Denmark is said to be the happiest country in the world, making it an apt location to gather a crowd of upbeat Nutanix customers for the European .NEXT event this week. As Nutanix celebrates its tenth year in business, the company is navigating a push into an application market dictated by software usability.

“There are some paths for Nutanix going forward to a much broader total accessible market, but it’s much broader competition too,” said Stu Miniman, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. “It is a big, vast sea out there in the information technology world.”

Joining Miniman for theCUBE’s keynote analysis of day two at the .NEXT Europe event in Denmark was co-host Rebecca Knight. They discussed the role of customer happiness in technology design and the challenges that face Nutanix as they launch into a new market (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Designing products that bring joy

“We’ll be talking a lot about design today … [and] all of the elements that go into it,” Knight said. “Taking 10 clicks and making it an easy swipe; eliminating downtime. Easy, intuitive use, which is absolutely what goes into delighting customers.”

Designing for simplicity and joy applies not only to consumer items, but also to the user experience within the business itself.

“The customers here definitely are highly engaged, very excited because the experience of using [Nutanix’s] solution has made their lives easier and helped them transform their business,” Miniman said. “You know, that goal of IT helping to not only be a support, but be a driver of the business is exciting.

Wipe-out or gnarly ride? Nutanix chooses a tricky wave

It is important for Nutanix to retain its passionate customer base as the company matures into a larger, more corporate organization, according to Knight.

For the past two years, the company has been undergoing a transformation to a software subscription model, and the approach has affected not only sales, but also the company’s product offerings.

“It isn’t just the same core AOS Nutanix software and some of the pieces that go with it. But, really, they’re expanding beyond infrastructure software to some of the application software,” Miniman said.

Building applications that sit on Nutanix’s infrastructure positions the company “in a little bit of a different space” to competitors such as VMware and Oracle, according to Miniman. However, it remains to be seen how successful Nutanix will be.

“How much are they going to have the customers that have bought the platform that will leverage these services on top of them, versus how many customers will come to them because of that application?” Miniman asked.

Keynote speaker and professional tennis player Caroline Wozniacki compared Nutanix’s path ahead to that of a professional athlete. Regardless of your ranking, “you have to keep working or everyone will come after you,” Miniman said. “Nutanix is in a strong position, but absolutely they know that they need to keep working and training and improving, listening to their customers to move forward.”

Here’s the complete analysis, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of .NEXT Europe. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for .NEXT Europe. Neither Nutanix, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Waycom