On this episode of the Six Five Webcast Infrastructure Matters, hosts Camberely Bates, Steven Dickens, Keith Townsend and Dion Hinchcliffe discuss the unique position of VMware amidst widespread disruption caused by AI in various industries.
Their discussion covers:
- The impact of AI across different sectors and how companies are adapting to these changes
- VMware’s strategies to leverage AI advancements while maintaining its core service offerings
- The intersection of AI technologies with cloud computing and VMware’s role in this ecosystem
- Future trends in AI development and predictions for the technology landscape
- VMware’s contributions to AI research and development, emphasizing collaboration and innovation
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Disclaimer: Six Five Webcast Infrastructure Matters is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors, and we ask that you do not treat us as such.
Transcript:
Camberley Bates: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Infrastructure Matters, episode 56. We are here again. Good morning folks!
Steven Dickens: Good morning.
Keith Townsend: Good morning.
Camberley Bates: We’ve got one face that you guys all know, my dear friend and technical brother is Steve Dickens from New York City, or New York State, I should say. Not the city.
Steven Dickens: Yeah, a little bit up the Hudson.
Camberley Bates: Up the Hudson. I’ve got two other faces that you’re going to start to see on a regular basis on here because we’re broadening. We’re talking infrastructure matters and it’s still about infrastructure matters, but we want to bring some really cool people onto our broadcast, and that is Keith Townsend. Welcome here, up in Chicago or Illinois someplace.
Steven Dickens: Just south of Chicago. Great to be on.
Camberley Bates: Tell them a little bit about what you spend your time doing.
Keith Townsend: Well right now, I downloaded all of my Twitter data and I’m trying to create some Python madness to understand how people engage with me. I’m a geek just like everyone else on the call, and I’m a CTA over at Futurum Group, so I get to cover a lot of the great stuff that we’re going to talk about, specifically in infrastructure.
Camberley Bates: There we go. And Dion Hinchcliffe, who is our CTO… Our CIO lead, I should say. Welcome. I’m not even sure where you’re located.
Dion Hinchcliffe: I’m based just outside of Washington, DC.
Camberley Bates: Oh, wow! I love that place. Why don’t you do a little intro about what you do and what you cover?
Dion Hinchcliffe: Sure. I’m well known for covering strategic IT topics, things like digital transformation, now things like AI, cloud, cloud repatriation, but basically everything to do with IT, IT service management, things like that. I work with our CIO audience. I have been working with that audience for over 20 years, and so I’m the head of practice for CIO at The Futurum Group and it’s great to be on here. Thanks.
Camberley Bates: Great, and welcome. You just got back from New York and the Gemini launch, is that what I hear? We had a little jealousy going on between the four of us.
Steven Dickens: When you posted your video, Dion, I had a real case of FOMO, I’m like “Oh, so he got the invite to that event.”
Dion Hinchcliffe: Yeah, it’s pretty funny. It was super secret because Google did the big announcement with Kurian and everything earlier this week, but they had this underground event and they really wanted to bring in more customers and things like that. It wasn’t what we would say our traditional tech event or tech conference, it was like now let’s get hands-on with all these new Gemini capabilities. It was a really fun event. Mark Cuban was there, we got to hang out with him. It was really well done on Google’s part, I thought.
Camberley Bates: That specifically, because you kind of like when we go, “Oops, oops!” Specifically, that’s Thomas Kurian opposed to Keith and I work with George Kurian on the other side of the country in Las Vegas at NetApp Insights.
Keith Townsend: Yeah, also known as TK and GK.
Camberley Bates: There you go. There you go. Okay.
Steven Dickens: I thought they’ve actually ever done both of them on the main stage at the same time.
Keith Townsend: Yes.
Camberley Bates: Yes.
Steven Dickens: They have? This earlier today.
Camberley Bates: And my favorite story that they’ve always, George has told, I’m sure Thomas has told this, is that their mother, you know how mothers are, right?
Dion Hinchcliffe: Yep.
Camberley Bates: Basically told them to leave their business cards at the door when they come home.
Keith Townsend: That’s got to be hard.
Camberley Bates: I love it. Okay, so let’s get into the news. First of all, I think what I’m going to just, since we are already talking about NetApp, we’re just going to jump into the NetApp Insight conference. Keith, you were there. What did you hear and what were the important takeaways?
