 Welcome to this CUBE conversation. I'm Lisa Martin. Pleased to welcome back Caitlin Gordon, Vice President of Product Management at Dell Technologies. Caitlin, it's great to see you again, though, virtually. Yes, it's good to see you as well, Lisa. Tony Frank is here as well, Global Client Executive at Equinix. Tony, welcome to the program. Thank you, Lisa. Good to be here. We're going to be talking about some news. Caitlin, let's go back. You and I, before we started filming, we're trying to remember when did we last see each other? Of course, it was virtual. But just refresh the audience's memories with respect to the catalyst for Dell to go into this as a service offering. Yeah, I think we're all losing track of the virtual months here. So go back in time a little bit. Yeah, exactly right. The first actual Apex offers really came to market in the spring in May with our Apex data store services. And at that time, we actually had pre-announced what we're going to talk more about here today with our partnership with Equinix. But if we take a step back, why did Dell talk about this as a project and is now really investing for the future? It really connects to a lot of the conversations you guys have here in theCUBE, right? What's happening in IT, what's happening with our customers is that they're looking for outcomes. Yes, they're predominantly still buying products today but they're really starting to look for outcomes. They want to be buying those outcomes. They want to have something that is an operating expense for them. Something that we can take, we as the technology, the infrastructure experts can take on the management, can take on the ownership of that equipment and really enable them to focus on their business. So really consumption-based, usage-based infrastructure, all being elastic resources that Dell owns and manages but customers can still operate. And of course, one of the first offers was Apex data storage services. Talk to me a little bit, Caitlin, about outcomes. I just want to understand what Dell actually is focusing on for its customers where outcomes are concerned. Yeah, and it's interesting as a company, it's a pretty big transformation for us. We have always been a product-led company but it's not really about a product. So when I talk about Apex data storage services, you're not going to hear me mention a product name or anything because what it's about, it's about offering our customers what they're actually looking for, which is in the case of storage they're looking for, I want either block or file storage. I want a certain tier, so it's at a higher performance. I want a certain capacity of it and I want to commit for some period of time. That's it, those are the questions we ask. There's no product names and sizing and it's really, really simple and that's what we're talking about. It's really the beginning of really trying to deliver customers an outcome versus a product. Got it, Apex data storage services. This is Dell's effort to supply managed file and block storage services. Talk to me about that, talk to me about some of the things. How does it enable the fast time to value as little as 14 days for your customers? Yeah, so there's a lot of really important things we're doing here. We're not just taking the products we had and kind of packaging it up in a new financial model. There's a lot of parts to this. It all centers around the Apex console. So the Apex console is where you start begin really ongoing manage and experience these outcomes from Dell Technologies. And it starts with selecting the service you want. So if you select that you want Apex data storage services you pick your type, you pick your tier, you pick your time period and you pick your size, right? And then you're off to the races and we will be able to what we're committing to do is delivering that in this view and as little as 14 days time to value. And for us, one of the benefits of being able to do this as Dell's we have always really thrived in our supply chain and the ability to have that predictability and being able to deliver things as a service including storage is really something it's just an extension of what we've been able to do there and our partnerships with Equinix actually is going to enable us to even look at that further and see what we can do to really bring value to our customers as quickly as possible. That speed, that time to value is even more important as we've lived through the last tumultuous 18 months. Let's break into the news now. You guys pre announced some partnership with Equinix to talk to me about with respect to Apex Data Storage Services. What's being announced? Caitlin, we'll start with you and then Tony will bring you into the conversation. Yeah, absolutely. So again, we first released Apex Data Storage Services in the spring and we're already enhancing that today. Couple of exciting things. So geographic expansion, so expanding out into additional regions across Europe and Asia who are expanding our support. So we talked about the fact that it's block and it's file. So actually on our file capability here and our file outcome, we now will have the ability to support an S3 protocol. So you can do that app development and run your operations all off the same platform. So that's an exciting new expansion there. We're also enabling partner sell-through. Our partners are really, really important whether the resale partners or technology partners like Equinix or partner sell-through is another important piece. And of