(upbeat music)
>> Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE
covering Microsoft Ignite.
Brought to you by Cohesity and theCUBE's ecosystem partners.
>> Welcome everyone to day one of theCUBE's live coverage
of Microsoft Ignite here at the Orange County Civic Center.
I'm here -- I'm Rebecca Knight -- my cohost, Stu Miniman.
This is the first CUBE show ever at Microsoft.
It's unbelievable!
>> Yeah, Rebecca, it's a little surprising.
You know, we started back in 2010 doing these events,
we've done hundreds of shows, we've done thousands
of interviews, we've had lots of Microsoft people,
but the first time at a Microsoft show,
there's plenty of people I've bumped into that
don't know theCUBE.
30,000 people in attendance here, so
really excited to dig into this community and ecosystem
and show 'em what it's all about.
>> We're making history.
So today, we had Satya Nadella up there on the main stage.
What is your big takeaway from his keynote, Stu?
>> Yeah, so Rebecca, Satya Nadella, obviously
has really helped turn around Microsoft's --
really, the way people think about Microsoft.
'Cause it's interesting, when I look at the people
we're going to be talking this week,
lots of them have been with Microsoft
ten years, twenty years, or more, so.
Microsoft is one of those stalwarts in technology,
they are obviously critical in a lot of environments.
Everything from the latest Windows 2019 got announced today,
there's excitement there, but they're playing in the cloud,
they're playing all over the environment but Satya has
brought new energy, some change to the culture
I know you're going to want to talk about,
and really came out talking about the vision for the future
and what was interesting to me compared to some other
big tech shows that I go to, it wasn't product focused,
it wasn't on the new widget.
They touched on things like Azure and, of course, AI,
and some future things but it was really
business productivity at its core is what I think about.
If you think about Microsoft, I mean, we've all used
the Office Suite and watched that go from
Microsoft getting into the apps to being the main apps
to pushing people to Office 365, so.
I hear things about like business productivity
and when they put in the Intelligent Cloud and the
Intelligent Edge, it wasn't product categories they
went into, but really speaking to broader terms
to the business, so.
It was interesting and a little bit different
from what I would hear at say the companies
you compare them to.
The Amazons of the world, the VMwares of the world.
So, a slightly different messaging.
>> I couldn't agree with you more, and just talking about
the different kind of energy that Nadella
brings to this company.
Microsoft, as you said, a lot of the people here
are veterans; they've been here ten or twenty years.
Microsoft is pushing on forty-five years old.
This is a company that's entering middle age
in an industry that is all about the new,
the fresh, the buzzy.
And so, he really does bring that kind of
fresh outlook to it.
His catchword of the day is "tech intensity"
and this is what he talked about how we not only
need to be adopting the latest and greatest technology,
we also need to be building it.
Seems like he was really doubling down on this idea
that industry leaders need to be pushing boundaries
in whatever industry they may be in.
>> And I did like that, 'cause it's interesting.
The easy compare, and I hope I don't do it too much,
but you look at Amazon: Amazon talks to those builders.
That's like the core, what you say when you
go to the airports that have their branding,
it's all about the builders, so.
To the cloud native piece, I want
the developer, developer, developer -
and Microsoft knows a thing about developers too -
but they bridge that gap.
When we first talked about the world hybrid cloud,
Microsoft's one of the first companies that comes to mind
when I think about because they have such a base
in the legacy world, they're modernizing that world,
and they are helping to build that next generation space.
Microsoft isn't one to necessarily
chase the new shiny.
They've done lots of big acquisitions, I mean,
you talk developers, they bought GitHub.
That's the center, it's like, if you're a developer,
"What's your resume?"
"Oh, well just check me out on GitHub,
see how many stars I have."
That kind of stuff.
So that's where Microsoft lives and as you said, right,
"tech intensity" - that balance between what are you buying
and what are you build.
I like that commentary from Satya.
What I liked about him is saying,
"Look, there are things that have been commoditized
out there and you probably shouldn't
waste your time building."
I always tell companies, "Look, there's things that
you suck at, or things that other people do way better.
Let them do that.
Why are you spending your cycles reinventing the wheel?"
The thing I didn't love as much is he was like,
"Well, you got to be careful who you partner with,
you don't want to necessarily partner with somebody
that's going to be your competitor." Come on.
When I talked to a couple users coming out
and I'm like, "What'd you think of that?"
And they're like, "Look, here's the thing:
love Microsoft, use Microsoft, but we use Amazon,
we're going to use both, it's a multi-cloud world."
Lots of SAS, multiple public clouds,
and I want to hear about how Microsoft lives in that world.
They can't not partner with Amazon.
Matter of fact, I was reading one of the press releases.
Oh, Skype will be available on the new Amazon Echo Show.
So, it's the world of co-opetition.