Keith Townsend: Well, one important thing you folks talked about last week, but there was a lot of AI coverage like with every modern conference. And what I was most interested in was all of the cloud conversation. I’m going to make a somewhat controversial, but I think accurate statement. NetApp leads hybrid storage. Their ONTAP everywhere is extremely effective. Customers that I talked to really, really do like that operational consistency. NetApp leaned into it. They’ve struggled with in the past telling a cohesive story across their portfolio. They’ve been kind of bits and pieces. They have some cloud stuff, they have some storage stuff, and they have some data stuff. The message is getting better, and the hallway track was what you folks talked about last week, which is VMware migration. Customers are still trying to figure out how to not be locked into Broadcom.
Camberley Bates: And that really came out when you walk in the halls and talking to the people there because while Green Stage was a lot on the AI, the inside of the IT organizations are grappling with this entire VMware Broadcom licensing problem. On the big announcements coming from NetApp, they did announce a new disaggregated system and with a direction to be shipping that in 2025, which will also have vector database capability fully ONTAP. It’s according to the one-on-one discussions that I’ve had. This is already in the hands, early stage already in the hands of their customers or a few customers.
So we’ll be looking at seeing it going into early stage testing the beginning of the year with shipments coming into the summer. So very aggressive, very, very aggressive process. We’ll, having a research note, and that will come out next week on this with some more details. And then of course some big updates. I kind of love Sandeep Singh who heads up there, their enterprise storage piece was up there hugging their storage devices. You had to laugh at the enthusiasm around storage. Okay, that’s enough of that.
Steven Dickens: Really just I didn’t get to go to the event. Some demos stand out for you when you get to these shows, you get shown a lot of things. At Google Cloud Next last year, probably the best demo I saw was the demo with NetApp connecting their filers into Vertex. I think that’s a really, really fascinating kind of private enterprise. All the data sits on these filers, all their corporate files is sitting on these NetApp filers, and then being able to interrogate that with a Google Vertex interface. That was kind of previewing and they had some early beta’s at Google Cloud Next. Did they update that? Because that for me is a perfect use case of NetApp.
Dion Hinchcliffe: And that’s the big step that IT and most organizations has to make is they have everything in relational databases and graph databases to a little extent and a little bit of NoSQL, but most enterprise data has to make into these vector databases if you want to really make it actionable, you want to plug it into large language models and action models. And I think people are underestimating the amount of work they have to do to vectorize their data and the fact that they really have to do it.
Keith Townsend: Yeah, and Camberley is more of an expert on the actual announcements, I’d love to hear from her. But one of the things that stood out for me was their data explorer. The NetApp is embracing this concept of being a data company and being able to, they brought up a stat that I’ve shared quite a bit, which is CDO’s, chief data officers complaining that their data analysts spent 80% of their time normalizing data, setting up environments, et cetera. And NetApp is going directly at that problem. When you think about 80% of my time or my smart people’s time are spent doing anything, that’s the infrastructure problem or opportunity, and NetApp is going after that opportunity.
Camberley Bates: Dion, they’re looking at both your structured and your unstructured data. Feeding that in. The XP, blue XP that Steve talked about is this other layer that has to do with classification policy. They demoed that there. This is part of what’s going to roll out this next year in terms of all of those pieces. The thing that you saw, the Vertex piece is real. It’s out there. Since they are first party storage in all three of the big hyperscalers, which is fabulous, they also have had a lead in tying into each of the hyperscalers key database technologies such as SageMaker, Bedrock, Vertex, and two terms the other. So they are definitely streamlining up in the cloud, but they also recognize that this is going to have to be on-prem because of privacy, et cetera.
Which I’ll kind of go into the next one, which is interesting and then we’ll dive into the Google piece of it of the announcements. The DOJ rolled out something called Evaluation of Corporate Compliance program in regards to AI. And within that paper, there is questions that are directed at AI compliance, and I’m going to read a couple of them. “How does the company assess the potential impact of new technologies such as AI on its ability to comply with criminal laws?” “How has the company curbing any potential negative or unintended consequences for the use of these technologies?” “How has the company mitigating the potential from deliberate and reckless use of these technologies, including company insiders?”
And this is coming from them, they’re inspecting the companies to make sure this is all based on stuff that DOJ would go after the companies with. We know that the companies are taking their time to look at what are the rules and the guidelines around using AI. Maybe Dion, you could talk about what you’re talking with with your CIOs and how they’re looking at these types of things.
