As theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, began day one of its coverage of IBM InterConnect 2016 today, cohosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante broke down the hot topics of what IBM is calling “The Premier Cloud & Mobile Conference.”

“This is IBM’s cloud show, but it’s not dominated heavily by cloud; it has security, they are talking about mobile … you have a user experience explosion and the cloud is dominating that conversation,” said Furrier.

IBM leads with customers

Remarking on the kickoff, Vellante said, “I saw something I don’t ever think I’ve seen at a technology conference before; that is three customers kicked off the event. You had Alpha Modus, you had Siemens, you had a bank from Australia, and their key technology leaders were up there introducing the show. That was different. The message was: ‘This is all about you the customer, it’s all about customer content.'”

Vellante found this a bit awkward, while Furrier believed that it was mostly authentic and unscripted.

IBM digitizing and rethinking everything

While discussing announcements made by Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president of IBM Cloud, Furrier noted, “He weaved in the nuance of the future of digital transmission, the video strategy. LeBlanc highlighted the video concept around IBM’s acquisitions of Clearleap, Inc., (a provider of cloud-based video services,) Cleversafe, Inc., (a leading developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software) and Ustream, Inc., (a provider of cloud-based live video streaming service). And what IBM is building is a digital transmission in the cloud.”

Furrier and Vellante felt that digitization is everything and the mandate is that customers have to work differently. They also remarked on the huge opportunities IBM is providing for developers by enabling enterprise developers to innovate through their cloud offerings.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM InterConnect 2016. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE