Technology changes. It’s easy to say this, but to see the foundations of the tech world shift in a few years is quite something else. In the data storage world, the shift is from spinning disk to flash storage. As costs come down and capacity goes up, flash is set to overtake the traditional tech with a terrifying quickness. Companies on both sides of the divide, vendors and customers, are forced to adapt.

To gain an understanding of this foundational change, Dave Vellante (@dvellante), cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, went to the HPE Discover 2016 conference in Las Vegas. There, he spoke with Vish Mulchand, senior director of Product Management and Marketing at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE).

Seeing the potential

The discussion started out as Mulchand offered his view of HP and its journey toward flash. He said the company was thinking about flash for some time, and he explained how it saw its potential. Although there’s always a long road between potential and delivery, HP deserves credit for having that vision.

Getting that vision to market was another topic. Mulchand pointed out that the journey had so many factors. For example, how is the flash market driven, and what about performance, latency and affordability? He said that getting through those initial debates was important. Flash is different, he stated. How does a company engineer around those differences?

The message and the landscape

“We have got to do a better job of explaining the richness of the flash stack to customers,” Mulchand said. He described the powers of flash, such as the ability to move data and peer persistence, which customers love.

Meanwhile, the market landscape is still catching up. Mulchand spoke to how major vendors were suffering through a disruption and going through multiple offerings. He said there was no mention of older technology at conferences; the talk was all about flash. While big players are entering the market, HPE can still compete on services and scale.

“We’re staying focused on customer need,” he said.

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

Photo by SiliconANGLE