What is agility in IT, and are consumers willing to sacrifice reliability for the sake of speed and agility? Saar Gillai argues that it’s already been proven in the shift from landlines to mobile phones. Landlines are much more reliable, but mobile phones have too many advantages for consumers to pass them up. What companies need to work on is how to do what they’re doing faster and cheaper, while increasing the amount of monetization streams, starting with the international matter of restrictive regulation, which can put a damper on agility.

Saar Gillai, the SVP/GM of Communications Solution Business at HPE, sat down with hosts John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante) of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, to discuss the matter of reliability in IT environments.

Policy and progress

“[With issues like] regulation, net neutrality, how is public policy affecting/stalling progress, and how does it differ in America and Europe?” asks Vellante.

Europe has a lot more of a competitive environment with more players, so it’s a lot more dynamic, Gillai responds. In contrast, in America the big players are investing heavily, but if they’re overregulated they won’t have the same motivation to invest.

“If someone else is always getting the money for their investment, they’re not going to be incentivized to invest. On the other hand, since it’s such a control point you have to regulate it. So it’s a balance. It’s getting there,” Gillai said. Overregulation can also impact a company’s ability to innovate and be agile.

Agility

Ultimately, “agility is the name of the game. It’s the fast and the dead, essentially,” Gillai states. By Gillai’s definition, agility means that companies can roll out their services out quickly, test them out, and turn them off and on.

Companies are working on transformation, and they understand it’s necessary. However, the question is how to run their existing business while adapting new mechanisms to gain agility. As it is not currently how the Tel. Co.’s operate, they need to figure out how to build on existing processes to meet modern expectations.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of HPE Discover 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE