 Okay, we're back in live in San Francisco. I'm John Furrier the founder of silicon angle comm and silicon angle TV And we're here talking about services angle and disruption in the services business And we're on the ground getting all the action here at the big emc launch and I'm here with my co-host I'm Dave Vellante of wikibon.org and we're here with Wendy Barr Who is the senior vice president of Cisco's channel business the global channels of operation? So Wendy welcome to the cube. Thank you glad to be here first time on it's great Welcome you work with SI service providers, you know, of course all the partners. This is a big partner themed event today So, you know, how do you feel? It's great. It's great to be here And it's always great to have an opportunity to talk about Cisco's partners and the channel such a crucial crucial element to our success So it's been a couple years now since UCS has been launched Very bold strategy and at the time people scratch their head, you know, I was one of them said Cisco and servers I'm not sure that makes sense, but We we've seen an impact, you know clearly give us an update Well, Cisco is all about innovation as you know It's in the heart of the DNA of our company and we see this as an architectural evolution just like we saw with IP telephony We saw that in the data center with the UCS product and the architectural evolution in the data center Has been astounding and Cisco has led the way We've catapulted to success that we frankly didn't think we were going to have in the early days Our customers love the performance. They love how fast the applications run on UCS They love the reliability and they love frankly the cost performance So can you update us on from a channel perspective thinking about UCS is what's the mix like is it more sort of traditional? Cisco loyalists if you will in the channel that are saying hey great opportunity for us to now tip of the spear pushing VMware Or is it more of a mix of people saying hey I like this new model. I'm sort of disaffected with the old stovepipe model. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well, we're really fortunate with Cisco to have such a world-class channel. It's so robust over 50,000 partners globally over 12,000 that are certified meaning they've truly invested in enabling themselves on Cisco technology and capability So when we first entered the space clearly many of our partners had previously been in the data center space with the old Architecture and what we were amazed to see is how quickly and robustly they embraced the new architecture with UCS many of them becoming data center specialized and Certified and we're excited to keep enabling them with more incentives more training more opportunities So we were really fortunate to have so many partners who are already embedded in the space Taking advantage of the new architectures and truly being sort of the champions of Cisco with UCS What are the what are some of the learnings that you've come up with particularly with working with the channel in the last couple of Years well, you know things you do over if you had to do it again, and you know Maybe mistakes that you made Successes that surprised you talk about that a little bit well The success is always around how willing the channel is to embrace the new technology and they really do have an appetite And they are very much counting on us giving them direction and guidance about target addressable market opportunity So that's been really encouraging some of the challenges is as we move more into these converged architectures these converged infrastructures The multiple manufacturer go-to-market is a challenge So simplifying that go-to-market for our partners when they're dealing with multiple manufacturers is a real key issue for Cisco one that we're listening to our partners and we're taking to heart because the more we can make it easier for them from a Co-branding marketing joint deal registration incentive programs the faster we can close business and that's what it's all about So I've noticed I'm an observer of this market I know suppliers are getting very aggressive with I've called it a land grab with with the whole converged infrastructure and Generally speaking the pricing is very good I mean the the premium that you're paying for integration is not that much or sometimes nothing relative to rolling your own But still customers that I talked to say I know but I don't trust that I'm afraid that that's gonna come back to me and haunt me with with pricing power What are you seeing in the channel with regard to that discussion? Well, I think one of the reasons that our Cisco validated designs have been so rough So robustly embraced by both the partner community and frankly by the customers is we are de-risking the solution We are taking out some of that Skepticism if you will and what we're allowing our partners to do is take their very highly trained highly paid resources and Invest that work in other aspects of the customer's business whether it's the consulting Providing relevancy on vertical applications or services, which is a huge part of their profitability equation So I have a couple questions for you and obviously I love the channel business used to work in it with HP back in the day But you know whenever you have these disruptive inflection points We're seeing one now with conversion infrastructure and I'll see data cloud mobile and social as we cover on silicone angle and we keep on The old some old guys die and some old guys evolve You mentioned some of the things you guys are listening to your customers What are you seeing as the key trends right now for those key success points for a Cisco to evolve to the new architecture? Where there's new requirements? I mean we have an infrastructure. That's converging. They're looking for proven hardened solutions Integrators need to make a lot of cash and that's all about gross profit That's about services meant the easier but with applications now becoming so rapidly deployed and people outsourcing more as a common Practice what simplicity things can you point to about this new architecture and where will people succeed and where will people fail in your mind? So we've had an opportunity in my global team to take a look at what's happening around the world and combining the strengths of say a Traditional service provider an asset heavy Partner with an asset light more consultative partner like an Accenture as an example And we were talking about cloud earlier in the v-spec launch And I think that the opportunity for clouds to come more quickly particularly hybrid and public clouds Exists when we combine the strengths of multiple partner types. It is difficult It you know, this