- [Brad] It's lunch time,
and this is Brad Anderson's Lunch Break.
Two of my favorite things about Microsoft
are the smart people that constantly visit campus,
and the great fleet of shuttles.
Wherever I can I try to take advantage
of both of these things,
and grab lunch with some of the tech industry's
best and brightest.
(upbeat music)
Today I'll wrap up my conversation
with Cloud expert and New Zealand's finest, Ben Kepes.
Out of all of those hobbies, what's your favorite?
- To be honest, running is my thing.
I've got two sons,
my eldest son is about 17, and he's also a runner,
so we head out and do ultra marathons together.
So there's nothing better than hanging with my kids.
- So what's the most miles you've logged in a single day?
- So I've actually got a 100 mile race coming up,
in about 10 days, so that will be my longest race to date.
Previously I've done 100km.
(light swing music)
- So why did we have to send Uber to bring you here today?
- Well I actually did suggest that we go out for a run,
but you weren't up for it!
- I was chicken, I was totally chicken on it,
because I knew I couldn't talk and run at the same time.
- Well who needs to talk?
(laughs)
We could run slow.
- You know, one of the really big pivots
that I've seen in the last year,
is the focus that IT is placing on the end user experience
is dramatically greater than what it was in the past.
- Totally, and that's a generational thing.
At the end of the day, if you're a millennial
going into the work force,
and you've spent your life on Instagram or Snapchat,
or Facebook or whatever.
You're not gonna use those lengthy enterprise systems
that are just horrendous.
- [Brad] A couple of years ago
we really focused our design
on how do we develop an environment that IT can deliver
that is loved by users, and trusted by IT.
And doing both is really hard.
- It totally is, and there's this tension there, right?
And the reality is, you need give people
like a sliding scale,
you want to give people that optionality,
to go all in on the user love,
but that's gonna cause more IT pain,
if that's their choice for them.
Or the other way, as an organization,
I guess Microsoft needs to think about
what is the line at which you won't go?
- So there's a balance,
and every organization is gonna have
a different balance on that one.
- [Ben] It's funny, I spend my time
in analysts' session, sit around with a bunch of analysts
who've been in the industry for 50 years or whatever.
How many of them have owned products
that a billion people use?
None.
So the reality is, it's all very well to say
this is what this vendor should do,
this is what this product should do,
but at the end of the day,
if you've got a billion users to think about,
you've actually got a responsibility there.
It's not quite as easy as it looks.
- I think people would be amazed
if they understood the level of the investments
that we make on backwards compatibility,
and making sure that we don't leave the customers behind.
It's a stunning amount of our investment.
- For sure.
- [Brad] We're gonna play a game
that I call "This or That?"
So I'll give you two subjects,
and I'm gonna read you a list of descriptions,
and you tell me which of the subjects it applies to.
- Okay.
- [Brad] Public cloud, or caffeine?
Don't try running a company without a lot of it.
(deep breathing)
- Caffeine first, but both.
- Yeah, I agree.
Its benefits and drawbacks are under constant debate.
- No, I'm gonna say cloud.
- When you first start using it,
you have to build up a tolerance,
or your system will freak out.
- It's an interesting one, isn't it?
Really is an interesting one, I think ...
I'm gonna go with caffeine.
- It's easy to get hooked
and start adding it to everything.
- Yeah, definitely both.
- Now one of the things you related to me
is how intriguing and how innovative Azure Stack is,
I'd love to get your perspective on Azure Stack.
- Yeah, so it's really exciting for me,
and for me the reality is there are a lot of purists
who say the public cloud is it,
and there's no validity to the private cloud.
If you were talking to someone in the banking space,
or maybe someone in the medical space,
or in a particular geography,
or someone who's running a cruise ship company,
and has boats going out on the high seas,
well that abstract kind of idea
doesn't really work in practice,
because they've got times where they can't,
they're not connected.
So absolutely hybrid is the reality.
I'm super excited about Azure Stack,
where you've got something that is
the same public cloud, private cloud.
You can have interplay between the two,
your applications can run on both.
That's kind of the future,
and I think it's really disrespectful
for the pundits who say public cloud is the only way,
and private cloud isn't real,
because at the end of the day,
that doesn't respect the reality
for a number of organizations.
- Well you know, the next time we're gonna do this
I think we're gonna do it in New Zealand,
we'll go for a run.
- Sure, so you sent me a shuttle.
Next time send a Microsoft corporate jet,
pick me up in New Zealand,
and we'll go do some stuff.
- I'll get workin' on that.
- Awesome.
- Hey, thank you so much.
- Thanks, man.
- Bye bye, man.
- When I first met them they showed us
how they can ingest a page of text.
It just happened to be a page of Harry Potter.
And not only read the words and define the words,
but comprehend what was going on.
(laughs)
But I do get right and left mixed up,
and I get port and starboard mixed up.
- Do you really?
- Yeah, all the time.
So I'm hoping that no one ever has to launch those missiles.
I don't want them to go up the wrong side.
(upbeat music)