>> Voiceover: Live, from Atlanta, Georgia, it's theCUBE.
Covering IFS World Conference 2018.
Brought to you by, IFS.
>> Rebecca: Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage
of IFS World Conference 2018 here in Atlanta, Georgia.
I'm your host, Rebecca Knight,
along with my co-host, Jeff Frick.
It's been a great day here.
>> Jeff: Yes.
>> We've had a lot of wonderful conversations, great panels.
Last one to go, you can tell the atmosphere is getting...
>> They're wheeling out all the alcohol I think...
>> Exactly. Exactly.
>> ...for the reception this evening.
>> But we have saved best for last.
We have Dan Matthews, who is the CTO of IFS
and Bas De Vos who is the Director of IFS Labs.
So Bas and Dan, thanks so much for joining us.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
>> So, when I talked, we've heard a lot about IFS Apps 10,
and this is the big news,
but what we haven't talked about too much is Arena.
Can you describe to our viewers this new user experience,
and what it means?
>> Alright, well, IFS Arena, like you said,
it's a new user experience via past applications,
and that's something that's really important to us
because it's important to our customers.
Because what they want to do is, they want to put great tools
in the hands of the people, right?
And we all know when it comes to software,
how great a tool is is a large part down to
the user experience, so that's why we've done it.
And what we've done is create something that we think
is more inspired by really well-designed consumer software,
but we've adapted that for these big
enterprise applications like we are doing.
>> It's pretty amazing in your keynote because you showed,
I think five different UI's based on different devices
in the prior versions, where now you're coming to
kind of a standardized single (mumbles) experience across
various platforms or across various devices
to actually interact with the applications.
That's got to be, feel good to get that down
to kind of one responsive design.
>> And to a degree, that's just rescinding to reality
because you used to think about, you had your PC
and you had a way of doing that.
And then you go to your mobile app, or maybe, I mean,
people are using so many different kinds devices today.
So if we were to purpose build something just for your iPad,
something for your phone, something for this,
something for your TV, we'd be stuck forever, right?
So what we did instead, is we said,
"Let's build one experience that actually adapts
"to all these different environments,
"and get that really, really well."
It's not that easy, but in the end,
it's a much better way of approaching it.
>> Right, and I thought the part that I liked was
as when you're new to something, you don't necessarily
want a high density of information in a screen
or whatever, 'cause you're just not sure,
you're learning, whatever, it's new.
But then as you become more experienced,
obviously your comfort zone goes up,
you want a lot more dense information, and really,
in your work platform you demoed earlier today,
you have a lot of options whether you want
kind of the more consumery, more picturey,
less efficient way, or do you want the "I know this well,
"and I want the thick content."
>> And what we basically does, we flipped it upside down,
'cause if you look at Enterprise Software, and ERP,
and has to management this kind of stuff,
it always used to be designed for the professional, right?
And then you would try to simplify it
for the newbies that're coming into the business.
Can we remove some things, hide some things away,
configure some things?
Now we've done it the other way around.
So the default is it's designed for the novice person
that's just coming in seeing this for the first time.
And then as you learn, as you say, you can expand and grow,
and they get sort of more rich in the data you're seeing.
And this is really, really important right?
Because people aren't staying that long in the jobs anymore.
So if you think about people moving around,
they know the business, but they might not know
the business applications, so they basically come in,
I'm a purchasing guy, come in,
pick up the purchasing system directly,
that's really really important.
>> Needs to be intuitive?
>> Yeah, make it intuitive first,
and then progressively let people discover more,
rather than give all the options and all the complexity
and then expect them to simplify it.
That's harder.
>> So, Bas, I want to talk to you a little bit
about the development process
and how you come up with these kind of things.
Can you describe how it works at IFS Labs,
what approach you take?
>> Yeah of course, and then perhaps Dan can add
to this a little bit later as well.
But because IFS Labs is just a part of the process, right?