is complex business So asking a traditional service provider to do everything in to end in a new hybrid or public cloud environment They could certainly do that it might take them longer So we've seen a big uptick an appetite of partners to work more collaboratively together You know, we have some opportunities with Telstra service provider in Australia also working with a company by the name of keen Which was acquired by dimension data very prevalent in the SAP space and they're making great headway Accenture of course has a very large SAP practice and working very closely with other more traditional Networking partners. We've seen some great success there So those are some of the early trends that we're seeing and it's being it's beginning to pay off So it was just to follow on that Cisco has been great with their channel and depending on you talk to but you know It's infrastructure right and you're providing solutions for the Integrators and ultimately the customers which have a huge Cisco footprint going way back down to the old router days But now that the application markets evolve is so rapidly How does Cisco adapt I mean because now all the gear has to work with the apps And we're seeing that separation between hard and infrastructure and then you know versatility with you know Mobile for example that people want instant dashboards. They want instant data So how does how are you guys evolving and addressing that particular piece? Well Cisco I've been at Cisco almost 12 years and we currently aren't quite an evolution You know from hardware to more of a converged or software stack And I mean that's evident through our acquisition of Webex and iron port and scan safe just to name a few We also offer a hosted collaboration solution, which is more a cloud or software as a service type offering I think the opportunity really though is to benchmark the performance of key applications on a UCS platform Like SAP HANA for example or Oracle We've had seven world-class benchmarks with Oracle and their software getting our partners up to speed to be better able to Migrate those applications and size them is a critical next step in Cisco's evolution Yeah, we were at the SAP launch this week We shall stick it was going on as shown on the HANA and the database the mobile It seems to be that the partners are becoming much more app developer-oriented. Yeah, are you seeing that same trend? We're seeing some not all but we are seeing some the early adopters do get the Sort of added lift of having both the hardware expertise as well as the software expertise and clearly we're looking at orchestration and automation as well Cisco works well with BMC with CA and of course our own intelligent automation service one more question What is the market opportunity you're seeing around the services on top of say the emcee launch that you guys are involved in? What can a partner look at and say wow this is an old mine there That's a big mountain we can climb and make a lot of profit on in terms of either services and or our partnering Well for a long time Cisco has been a big fan of helping customers Take advantage of partners professional services for us key to success loyalty and longevity of our partners in the channel is Their ability to evolve very robust professional services practices again I think the opportunity to take these solutions like a v-specs and Provide more opportunity for quicker time to market and free up customer or partner resources to do more of that consulting is a great profitability opportunity for them and and now you work with interestingly cloud service providers as well as the channel and we had a number of channel partners up on stage today talking about the Cloud obviously the customers are asking about the cloud and they're embracing the cloud at the same time the cloud is this Threat to the channel everybody's gonna buy to a cloud service provider that you work with as well What happens to the channel well one of the areas of services? What are you seeing in the channel with regard to the whole cloud trend and and how is the channel adapting? Well last year at our global partner summit We launched Cisco's cloud partner program and that was sort of our first step in the evolution to help our partners Make this journey to the cloud We recently launched cloud verse which is sort of our concept around the cloud marketplace cloud verse is really a Philosophy around the world of many clouds, so we don't believe there'll be one cloud or a couple of clouds There's clearly public and hybrid there is a tremendous near-term opportunity as we talked about today at the v-specs launch around Private cloud and even within private cloud we see clouds and health care clouds and finance clouds and entertainment So we tell our partners who've been at the heart of building strong reliable network The platform for intelligent clouds that their near-term opportunity is in private cloud building and that's an element of our cloud partner program We obviously have big service providers and other global systems integrators more interested in building out hybrid or public clouds Or perhaps a cloud for a vertical so what we see is actually a wealth of opportunity rather than a restriction or a limitation on our partners So you're saying that specialism in verticals is that is a key near term for your partners We know they're verticals and stay in there Well, I don't know that they need to stay in there But I think it's important that they invest in the specialization and the certain kinds of taxonomy and knowledge that you get in a vertical market Partners are always looking for differentiation How can I be different than the partner next door and I think vertical expertise provides that opportunity well services I show this pie chart here if you can see this but so John This is the converged infrastructure opportunity and shows the services piece of the pie, which is almost 50% Services, however, it's a nice big number But services are very fragmented by nature whether it's by vertical or maybe application area geography And so I presume you're you're you're seeing that that channel partners have to pick their spots Like is it maybe not stay there permanently but but get a good strong foothold. Yeah, it is it is important You're absolutely right that they try not to be all things to all customers because the landscape is so diverse And it is so competitive certainly in public sector policy restrictions in certain countries or with certain government entities Is a keen area of vertical expertise as well So the thing is there's many many opportunities partners need to pick what's most attractive from a target addressable market Hone their skills well and work with