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>> Live from Washington D.C.
It's theCUBE.
Covering Inforum DC 2018.
Brought to you by Infor.
>> Well welcome back here on theCUBE
along with Dave Vallante I'm John Walls
as we wrap up our coverage here at Inforum 18,
Washington D.C.
Nations capital.
Again just saying which we are between Capital Hill
and the White House here.
And just on top of the show floor
Dave had a chance to check out the goings on down.
So good feeling here.
Good vibe on the floor.
Good feeling on the Keynote stage.
I know tomorrow, good lineup as well
but just your thoughts as we wind up here on day one.
Well I think Charles Phillips is an awesome host.
I mean first of all he looks great up there.
He's tall.
He's thin.
He's got has this awesome suit on.
I mean the guy is just dressed impeccably.
Add to that his mind.
I mean he's a very clear thinker, a clear strategist.
He's able to articulate the value,
the strategy that Infor has
and has had for quite some time
and the value that it brings to customers.
So I really like listening to him.
He's not a hype machine.
Unlike, you know, so many in this industry
who are incredibly successful,
Larry Ellison, Marc Benioff you know others
you know love to hype what they do.
Charles throws a little,
few little jokes in there
but very low key as we heard this morning.
And it seems to be working.
I mean as a private company
they can write their own narrative.
Alright if this were a public company
people would be hammering them on the debt.
They'd be knocking them on the top-line growth.
Cause the Income Statement, you know,
from a growth stand point is not exploding
but the SAS pieces of the business are.
So but you know Wall street,
they would be picking at this scabs.
So as a private company,
they're not subject to the 90-day shot clock.
And so as a result they can write their own narrative
which I think is incredibly important
for this company right now
because they have a large installed base of customers
that they're trying to move to their new platform.
Move, migrate you know,
those are scary words for customers.
And so the competition, this is why.
Why is Oracle coming at Infor so much?
Two reasons there may be others.
But number one.
Infor is hurting Oracle.
They're taking share away
and Oracle you know,
think that they should have 100% market share.
Same with SAP.
The second is that it sees an opportunity to fight back
you know the best,
the best defense is a good offense.
And so they're trying to go after those customers
that Infor's trying to woe to their new platform.
And any time you moving it's an opportunity.
You know we saw this with big acquisitions
like Dell and EMC.
You know EMC took their eye off the ball,
others came in allowed a company like NetApp to come back.
So you see that certainly HP,
when it was splitting up,
got distracted so you see that
and so now what's key about sessions like this,
events like this,
is it allows Infor to stay relevant.
To put a relevance story in front of its customers.
So what is that story?
It's got a platform.
It's got a full stack.
It's investing in R and D.
It's innovating with technologies like AI.
It's building organic innovation.
And it's bringing in inorganic through acquisition.
Things like Birst for modern BI
and injecting that throughout its application portfolio.
It's got a full-suite.
It was interesting somebody said we had to make a bet,
do we go full-suite
>> Or best-of-breed. >> Or do we go best-of-breed.
>> Right.
>> I would argue by going micro-vertical they can claim both.
It's very hard to be both best-of-breed and both full-suite.
I mean I would agree if you just want to do one thing,
you're probably going to do that one thing
better than anybody else.
And so I'll grant you that.
But I think that the balancing act is
how do you stay like best-of-breed
or near best-of-breed with that full-suite?
And I think Infor's found the answer with micro-verticals.
And bringing in technologies like AI.
Was very impressed with all the robotic process automation
talk this morning.
That's going to be a huge business
it's already.
I mean it's growing like crazy.
So if I'm an Infor customer and I'm an old Legacy customer
I'm thinking:
"Wow these guys are really making
"some interesting investments."
"Yeah I got to spend,
"and I got to maybe migrate
"but if I don't I'm going to get digitally transformed
"by somebody else."
And they didn't actually put a lot of scare tactics in there
but maybe that's something they should,
might want to add in,
is some examples of customers that are,
that have been left behind.
But maybe that's bromide in the industry today.
But I think that,
that relevance message came through load and strong
and I think it's critical for this company.
>> I think interesting just to start with the Keynotes,
and then we heard it throughout the various guest
that we had here on the program today
was that it's a compony that really knows who it is.
At least that's the feeling I get.
Knows where it's going.
So it inspires a lot of confidence, right.
He does, Charles does.
The company does.