Dion Hinchcliffe: Well, the compliance regime around AI is going to be difficult because you have the EU with their AI Act, which I think they learned a lot from GDPR because there’s 20 or 30 million companies that are out compliance with GDPR. There’s no way they can do the enforcement on it. And I worry the DOJs are going put themselves in that same position that everyone’s using AI and there’s no way they can police everyone or monitor everyone, and it’s going to be a significant challenge. But CIOs are very concerned about, especially if they’re global or multinational organizations. They have to have comply with what’s going on in California, what’s going on in Europe, what’s going on nationally in the U.S. And MES has got, they’re down in the Middle East, they have their own regulations.
So it’s a challenge and it’s a headwind because it doesn’t matter how good your AI is, but if you can’t make it compliant, then you can’t use it. And that was one of the interesting pieces where we’re going to get into Google Gemini, but they showed that they’re by far the most compliant AI on the market right now because of that reason. Otherwise, the companies just can’t use it. So that’s kind of where we are.
Camberley Bates: And that was one of the things that got pointed out with NetApp is that when you bring it into that database, you’re putting your policies in, and those policies and those privacy issues and compliance issues continue with that as you move through the pipeline. So…
Steven Dickens: You’ve seen IBM on the same thread from the get-go with Granite. I think if you think IBM, maybe you don’t think as on the cutting edge of innovation in AI, what you probably do think of them on is trusted, compliant, and trusted partner for a lot of enterprises. So they’ve been leading in with that sort of certification, compliance, trust message from the get-go. I think it’s… I mean, Dion to your point, the technology can be as fascinating as you like and as innovative as you like, but if you can’t use it, then what’s the value?
Keith Townsend: Yeah, I push back in an interesting way, Steven, I think I wouldn’t call IBM not cutting edge in AI, especially large language models. If you’re building a large language model for general purpose use, like Granite, you’re cutting edge. There’s only a handful of companies that have the financial and technical wherewithal to do that. I would also highlight that Dion pay homage to what’s going on in California, SB 1047 is now on Newsom’s desk, the governor of California to sign, and the intensity against the measure has been really intense from the VCs. The market…
Camberley Bates: Can I interrupt you before you keep on going? For our listeners, what is the legislation that it’s on?
Keith Townsend: Get to the legislation. There’s this desire to protect consumers. It’s California. It’s all about protecting consumers. Protecting consumers.
Steven Dickens: It’s fascinating hearing you guys talk about the US and California by the way, but you did it earlier, Dion, it’s like the US, and California, but that’s just me.
Keith Townsend: And you know what? California effectively sets these regulations for the US because these companies are based in California.
Steven Dickens: Yeah, yeah.
Keith Townsend: This is the power of the California legislators in government, this ability to shape our technology regulations here in the US effectively. So, this idea that you want to protect consumers against what just happened with this AI company that made these claims that the FTC put a lay down on for $193,000 fine of making these claims of being able to create a lawyer level legal documents without actually backing up or doing any of the testing. So the legislation intent is to ensure that these AI companies that are big enough to impact the overall industry have these controls in place.
So this regulation enforcement compliance is coming from several different layers. The DOJ is as we’ve highlighted with companies in compliance and then the actual curation of these documents. So back to you Steven, I think IBM more then probably any company is pretty well positioned to meet the needs of companies, because they are all about compliance, bureaucracy and all the things that we kind of tease IBM about in the tech media, is kind of their strength and why customers look for.
Steven Dickens: Yeah. Being compliant and being sort of good and connected to the government is probably not a bad thing right now with the wins that we’re seeing. And IBM’s been doing that for over a hundred years, being connected to these government agencies and being sort of compliant. So yes, maybe their superpower going forward.
Camberley Bates: So since we’re on the legal eagle kind of stuff, we’re going to go to the Google versus Microsoft gig that’s over there in Europe. I guess Google is suing Microsoft or non-competitive practices or something like that, which is kind of like… It’s kind of like having your kids in the middle of the house fighting.
Keith Townsend: You don’t really care who started the fight. You just want them to end.
Camberley Bates: And you’re just like, “Really guys?”
Steven Dickens: It’s just so unusual for me, Google kind of prides itself on being a really ethical competitor in the market is the way I perceive them. They don’t really do the competitive knocking copy. They don’t go after their competition. They don’t really mention their competition ever. It’s all about what they do. My interactions, whenever there’s an opportunity that you can say, “Hey, you can swing a few countries here competitively.” They go, “Yeah, we don’t do that.” And then they go and file a lawsuit in the EU basically.
Dion Hinchcliffe: I think they sense an opening.
Steven Dickens: Yeah.
