer, but final takeaways from Susa Khan. Yeah, our logo or tagline, if you will, is the power of many. And this isn't something that any one of us can do, you know, on our own. And I think especially in this today's environment, all the challenges that we're facing, we're really seeing people come together. And that is the definition of open source. And I've been in this environment for quite some time. I drank the Kool-Aid a long, long time ago. And it's important to us. So for the partner ecosystem, you know, I like to say it's the power of many and we're together as one. And I think that's kind of the message that resonates. And we want to make working with us, whether you're a customer, a partner, you know, easier, you know, easier to go to market, easier to be innovative and find those solutions together. And part of our overarching mentality is, you know, to simplify, modernize and accelerate. So everything we do are under those three pillars, which I think is really exciting. And I'm excited to be here and be a part of this, especially at this time. Well, Rachel Cassidy, thank you so much for my updates. I think perfect note to end things on. Community, obviously something that, you know, a big focus at the show, as well as something that is near and dear to the heart of the CUBE team. So it's been a pleasure for us to participate in SUSEcon this year and definitely look forward to many more SUSE events in the future. Thanks so much for joining us. Super, thanks for having me. Have a great day. All right, make sure to check out thecube.net for all the interviews that we have passed, as well as shows we will be at the future. I'm Stu Miniman, and thank you for joining us for the CUBE.