And they're just kind,
they're just real comfortable in their own skin for one.
And two,
they're committed to other principles outside of business.
I'm talking about the diversity and inclusion.
That's just not flab,
that's really who they are.
That's their DNA.
I think there's an appealing aspect there too.
>> Yeah and so.
And then we heard a lot, you know,
the Coke industries investment,
two and a half billion.
I said two billion earlier it's two and a half billion.
That money didn't show up in the Balance Sheet, okay.
So again.
You get to write your own narrative as a private company.
So there's still three hundred and thirty-eight million
on the Balance Sheet
you know, still quite a bit of debts.
So again, Wall Street would be picking at that
but doesn't even come up,
at this event.
Customers aren't really asking those questions.
They want to see a company that's viable.
This company is clearly viable.
They have thrown off a lot of cash
that's why private equity and organizations
like Coke Industries are interested in them.
Because it's cashflow positive,
they see a lot of, you know,
financial upside for this company.
So that's kind if cool.
They other things is Hook & Loop the Design firm
that Infor bought you know,
several years ago we heard how that's evolving
and becoming a fundamental part of,
not just design but product development.
I think that's pretty impressive.
Many companies are doing that now.
These guys got in first
and so they're a little bit ahead of the game.
I think they're, they're innovating in a way
that I think has ripple effects for customers.
I mean the customer experience.
You hear a lot about diversity at this company,
I mean this is not to me lip service.
>> Right.
>> You know Charles is really serious about this stuff.
And he's got the platform to do it
and he's investing in it.
And so, you know,
you see a lot of substantive examples.
And I think that will pay off.
It will pay dividends.
The Four Horsemen now have been sort of evolving.
There's a succession planning with the Four Horsemen, right.
Because Stephan and Duncan have, have moved on.
You know they've left the company
or at least they're not front and center anymore.
They're LinkedIn still says they're working with Infor
so they're somehow affiliated.
But they don't have operating roles.
It's clear.
But Charles and Pam still do.
And so you're seeing an evolution there.
We're going to ask the head of HR tomorrow about that.
We heard from, you know Martine,
back to the diversity.
Corey Tollefson talking retail.
You know again, Micro industry.
You know, we know, he didn't mention it,
but you know guys like Macy's, Safeway,
these are decent sized customers of Infor.
We're seeing the partner ecosystem grow.
We had Capgemini on today.
Grant Thornton is out there.
You know Deloitte and others that.
>> Accenture is out here I think.
>> Accenture's out here, yeah.
So that's, that's important.
Again I think,
I think Coke Industries helped nudge some people in there.
"Like Hey, we just made a big investment."
"We're a big client of yours."
>> Didn't hurt.
>> "You're going to pay attention."
(laughing)
>> "And find some opportunities."
Probably said:
"Look it's got to be subsidize,
"It's got to be a win-win
but we want you to look in earnest."
And I think others have.
I've heard that there's been multi-million dollar deals
that these guys have have catalyzed.
Kevin Curry from Public Sector,
a critical space for Infor,
he has almost a thousand customers here
and Amazon has a huge presence in Public Sector
and they're drafting off of that.
And then of course we ended with Raul from AWS
which was fun interview.
AWS is obviously winning in so many different fronts.
Big partnerships with guys like VMware.
Obviously number one in Cloud,
others I guess if you add up all the revenue
are number one.
But really Amazon's number one in cloud.
>> That's right.
>> We know they're tops.
Because they're in a.
For their serve market,
which is infrastructure as a service,
they're by far the leader and they started the whole thing.
Tomorrow we got Charles Phillips coming on.
We got Pam Murphy the two,
what I consider founders of Infor.
They weren't right,
but they were the founders of,
the new co-founders of the new Infor if you will.
And some customers coming on.
So really excited to be here.
>> Big day, look forward to it.
>> Yeah.
>> And we,
unfortunately I can't share this with you at home
but Venus Williams on the Keynote stage tomorrow.
Looking forward to that.
Talking about the human potential.
Shackles going to be here.
Had a last minute cancellation
so they've Venus Williams in
and talk about really thematically,
very consistent to her life story
with what Infor is talking about here this week.
And we're glad to have the opportunity
to be here with you throughout the week, and the show.
So that's it for day one here at Inforum 18.
From Dave Vallante, I'm John Walls,
thanks for joining us here on theCUBE
and we'll see you back here tomorrow from Washington D.C.
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