Dion Hinchcliffe: Microsoft has been an incumbent for so long on a desktop, on server, inside IT departments as the top infrastructure vendor. And with CrowdStrike, everyone realizes this IT monoculture might not be healthy. It needs to be more heterogeneous, more resilient that way. And also Google’s done some really smart things in terms of they now have Chrome OS on a USB stick. They recovered a lot of computers and got people back up and running during ransomware incidents during the CrowdStrike incident because you can just their operating system from a USB stick on any locked up computer and get back to work in the cloud in just a few minutes.
I’ve been tracking, they have a variety of advantages over Microsoft in certain ways they’ve never had before. Chrome is the definitive browser out there. It’s where everyone spends their time and runs all their applications and they’re now pushing Chrome Enterprise to really press the lead in terms of they own a big piece of the desktop for the first time and now they really want to expand that. But they’re still having a really hard time, the sheer gravity that Microsoft has inside the enterprise. And so I imagine this is how they’re figuring in a regulatory friendly part of the world, they might be able to gain just a little bit more advantage and get over the top.
Steven Dickens: You mentioned an interesting point there, Dion, the monoculture. It’s interesting for me, I hang around with the Linux community quite a bit. I just literally recorded a podcast this morning for the Linux Foundations. So I’m kind of tuned into that. There’s more Linux running on Azure than there is Windows server, and that’s a stat from a few years ago, which kind of always blew my mind. I wonder whether we’re just not… My point on sort of what Google’s doing, I understand why they’re doing it. The Windows server licensing on AWS and Google, it should be the same price. I mean that makes no sense to me, but I wonder whether that trend is normalizing anyway because of Linux adoption.
I mean, I don’t know. And Keith, this is maybe a place to bring you in, if you are an enterprise architect and you’re looking at a brand new workload, you’re putting that on Windows server or you’re putting it on Red Hat or SLAyers or Debian or CentOS. What’s the sort of rubric? I don’t think as an enterprise architect with a new, I don’t know, system of engagement, whatever it is, I don’t think I’m thinking, “Oh, I know what I’ll do. I’ll put this on Windows server.” I’m thinking I’ll put this on Red Hat or SLAyers or something else. What are you hearing? Keith?
Keith Townsend: Yeah, Microsoft would love for you to consider Windows Server 2025, which is going to be released shortly with Nanos. Really it’s a respectable OS.
Camberley Bates: Well, I guess people are still on XP out there. Okay.
Keith Townsend: There are people still on XP. I’m going through a migration in the six five data center from vSphere to whatever, and I got a bunch of Windows servers I have to grade. Life cycle management, whole different conversation we’ll have one day. But I agree with you that if we’re going to build a new app, I don’t think anybody seriously considers Windows as the default. It’ll have to be that there are some capabilities, some piece of software that’s needed that you’re going to use Windows Server that is less and less the case. I can run SQL, Microsoft SQL on Linux now for the past few years.
The one thing that I would kind of push back on, is this idea that pricing should be the same. Oracle Cloud. I mean Oracle Cloud, OCI and the price of using Oracle and what’s supported in Oracle server versus what’s supported in Oracle Cloud and what’s supported on Oracle cloud, versus what’s supported on the other major cloud providers. And AWS and Oracle just announced real support for Oracle database on AWS just a few weeks ago. So vendors do this. This is how… This is their case.
Steven Dickens: To your point, Oracle were really explicit in their briefing with me that Oracle is priced exactly the same.
Keith Townsend: Now it is.
Steven Dickens: It is now, AWS, Google, Microsoft, and on OCI. It is completely transparent, completely the same.
Keith Townsend: And I think that’s a customer friendly policy. Google obviously is the hybrid cloud provider. They want complete portability because that is their strength. So this argument makes sense from a customer perspective. I don’t care where my Microsoft workloads run, I need them to run what I need them to run. So if I have to consider price as a consideration, that is not customer friendly. I hope Google… I don’t like to pick sides in these things, but I hope Google does win or at least get Microsoft to push more towards where I think the industry is going, which is equivalent pricing.
Camberley Bates: There’s this concept, and I’ll use the term that Pure just announced, Pure storage, ‘universal credits,’ that they’re selling their software universally at this price. Actually, and they’re even selling it across all of their different platforms, whether or not you are in AWS, On-Prem, Stas, Lux or whatever. And that is becoming more common because of exactly what you guys, so hopefully we’ll see… If Mr. Larry Ellison can do this, surely Microsoft-
Steven Dickens: I mean, you frame this the right way, but I’d maybe pivot it a little bit. I don’t see it as who wins the case. We work with both. I’m not certainly going to pick favorites between Microsoft and Google. I think what we need to see happen is, if you want to use Windows Server, it is the same experience. So part of the claim is that there’s different features and different access to patching depending on which cloud you’re on. That makes no sense and pricing needs to be consistent.