course, most important for our conversation today is the exciting new announcement of the fact that we are going to offer Apex Data Storage Services available in Equinix facilities all integrated into the Apex console. The fifth question is, now where do you want your Apex Data Storage Services? You can select a Dell provided facility and you get the choice to select the different cities of Equinix locations and we're going to provide that single bill and experience through Dell. But on the back end, we've worked with Tony and team for months to get this to be a very streamlined experience for our customers. Tony, talk to us about this from Equinix's perspective. Yeah, we're very excited. Caitlin, thank you very much. And Lisa, thank you. Very excited to be part of what Dell's doing with Apex and enable enterprise customers to deliver, to get delivered to them at Equinix facilities, storage as a service, in addition to additional Equinix capabilities, really enabling agile enterprises to distribute their infrastructure across the world, leveraging Dell product, Dell management, and to get access to partners, to their other footprints, to cloud service providers, et cetera, all within the footprints of Equinix. So, Caitlin, Apex Data Storage Service in secure Colo facilities in conjunction with Equinix. Talk to me about what the reception has been from Dell customers. Yeah, it's been really fun. I mean, first of all, when we thought about, I mean, data center providers are a critical part of us being able to deliver that outcome to customers. And when we looked at the ecosystem of partners, it was very clear who we were going to be partnering with. Equinix was really the best partner for us. We already had been working together in many different ways, and we're just taking this partnership to the next level. And what we've already seen, actually all the way since earlier this year, we've had many, many customers coming to us either first, at first it was separately, but now it's actually jointly to say, I'm having a challenge and here's my challenge. And most of these conversations start in one way. I'm getting out of the data center business. And the nice thing for us is that between our two companies, we can solve that, right? We have a combination of the right infrastructure and with our partnership with Equinix, you partner that with the data center services, you can actually give that full outcome to a customer. And we were solving those separately and now we're solving those together. Those folks wanting to get out of the data center, if we think about in the last year and a half how inaccessible the data centers were, Tony, I want to get your perspective on the COLO market. And as we look at IT today, the acceleration of it and digital and cloud adoption and getting out of the data center that we've seen in the last 18 months, help me understand why the COLO market is really key today for the future of IT. Absolutely, Lisa. So focusing on outcomes is Caitlin outlined earlier, is a really important part of really how IT has managed this pandemic and thinking about how do we solve for this vast distributed set of employees that we used to have aggregated in a single building or multiple buildings, but really spearheaded in a couple locations. And all of a sudden everything became out in rural America, out in rural Europe, out everywhere. Employees were spread out and they needed a way as an IT team to bring together the network, the security and the ability to be very agile and focus on an outcome as opposed to how am I going to get this next piece of equipment, this next storage device, this next compute system in my data center and add the cooling and the power and all the things that they have to think about and really it was an outcome. How do I give my employees the best experience possible? My partners, that access they need to my systems and the various ways that we interact together. So the COLO market as a whole has been really changed dramatically through the whole pandemic. And if you didn't know Zoom two years ago it's your best friend now or it's your least favorite way to do business, but the only way we have to do business in the world that we're living in today. A lifeline and here we are zooming with each other right now. Let's talk about, Tony, I want to stick with you. Let's talk about this partnership between Dell and Equinex, why is this such a compelling partnership? Talk to me about that from Equinex's perspective. Yeah, we're so excited to be able to be partnered with the number one leader and provider of infrastructure and infrastructure services. We have really been a niche provider for the last 15 years, we're a 21, 22 year old company and we focused on developing ecosystems and those were at first the internet. We brought the telecom providers together to make the internet work. And then on top of that started enabling things like digital trading, also enabling all sorts of ad exchanges so that you see the banner ads that apply to you when you go to a website. And so we were well known within those ecosystems that we worked within, but getting out to the enterprise has been a big challenge and Dell brings us those relationships. They bring that expertise, that trusted advisor kind of role and so being able to extend our sales team and really leverage what Dell has done across small, medium, large and very large enterprise is a real win for us and it allows us to achieve a scale that we wouldn't have been able to achieve by ourselves