But if you look in our general development process, for us,
it's very important to stay close to our customers, right?
What do our customers need today?
What do they need tomorrow?
And we have to basically be able to deliver functionality
they need for their problems right on time.
And IFS Labs plays a part in that.
We are basically (mumbles) for sending before that.
So we approach it a little bit the other way around.
So instead of looking at a customer problem
and trying to find a solution for that,
we basically look ahead.
We look a couple of years in the future.
What kind of technologies are coming up?
What kind of possibilities are there,
and can we find a problem for it?
And that sounds strange, right?
Because we're known in the business of finding problems.
But it does allow us to experiment
and come up with innovative solutions
that might work for tomorrow.
But before we actually move that into production,
or hand it over to regular R&D development,
well we do step back and go to our customers and say,
"Hey wait a minute, this is what we are thinking Labs,
"what do you think about that?
"Does it work for you, does it help you?"
and validate it with them.
>> So it's an interesting challenge for Labs,
for looking down the road, because,
and Steve Jobs' famous quote,
that we don't necessarily deliver
just what our customers ask for.
They're not asking for things that are down the road,
so you got that responsibility to look down the road.
On the other hand, nobody likes technology
that doesn't have a problem to solve.
So you got to be delicate.
Because if you just build something
for the sake of building something,
maybe there's some ancillary value.
But at the end of the day, someone's got to use it
and they got to drive direct values.
So how do you kind of play that balance beyond,
"Yes we listen to customers,
"but there's this other stuff coming
"that maybe they're not too aware of"?
>> Yeah that's true, totally true,
I completely agree with you.
And I think that is the role of IFS Labs, right?
So if we look in the overall process,
the fact that we have a Labs, we don't...
A license to experiment with trying out stuff,
validating it with our customers, we can basically...
Try it out before we actually take a decision
to build something that our customers are not waiting for.
So exactly the problem you just sketched,
I think that our interest, IFS Labs, to resolve that.
>> We have seen this happening throughout history, right?
So if you look at how IET started,
for us, it started with a product in IFS labs,
when together we want a customer learning
and understanding how they should be applied
to the kind of businesses and industries that we serve.
And then it went into mainstream R&D development
and then we have real solutions,
and now we have customers, who've been live for years,
using this kind of stuff.
So that is exactly the process you want to have.
Try it out, and when we have a grasp on
how this relates to our customers,
then we up the next level of investment and take it further.
>> And then, similarly, we had a project in IFS Labs that,
well we tried out, and after a couple of months
or even longer we said, "This is not going to work
"for our customers, it's actually not helping them today.
"Might be a couple years from now, but today let's stop it."
>> So was this how your kind of integration of AI
and machine learning into the applications took place?
You looked forward, this is a cool new thing
we need to play, but at the same time,
we're not going to name it after a smart dead guy.
(group laughing)
But really bake it into the applications
where it makes the most sense.
And that sounds like it's kind of your execution strategy.
>> Yeah definitely and AIs are a very,
very, very big topic, right?
It's an umbrella for so many different types
of applications.
Dan was talking this morning about three main areas
where we think AI makes most sense for our products.
It's basically human-machine interaction,
predictive maintenance and service, an automation.
But each of those areas, they basically have their own...
Own life cycle, right?
So if you look at human-machine interaction, at the morning.
This morning we were talking about the IFS Arena bot.
We're actually in a proper development phase.
So that's much further ahead in that cycle,
while other AI related topics like doing mass-automation,
only your (mumbles), that's earlier in the cycle
and that's still in Labs.
So although AI is a big umbrella topic,
the different topics in there follow that same approach.
>> Can you be a little more specific
about the projects you're working on, or is it top secret?
>> At the World Conference everybody wants
to know our secrets, but luckily,
at World Conference we share them.
>> Jeff: This is between us four.
>> Yeah nobody's listening, right?
Or watching?
(laughs)
So yeah at this World Conference we're hosting
an innovation area.