I think if what happens out of this case is that it’s Windows Server and Windows Server 25 when it launches is the same price on every cloud and the patching updates and sort of software lifecycle for it is exactly the same regardless of whichever cloud, that’s good news. The other piece we’ve not covered is the bundling of teams. I’d love to get your perspective Dion on the bundling of teams and what that does to startups. Is that good for Slack? Is it good for Zoom, Webex?
Keith Townsend: Before we get into that, I did want to address the differentiator for cloud providers. I think you do have to allow cloud providers to differentiate. We see this with Broadcom and VMware. Broadcom now allows you, which is a welcome change for a change, allows you to take your VCF licenses and go across the cloud providers. But Google has vastly different network capabilities than AWS. And OCI has vastly different network capabilities than either platform, and that differentiation should be allowed in the marketplace. So patching and updating and et cetera, those are value added pieces. All I care about as a architect is that if I want to run my base foundation code on one server to one platform to another, that pricing should be the same. The value add patching, I consider a value add. It’s even a value add in Linux then sure, I’ll consider buying a higher level of life cycle management if that’s available. And that should be a differential.
Camberley Bates: So we could go on for a long time here, but we’re going to run out of time and we definitely want to get to the Gemini launch and what happened up in New York or the big launch. So Dion, I’m going to turn it over to you and let us know what happened.
Dion Hinchcliffe: Yeah, you bet. So, Google is basically putting their AI models under the Gemini rubric throughout Google Workspace. So that’s their big competitor to Microsoft Office. And you’re going to see in everything, if you have a Gemini license, if you have a commercialized, if you have using the free version, you won’t get very much. But you’re going to see it in simply everything to automate all of your tasks. If it sees receipts coming into your email, it’ll say, “Do you want me to put this in a spreadsheet for you?” “Do you want me to file and put this into an expense report application?” It’ll help you do your work for you and it’ll constantly suggest things that can be done based on what’s coming in and out of the various applications that you have. If you’re inside a meeting, it’ll live transcribe it and then suggest pieces of information that could help support and enrich the meeting.
It’s going to be ambient is basically what ambient AI is really the message there. But they’re really going to put AI in everything. I’ve found out that inside every modern version of Chrome is Gemini Nano, and it’s also that same model is also on their phones already. In their newest phones. So they’re going to put AI is simply everywhere inside the painted glass that all people are using if you’re using a Google product, you’ll see Gemini in there. And you can customize it. They have these things called Gems, and now end users can customize them. You can provide, let’s say a bunch of product information and create a Gemini-based AI model called a GEM that’s been tuned. Anyone can do it, self-service, it’s kind of DIY, anyone can build a rag model, and then the GEM is done and you can attach agents to it, applications to it. You can use it like a regular AI model. But it’s tuned with your information for a specific task like answering customer questions about a product or a new launch or whatever it is you want. And they also has a lot of coding support as well.
But the message is they’re all in on AI. They’re using AI all the time everywhere on what you do. And they have Mark Cuban on stage saying it’s how it’s supercharged his business and how he works every day and it makes him 10 times more productive. All these agents running off doing everything that he needs to do, automatically answering emails in his tone. It knows, and it’s learned how he responds to emails and does it for him and he loves it. He’s answering a thousand emails a day now.
Steven Dickens: But Dion, you have to just… So we’re a workspace customer here at Futurum. Is there a turn it on and pay an extra? Is it from a pricing point of view? Is it flick the switch to get Gemini and does different payment?
Dion Hinchcliffe: Obviously we have a low level of that, but yeah, there’s another tier you have to get to be able to get all the bells and whistles that are coming. And this is just the start. They’re going to be providing some more, but everything’s going to be ASCII automated for you, all road tasks. So, yeah.
Camberley Bates: If I go into my little nine block thing that’s over there on my Gmail, and I look at, am I going to see it come up in there?
Keith Townsend: So this actually happens some-
Camberley Bates: Here it is, I see it now. Okay, Gemini is right there. Okay, I just launch it okay.
Steven Dickens: Give us a live demo Keith, come on, because I want… I want to. Dion sold me on it. I want to buy it on.