without breaking the bank trying to hire people and trying to get them familiar with those customers. And so Dell brings us into that. We're able to complete what I call the three-legged stool that compute the storage and now the networking aspects can be dealt with in a single conversation around an outcome and Apex gives us a chance to really be agilely available as Dell's customers define that for themselves and to deploy the infrastructure where they need it and to achieve those outcomes that they're trying to get to. So some ostensible value that Equinix is getting by the Dell partnership. He said pulling us into the enterprise, facilitating that scale. Katelyn, talk to me about this from Dell's lens. What makes this partnership so compelling for Dell and the future of it as a service? I'm laughing as Tony's talking through that because it tees it up perfectly. From Dell's perspective, when we looked at data center providers, one of the challenges for us is we're a global IT provider. So we had to partner with someone who understood what it meant to operate and manage data centers at a global scale and locations all over the world. There was very short list to choose from once you look at it from that lens. But more importantly and what Tony, you already hit on, the networking, the interconnects that we have in our partnership with Equinix are incredibly valuable because ultimately, although customers start going to a Colo facility because they want out of the data center business, they don't want to be managing racks and power and cooling and all of that. Oftentimes what actually the value they find once they get there and why they stay and grow is those interconnects, the ability to connect to other tenants in these facilities and the ability to connect into the hyperscalers. And the richness of those interconnects with Equinix was truly unmatched and that's why it's been such an important partnership for us. Tony, what's been some feedback from the Equinix customer base? Well, it's really funny. I spend half of my time trying to figure out with my team how we're going to solve for storage as a service, the next geography, the next product, but the other half of the time is spent who on the team is the right person to go pair up with the Dell team and get the Dell team brought into a discussion and it's going bi-directionally right now. The volume is picking up, the velocity is picking up and it really seems to be like that snowball just going down the hill. It's just picking up speed and with every interaction, we're gaining trust with each other, we're gaining competence in what the message is and how to solve for it. And we're working out the various ways, you know, in a predictive way, what are most people asking for but the wonderful thing is there's custom availability to figure out a solution for just about any problem that the IT or infrastructure-focused teams in the enterprise are looking to solve for. Tony, sticking with you for a final question or two, in terms of the last few months, have you seen any industries in particular that are really readily adopting this? We've seen so much change across industries in the last 18 months. I'm just curious if you're seeing any industries that are particularly taking advantage of this capability and this partnership. Yeah, I would point to highly regulated industries thinking about financial, thinking about governments, and it's not just a U.S. situation, this is a global situation and data sovereignty, where that matters to a particular customer is really important that they keep that data in the geography that it needs to stay in is defined by the different governments around the world. You see, the financial industry has been a first mover towards electronic trading and really disrupted, thankfully, prior to the pandemic, the way trading was done because in-person trading wasn't going to happen anymore. And so in the highly regulated world, the health cares, the financials, those folks are definitely looking for a solution that has certifications across the board to help them say that they're auditors, we've got this covered. That's something we're able to bring to the table for Dell. And then it also helps that the first movers sort of towards a digital infrastructure were insurance companies and others that saw the value of leveraging partnerships and bringing together things as quickly and fast as they could without deploying huge global networks to try and make it all happen. They can instead virtually meet in the same room leveraging our software defined network called Equinix Fabric. It's been a real win for the regulated industries, certainly. Got it, thanks for that, Tony. Caitlin, last question for you. This is Dell Managed, so single bill from Dell. Where can the viewers go to learn more information about this new partnership? Dell Technologies.com slash Apex. You'll learn more about all things Apex, really the Apex console is the experience so you can learn more about it there. And then of course your friendly neighborhood, Dell AMC rep and or channel partner. Now that we've got that partner enablement as well. Dell Technologies.com slash Apex. Caitlin and Tony, thank you so much for joining us today, sharing the exciting news about what's new with Dell and Equinix and what's in it for your customers and your partners. We appreciate your time. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Lisa. For Caitlin, Gordon and Tony Frank, I'm Lisa Martin. You've been watching a CUBE conversation.