You've got, look around this ecosystem:
everybody -- you partner where you can,
you try to overlook the places where you fight,
and you got to help the customers,
and I think Microsoft does a good job,
but you can't just say, "Let's not talk about Amazon or AWS
because oh, that's going to be competitive."
You know, really.
>> And also, it's sort of, what he says and what he does,
which are two different things.
Because he also brought up the CEO of Adobe
and the CEO of SAP up there
to talk about this new Open Data Initiative.
He talked - all three CEOS - talked at length about
this small data problem that companies have,
which is that they have all of this vast amount
of digital information that they are creating
and storing and manipulating, but it's all kept in silos.
And so, they know a lot, but
this end isn't talking to this end.
So they want to change that,
they're setting out to change it.
>> You know, three companies that, if you were to tell me,
okay, who's helping and doing well with
digital transformation, and understands my data?
Well, you couldn't do much better than
starting with Microsoft, Adobe, and SAP.
Absolutely, great suite.
Adobe and SAP both made acquisitions in this phase,
they understand the data.
And I have to give huge kudos
to Microsoft on how they're doing in open source.
I've got enough years in the industry
that I think back to when things like Linux were
going to help try to topple Microsoft.
And you see, Microsoft embracing almost half of
the workloads in Azure or Linux.
They had announcements, they were talking up on stage
about partnering with Red Hat.
And Microsoft, working with developers,
working in the cloud, open source is
critically important there.
Talk about AI, open source has to be a key piece of these.
And the Open Data Initiative: I like what I saw.
Big names, there were definitely some surprise out of it.
It was kind of the biggest news out of
Satya Nadella's keynote this morning.
The thing I will drop back on and say okay,
we've all seen some of these announcements out there.
Would've loved to see a customer or an example.
Satya Nadella did a good talking about
some of the IOT solutions that are going to get to AI,
and I think it was a utility that was like,
here they have, they're trialing it out and everything.
So how do we measure the success of this?
It's extensible and they said absolutely,
other partners and other customers can tie into this.
But -- is this a year, two years,
how long before this becomes reality?
Hopefully, three years from now, we look back
and say we were there with something really important
to help customers own and take their data
and take it to the next level,
but as of right now, it's a good move
by some very strong players.
And, of course, Microsoft partnership's
key to what they're doing.
>> They've identified the problem and
that's what today was about.
Sort of, we know this is a problem,
we're going to work on this together.
And I think it's also, talking about the open source angle
which you brought up, it really is emblematic of
this kinder, gentler Microsoft, which is
all about inclusivity, all about helping everyone
do better at their job and in their lives.
>> Rebecca, I love your take.
You talk about diversity, you talk about
the culture of change, I mean.
Satya leading from the top.
We covered a few years ago, he put his foot
in his mouth at a Grace Hopper event.
But very much a lot of women involved,
we're going to have a number of women executives
on the program here.
What do you see from Microsoft in this space?
>> So the incident you're referring to is
when he was asked about how a woman should
ask for a raise and he basically said,
"Oh, you really shouldn't ask - just do your best work
and the rewards will come to you."
Well, any woman in any industry, regardless of technology,
knows that's just not the way it works.
And I think, particularly now, he can look back and say,
"Oh my gosh, that was a gaff."
But even then, he recognized it and he apologized
immediately and said, "No, things have got to change
and I need to be part of the solution."
So he does have a lot of initiatives around
diversity in tech and helping women
reach leadership positions.
In terms of the cultural transformation that
you reference at the very beginning of the show,
his book is called Hit Refresh and it really
is all about the growth mindset.
Which is the work that Carol Dweck has done,
and Angela Duckworth too.
So this is really about this constant learning,
this constant curiosity, this constant
"don't be a know it all, be a learn it all,"
be so willing to collaborate and hear other perspectives
and don't dismiss other people's perspective out of hand.
And that's really, that's the way they want to operate
as a company and as a culture.
And then they also want to push that out
into how its products behave in the workplace
and how they help teams work together.
>> Yeah, and that "be a learn it all, not a know it all,"
not only resonates with me but it part of the mission
of what we do here on theCUBE.
Look, my first Microsoft show.
Trust me, I've been studying hard on this.
I mean, I've known Microsoft since my earliest days
working in the tech community and the like,
but first time coming in.
We always know that people need to learn,
they want to learn, and that's one of the things
that we hope our three days of coverage
is going to help people understand,
get a taste for all the things
that are going on in the show.
There are hundreds if not thousands of
sessions that are all recorded.
How do I choose what to go dig into,
what announcements mean the most,
what am I going to want to dig into?
So that's one of the things that I was
excited to hear and excited to help
bring to our community here.
>> Right, so we're going to help our viewers do that
and we're going to learn a lot from our great lineup of guests.
So Stu, it's really exciting to be here.
We're going to kick off three days of coverage
in just a little bit.
I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Miniman.
Stay tuned to theCUBE here at Microsoft Ignite.