Keith Townsend: I bought the early version and it was not there from what all the features they released and talked about yesterday. It is super exciting what they talked about yesterday, the earlier versions I’ve been working, I’ve been messing around with the Gemini code assist within CS. It was a VS code. We probably need to dedicate a whole show to AI productivity and what’s real and what’s not. What can you realistically expected to do and what it won’t do. And it is a fascinating exercise in what AI is capable of and not.
Steven Dickens: The other thing, Dion, and I’d be interested to see, said in the room, I went down the rabbit hole around the contact center announcements. That is fascinating. So the traditional 8×8, the Genesis, the sort of Vonages of the world, these people are in this traditional contact center space. I know you track a bit of this as well. Fascinating. I see that as literally a bomb going off in the contact center as a service space. See compression from a licensing point of view. I just see it really disrupting. Those vendors have got a real choice of being in the wrong side of the innovation and get crushed or lean all the way into AI over the next 18 months. Radically transform that, transform their licensing models, their business structure, how the tech stack works. I’d really love to get your perspective because I know you track that sector as well.
Dion Hinchcliffe: Yeah, well let’s just do a quick soundbite on that. Yes, they’re entering a space that has had a moat around it with these companies have been willing to integrate with a lot of the more legacy PBX and other pieces. So you can say, no matter what you have, you just have to work with us and we’ll connect all your different pieces. And Microsoft and Google is the big guys have been reluctant to get into that full support, that full stack. So that’s given those companies that gave 8×8 and others, a breath of life, a room to breathe if you will. And I’ll even see Zoom, this is survival you were talking about with teams. Giving away teams has been really making it difficult for the other web meeting solutions. So they’re going into that space too. Contact center is a high value space. People want to spend a lot. So yeah. Now I think with Google bringing best in class AI to that whole space, you’re going to see a real bruising competition over the next year, two years.
Camberley Bates: Will. Well guys, thank you very, very much Dion, Keith for joining Steve and I, and you’re going to see…
Dion Hinchcliffe: Thanks for having us. Yeah, it was great.
Camberley Bates: You’re going to see this four block here on a regular basis and talking about infrastructure matters. Thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget to like us, share us. Let everybody know we exist here, and we will see you next week.
Author Information
Camberley brings over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career has spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley has provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
Keith Townsend is a technology management consultant with more than 20 years of related experience in designing, implementing, and managing data center technologies. His areas of expertise include virtualization, networking, and storage solutions for Fortune 500 organizations. He holds a BA in computing and an MS in information technology from DePaul University. He is the President of the CTO Advisor, part of The Futurum Group.
Dion Hinchcliffe is a distinguished thought leader, IT expert, and enterprise architect, celebrated for his strategic advisory with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies. With over 25 years of experience, Dion works with the leadership teams of top enterprises, as well as leading tech companies, in bridging the gap between business and technology, focusing on enterprise AI, IT management, cloud computing, and digital business. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, industry analyst, and author, known for his insightful and in-depth contributions to digital strategy, IT topics, and digital transformation. Dion’s influence is particularly notable in the CIO community, where he engages actively with CIO roundtables and has been ranked numerous times as one of the top global influencers of Chief Information Officers. He also serves as an executive fellow at the SDA Bocconi Center for Digital Strategies.
Regarded as a luminary at the intersection of technology and business transformation, Steven Dickens is the Vice President and Practice Leader for Hybrid Cloud, Infrastructure, and Operations at The Futurum Group. With a distinguished track record as a Forbes contributor and a ranking among the Top 10 Analysts by ARInsights, Steven's unique vantage point enables him to chart the nexus between emergent technologies and disruptive innovation, offering unparalleled insights for global enterprises.
Steven's expertise spans a broad spectrum of technologies that drive modern enterprises. Notable among these are open source, hybrid cloud, mission-critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and FinTech innovation. His work is foundational in aligning the strategic imperatives of C-suite executives with the practical needs of end users and technology practitioners, serving as a catalyst for optimizing the return on technology investments.
Over the years, Steven has been an integral part of industry behemoths including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IBM. His exceptional ability to pioneer multi-hundred-million-dollar products and to lead global sales teams with revenues in the same echelon has consistently demonstrated his capability for high-impact leadership.
Steven serves as a thought leader in various technology consortiums. He was a founding board member and former Chairperson of the Open Mainframe Project, under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. His role as a Board Advisor continues to shape the advocacy for open source implementations of mainframe technologies.
