Has anybody counted all the things the pancake-thin rectangles we all carry around in our pockets can do? The variety of applications and programs a smartphone can run seems to expand constantly. Why is there no copy of this paradigm of do-it-all consumer tech in the enterprise? Wouldn’t companies love a smartphone user experience in the data center?

Wendy Pfeiffer (pictured), chief information officer of Nutanix Inc., describes this disparity between consumer and enterprise tech with a smartphone-desk-phone analogy.

“In the enterprise space, we have vendors who are selling us — for millions of dollars — desk phones,” she said. They don’t multitask; they aren’t streamlined; and they take up lots of space. In enterprise data centers, we may have all sorts of devices that aren’t nearly as interesting, engaging and useful as a smartphone — which is also less expensive, she added. 

Legacy vendors must stop hawking desk phones, according to Pfeiffer said. They must start designing products that address people’s growing desire for simplicity and a user experience that mirrors that of consumer tech.

Pfeiffer spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the .NEXT event in Anaheim, California. They discussed the need for sleeker, user-focused enterprise technology (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Techies own tech; tech doesn’t own techies

The generation that grew up glued to consumer tech are coming to work with new ideas about how technology should serve them. “It’s a lot more about choice and self-service and freedom and flexibility and a mixed portfolio,” Pfeiffer said. 

They want a better user experience from technology. They also want freedom to choose the software that enable them to do their best work. “You should use the applications that make the most sense to make you the most productive. And then it’s … leadership’s job to create that really rich ecosystem, where those applications and tools have the nutrients that they need and the capabilities that they need to work together,” Pfeiffer stated.

Technologies and platforms that join multiple parts together can help. “We also need to look for vendors like Nutanix [provider of hyperconverged solutions] that build that bridge that allows us to stop worrying about ‘Oh my gosh … we’ve got to make this legacy thing work with this new thing.’ We don’t have to worry about that so much anymore. Now we can focus on this user experience, the interaction design, what we might do within an ecosystem,” Pfeiffer concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the .NEXT 2019 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the .NEXT conference. Neither Nutanix Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE