In their ongoing coverage of the 20 112 EMC World Conference, John Furrier and Dave Vellante spoke with Howard Elias, President and COO of EMC Global Services division about new trends in IT enterprise (see full video below).  As Furrier noted the culture of EMC world has slowly transformed from a “usual crowd of tech geeks and infrastructure guys” to include more business leaders.  Furrier, Vellante and Elias discussed how growing attention to cloud and big data, has created a more business feel for the EMC conference as well as it’s CIO and data summits.

Elias explained that a strong business perspective is important to the eco-system for technological advancement.  According to Elias: “Technology adoption is necessary for transformation, but it’s not sufficient…You really have to have the people and processes to transform along with it.”  While EMC had been known for its technological advancements, Furrier noted that it has also grown as a business leader, stating: “EMC is now in the elite conversation, the business conversation.”

According to Elias, clients are cognizant of the utility of cloud and data, but are still learning how to begin to leverage it effectively.  Elias explained: “The hybrid cloud is reality…A couple of years ago we were in these early stages [wondering] what are the business benefits.  But, now fast-forward to today, we’re in those early stages with big data.  What do we mean? What is the business value?  But, how do I get started?”  Vellante quoted a Wikibon data transformation survey that revealed that last year 9% of people said that hybrid/cloud was their primary strategy, this year the number was 37%.  Elias was not surprised that perspectives could shift so dramatically, so quickly.  He referenced EMC’s partnership with Lonestar community college explaining they put a hybrid cloud in operation in their second year.

Vellante suggested that new changes in technology may be a reflection of the changing culture of executives stating: “Every new wave brings new winners and losers.  But, it seems to me that today’s CEO’s are more aggressive,” using more money to take bigger risks.  Vellante went on to ask Elias what he thought of changes in enterprise IT, particularly from a competitive standpoint.  Elias responded: “We’ve all seen this movie.  We’re not gonna make the mistakes of the past…we’ll make new mistakes.”  While business can’t be too cavalier about mission critical infrastructure, Elias suggests that innovation means “just being adventurous,” learning what doesn’t work by producing it and seeing how people respond.

Furrier and Vellante continued their conversation with Howard Elias, COO of EMC Global Services, discussing Elias’ leadership style, EMC global partnerships, and aspects of EMC applications and services receiving the receive most attention.

Furrier asked Elias to comment on his management style at a time when the company was taking on new clients and experiencing rapid growth.  Elias responded: “First and foremost, we listen and listen hard. My mantra is the only constant is change.  Not change for change’s sake, but let’s continue to evolve, let’s continue to transform, listen to our customers and see how we can improve.”  EMC made a particular effort to enhancing it’s partnerships.  According to Elias: “One thing we didn’t do well was listen to our partners…we didn’t think of them as a part of our family.  There is so much more they can help us with in terms of frequency, reach and depth.”

Elias explained that EMC is able to balance rapid product cycles with complex partnerships through communication and integrity.  Elias said that he was proud to hear one of his clients say that EMC has “a stellar say/do ratio.”  He noted that EMC maintains solid relationship with partners through “constant communication.”

Furrier also asked about EMC’s growth in the global market.  Elias noted EMC’s growing partnerships in Europe and Asia as well as a new relationship with ATOS.  He stated: “We just signed a very major service provider partnership with ATOS, which is providing a separate entity called Canopy, just for cloud solutions all based on EMC and VMware cloud technology.  They [will] deliver private cloud, hybrid cloud, platform as a service, an enterprise app store, a set of consulting services, and we’re embedding EMC IP into their consulting offerings as another example of how we’re willing to collaborate.  We’re actually seeing our international partners embrace our strategy even faster.”

Furrier also asked about areas that have seen the most traction in terms of applications and services in the cloud.  Elias explained that “application portfolio assessment and application modernization” were getting a lot of attention.  Also, clients are now making decisions about legacy applications and which ones to discard.  Vellante cited another Wikibon survey that showed 40% of participants were modernizing applications.

Furrier believes that EMC has the best management team in tech and added:  “We think EMC [will] be the GE of technology.  What you’re doing in the field will catapult you way beyond the IT space.”