And in the innovation area, we're showcasing a wide range
of basically possible technologies
and how you could apply them to future business.
We basically took the approach of depicting
an end-to-end automatous business.
So basically go all the way from mining stuff,
in a mine in the ground, to using that in a factory,
to producing products for the customer.
And we basically build all kinds of technologies in there
to make that completely automatous.
Might not all be possible today,
but it's really there to inspire our customers
to look ahead.
Some examples of the things we're using,
a block chain inside enterprisesque management,
mixed reality with Microsoft HoloLens to do service repairs,
digital twins in virtual reality, automatous vehicles.
So there's a lot of interesting stuff going on there.
>> That's great, those are the great buzzwords
but you put them all within application,
and they're just standalone.
>> Dan: What it does really well, is it kind of illustrates
how these technologies are used in context...
>> Right.
>> Dan: With all of these things.
>> That's super.
>> You are an IFS veteran,
>> Yes.
>> You came as a developer and now here you are, CTO.
Tell our viewers a little bit about
how the company has changed in your opinion,
and also now as you are sort of making a bigger push
into North America, what we can expect.
>> Well, what else changed, if I go back
and I've not been with this company for more than 20 years.
But what I've seen is we've got a lot more professional.
Of course, we're a big organization now,
and the way we run things and the way the business is run
is a lot more professional.
If you go back to the late '90s,
this was before the dot-com boom,
everybody was pouring money into the IT industry,
so that was not an objective.
So we were doing R&D but we were also burning money.
And I think after that bubble burst,
we all learned to become proper business people as well.
I'll tell you one that hasn't changed, though,
and that really is the kind of atmosphere
that is within the company, right?
How close we are to our customers,
and how the customers reality always comes first
and how we all help each other support.
That really hasn't changed despite the fact
we're so much bigger and we're 20 years old
and all that kind of stuff.
>> So why do you think is it 'cause maintaining culture
is really, really difficult and we go to a lot of shows
and we often talk about if it's a founder-led,
and if they're a good CEO to double benefit,
to keep that culture,
but when you got turned over at the top,
how do you maintain the culture that you guys have built?
>> I think in the beginning, I think it was a lot
of that founder-led, right?
It was really led by the founders
and one of the founders was our CEO for many, many years.
But then it kind of got ingrained a little bit,
between the Scandinavia culture.
That it's quite open, quite sort of friendly, helpful,
lots of hierarchical.
And that then sort of spread out
as the business expanded into nationally.
And we kept it also on the R&D side.
We do a lot of R&D in Chalinka for example.
Which has a surprisingly similar feeling
in the culture, actually.
So I think it just got so big and so strong in the company,
that it just naturally, new people come in
and naturally sort of carry on with that same way of being
that we've had it before.
>> Rebecca: They adopted and embraced it.
>> Because that was the end, Dan said when he
was doing his due diligence, right?
The culture was a huge piece of why he came to the company.
>> I think if they were the other way around,
we have seen that when we brought businesses in as well,
that is, right, these guys have a similar culture to us,
great, fantastic business to bring into to the IFS family.
>> Jeff: Sir, you were going to say?
>> I was going to say, in the end also,
you're attracting people to your company
and the people that are staying
are also the people that feel at at home,
and that feel comfortable,
and that feel, I'm a little bit shorter
than Dan inside the company for two years now.
But basically, I feel the same with the culture, right?
And it fits me as a person,
and therefore I think I'm inclined to stay longer at IFS
than if the culture would not fit me.
And as you attract people with the same mindset together.
It only gets stronger.
>> Right, well Dan and Bas, thank you so much.
This has been really fun last panel of the day,
so we appreciate it.
>> Thank you.
>> Good luck on your keynote on Thursday.
>> Bas: Thank you very much.
>> I'm Rebecca Knight for Jeff Frick.
This has been IFS World Conference 2018.
We will have more after this.
(light techno music)