This week, SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE is live at IBM Edge in Las Vegas. In this interview, Carl Deschenes, Co-President of PCD Solutions, sat down with John Furrier and Dave Vellante to discuss how taking apart a PureFlex was the start of their success.

Starting off, Furrier asked Deschenes to talk about the PureFlex Winning Edge award. Deschenes said they received the award because of the investment they did and success they had to convert a lot of customers to the integrated systems approach.

The story behind the success

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Vellante then mentioned that a given storage, compute and networking organization isn’t set up to be one block, questioning Deschenes on how he was able to be so successful.

Deschenes explained that they had to understand the added value of the integrated service and figure out how it can improve efficiency for customers. What they did first was have their engineers look at it, tear it apart and put it all back together. The engineers then developed a report for sellers, who reviewed for any possible pitfalls. Sellers brought the story to the market and started driving conversations with customers.

• Delivering More Value

Most PureFlex customers run VMware as it tends to be a compatible solution. Some have different types of loads, like UNIX, AIX and Bare-Metal Linux. They all use the same management tools. Deschenes said this is presented in a way that reduces the time customers spend selecting pieces, allowing them to focus more on the end result.

Because it takes less time to do the implementation, they can start the application faster. Deschenes added this is a good step for a private or hybrid cloud.

Vellante asked if the driving factor is people looking to duplicate the public cloud within their own private infrastructure. Deschenes said not when they sold it a first, but mentioned that customers are now looking more and more into doing as a private cloud to deliver more value their customers.

• Working for the customers

Because PCD Solutions is an IBM partner, Vellante asked if they were affected by the Lenovo acquisition. Deschenes admitted that there was a time when customers feared it, which slowed business for a few months.

“We don’t work for IBM. We work for the customer,” he added.

They did some homework to see how comfortable they were with the transition. Deschenes said it’s been good so far. It lagged a bit, but it’s now back on track.

Furrier then asked Deschenes what he’s seeing across the customer base in terms of what developments are getting the most attention due to the transformation in IT. Deschenes said they see a lot of movement in VDI and desktop virtualization. They also see interest in customers wanting to be more agile and flexible, which they consider private cloud.

• Surprises

Furrier concluded the interview by asking Deschenes about the biggest surprise he’s had with PureFlex this year. Deschenes replied the biggest surprise was the Winning Edge award. He also said that PureFlex keeps going the way it’s supposed to, so no surprises are good as well.