In their ongoing coverage of Splunk Conference 2013, John Furrier and Dave Vellante spoke with Bill Gaylord, Senior Vice President of Business Development for Splunk. In this short chat the three discuss the new benefits of search options and Splunk’s emphasis on user experience.

Gaylord explains that Splunk is not constrained by data storage. While he finds it “trite” to use the term big data, he says we have nearly witnessed a “Copernican shift” in how commonplace the management of massive amounts of data has become. Large and chaotic data makes it natural for customers to default to the search bar. And, Splunk, he suggests, “is a very intuitive easy way to interact with that data.” Vellante notes that initially, “search was like a blunt instrument, [but] now it’s a fundamental component of applications.” From a tech standpoint, he believes, “we’re reaching a renaissance.”

Gaylord says the company’s aim has been to make it so “people [would] be able to get this thing up and running without having to be able to touch it.” Splunk has a growing eco-system of technology partners that are helping it advance. He explains, “For them to be able to expose that data inside Splunk makes their product all the more valuable to the end-user.” Given the attention to understanding and explaining technological needs and requirements, he adds “Customers get value before they pay us a dime in a lot of instances.” Furrier quips, “It’s like ROI pays for itself day one.”