us to make those realities happen. Are there any new New things that you see in the channel and I see you look at you get a lot of customer listening going on But you know channel the normal tactic blocking and tackling MDF co-op Price breaks here and there what's new in this new world of with social media cloud and rapid deployment The old days of deployments slow zillion dollar deployments is shrinking. We hear that from SAP. They're shorter and faster Does that change the mix of how you guys service your partners? Well, what we're hearing directly from partners in fact I heard from one of our our best partners here today at this event is that what they're seeing is an opportunity to expand the Discussion so they went into a pure network opportunity with the IT buyer was a roughly about $300,000 and very quickly that expanded into a VXI VDI opportunity So it's super-sized in their words the opportunity to almost 1.4 million Not only did it grow the size of the deal it grow the it grew the amount of professional services back to our services discussion increasing their margin and profitability Enhancing their relevance with the customer and embedding them more deeply in the account So we're starting to see it move out of just an IT centric discussion with sort of the routing and switching to a much More complex we've seen this we've had this on country in the cuba fat in the past about how this new market Looks like client-server where you know one investment expands on a from a billable dollar standpoint Significantly because if you buy this you get this right? Yes, absolutely storage when Wendy has been an important partner of Cisco's there was a lot of rumors a couple years ago Since who's gonna buy emcee says who's gonna buy net app and you know sort of fun and interesting, but Stores been a very important partner For you guys, I mean, you know clearly emcee and net app both, you know partnering with Cisco You're all about choice you emcee is all about choice you all want to sell your own stuff But talk about that a little bit in the importance of storage well I mean storage is a critical element of the solution clearly and it's going to be important as we move forward to hold to our Principles of an open and non-proprietary ecosystem relationship, you know We've said for a long time Cisco is about satisfying and delighting our clients providing opportunity for our partners and innovating Technologically so we have to hold to those three key tenants we also at the same time have to look for opportunities to expand the market and Clearly when we take a look at the converged infrastructure, there is an opportunity to do just that Okay, well, thanks for coming on the queue. We appreciate Wendy bar the senior vice president of channels and partners with Cisco Big giant in the business big footprint a lot of business in the channel So thanks for sharing your services angle with us happy to be here Okay, we'll be right back with our next guest. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back payment Flash memory is a hot topic these days in both the consumer and enterprise markets and the prevalence of flash in the consumer world on our mobile phones tablets and laptops is beginning to drive and Finally, let's go out to Utah where EMC's newest state-of-the-art global technical support center Officially open last month the ceremony was attended by EMC president and COO for computing infrastructure and cloud services Howard Elias and Utah governor Gary Herbert the 25,000 square foot center will serve federal agencies and companies Desiring US-based services as well as central and South American companies requiring Spanish and Portuguese language support for their information technology needs the facility has been operating since December and Expects to employ about 500 people with high-tech and customer service skills from Utah's skilled IT workforce By the year 2015. Thank you so much for being here. I can't tell you how excited I am about today's events It's it's a you know a wonderful opportunity for us to celebrate the opening of our newest technology support center Maybe it's the pioneer spirit of Utah you know we know how to work hard and Putting an honest days work for an honest days pay And our production is really a very good for our labor force We are in fact high-tech savvy. I'm Conor Lamalpha. I'm a level-one technical support engineer with the Clarion team I like the satisfaction of helping someone whether it be a fixing fixing something something that's broken or You know helping them solve an issue which they're in trouble with I enjoy helping the customer By locating our newest customer support center here in Draper City EMC is demonstrating not only our commitment to world-class customer support But also to creating good jobs and strong career opportunities here in the United States enabled by our growth worldwide My name is Gavin Heenand Technical support manager currently managing the symmetric support team here in Utah. You know when they announced the Technical support center opening up in Utah. I immediately thought of the opportunities for both myself from a clear perspective and also the opportunities for my family and how to be exciting for them and also to get involved at the very early stages of the start of the Technical Support Center. It would be really exciting. The skilled workforce and favorable business climate along with Utah's location and linguistic capabilities allow EMC to better support the unique requirements of our Customers of all stripes from the US federal government our growing base of customers here in the US Throughout the Americas and across the globe. My name is Emerson Senna I work as a technical support engineer to your EMC on a product called Clarion. As I'm in Brazilian I speak Portuguese in my first language and Utah is the main center for multi-language support So I never thought I would have opportunity to speak Portuguese living in America And that has been great for me EMC also intends to be an active participant in Utah's business community and to help provide students of all ages in Utah With valuable career skills that are in demand in today's high-tech economy To this end our academic alliance works with more than 750 colleges and universities worldwide including here in Utah to prepare students for information technology based Professional roles that didn't even exist a few years ago roles such as a cloud architect and a data scientist So I congratulate you all for the work that's being done for the results you're providing for us for the future Optimism that you bring you are the example of that hope that we all have here And living the American dream and we're doing it here in Utah