It used to be that once “every three or four years you’d have to change something,” said EMC Corp.’s Jeremy Burton, president of Products and Market, but now, “you don’t get three years to kick back.” EMC, he added, now is always on the lookout for “for what’s coming next.”

He attributes this shift to the ultra-fast pace of technological innovation. It’s “changing the DNA of the development organizations,” he told theCUBE during EMC World 2015. Companies like EMC need to “keep [their] eyes on the ball” and take steps like “open sourcing.”

Becoming more transparent to build community

Part of moving forward is opening up to the community — something EMC has had a difficult time with in the past, he said. “The reason we didn’t have a community is because we were very protective,” Burton explained. “We never really gave anything away.”

But, now, EMC is beginning to open source: “The first base was giving something to the community for free,” Burton explained. EMC is upping the stakes, he continued, because it recognized that “content, in the community, is king: People want free software, free education, free knowledge.” That’s why EMC is using its document team to put together “something like Wikipedia but with EMC products” in a way that’s “very digestible” and “completely frictionless.”

EMC’s focus reverts to apps

EMC’s focus has “changed from a couple of years ago,” said Burton. “We were talking about Big Data before we were talking about the software, sensors and apps that were going to generate that data.”

EMC has remembered the app. Burton believes that “before you see the heyday of big data,” there will need to be “new, real-time apps processing streams of information.” That’s why EMC is looking forward to “in-memory data, massive responsible flash capacities” in order to “process streams of data in real time.”

Where EMC wants to move faster

In addition to developing applications, Burton added that EMC is also looking to hyper converged, although he acknowledges that “we’re playing catchup.” But, he said EMC has “pretty interesting things up our sleeve in that area as well.” He called out Caspian, in particular, but also mentioned that EMC has “a lot of investments in that area.”

In addition to hyper converge, Burton also mentioned “object storage” as an area where EMC is taking keen interest. The company feels “that world is set to explode.” Even so, Burton said, “We think we can move faster there.” EMC’s investment in Maginatics, Burton pointed out, suggests its interest in catching up to major players in object storage.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2015.