Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to my first ever (yes you read correctly), published testimonial from the road after 25+ tradeshows around the world. After spending the last 5 days in Las Vegas at Cisco Live US 2017 (my 4^th consecutive year attending), I need to document all the conversations, and takeaways I learned about from our customers and partners.

To say the least, Cisco Live 2017 was massive. Over 27,000 (official count) technologists, start-ups, big brands and innovators all gathered together in Las Vegas for a week full of breakout sessions, keynotes, and expo hall adventures. Engulfed in the center of this tradeshow was Dell EMC. Like most enterprise technology events, business transformation remained a trending topic amongst attendees (and not just on social media). If I have learned anything over the course of the Dell Technologies transformation, it is that we have a portfolio setup to win for our customers – and we have the market share to prove it.

A critical time at the show for me, was sitting down with Jon Siegal (VP, Converged Platforms and Solutions Division, Dell EMC) on Facebook LIVE after he addressed the industry at our Partner Innovation Showcase.

I learned a lot from Jon in this interview – but at a high level, I’ll walk away from Cisco Live 2017 knowing this about our position in the marketplace:

I: Our Partnership with Cisco Remains Strong

Think about this: Over a decade ago, (former) EMC, CEO Joe Tucci and (former) Cisco, CEO, John Chambers sat down in a room. They discussed collaboration, and working together to redefine the data-center. Flash-forward to present day, and the Dell EMC and Cisco relationship is still incredibly strong with thousands of customers worldwide.

As we look at the current state of our partnership, we’re still working together to simplify IT for our customers, and giving them more time to innovate. If you attended this show, or followed us on social media – we made it abundantly clear that we are not here as just Dell EMC, we are here with Cisco.

II: Our Portfolio Is Positioned To Win

As I patrolled the Dell EMC booth, it was apparent that most of our conversations centered on VxBlock. The common theme amongst customers, and partners always came back to simplicity. Customers want everything to be simple – and in this current age of IT Transformation, simplicity is 100% essential when delivering converged infrastructure solutions. Not only is VxBlock popular and complex – but it thrives on delivering simplicity.

Another key takeaway for me: Vscale is a big deal, end of story! Turnkey experience resonates best with our customers. Life-cycle is also equally important, and thanks to Vscale we’re extending the turnkey experience across multiple data centers. We believe this is the future of the data center. I enjoyed Jon Siegal’s (see above) analogy of the “self-driving car” to demonstrate transformation. In my opinion, this is one of the best (and coolest) ways to depict industry transformation.