It’s interesting how a simple business lunch can evolve into a collaboration of ideals that places a group at the forefront of technology.
In Late 2013, I was privileged to attend a meeting at the Capital Grille’s Board room Tampa, where I dined with Michael Dell in a private six person setting alongside fellow IT executives.
The afternoon began with a half hour general discussion with Mr. Dell’s Southeast Florida leaders, Martin Beech and Sig Hardester. We discussed HP’s existing technical footprint at my company, and how Dell could aggressively assist in configuration and cost cutting.
I saw Michael Dell walk past our room to the board room for lunch, but the three of us were so engrossed in conversation that we ran over ten minutes. We finally wrapped up our pre-lunch discussion, and headed to the room where we would have lunch with Mr. Dell.
I walked into the dining area where Mr. Dell and the four other IT leaders were already seated. Tent cards were laid out indicating our seat assignments. The mere proximity to this man was a bit intimidating - this is one of the pioneers of my industry!
All intimidation was immediately dissipated as Michael stood and shook my hand. His demeanor was confident yet down to earth. As we spoke, it was clear to see through the suit to who he really is: a man who still possesses the nerd-like technical passion he had when he was 15 years old and took his first Apple II computer apart just to see how it worked.
Our "over lunch" discussion flowed naturally, and we touched upon many topics relating to our respective companies and general technology. My favorite quote from our discussion is attributed to Michael Dell: “It's through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we've always mapped our path at Dell. There's always an opportunity to make a difference.”
That lunch occurred just a few days prior to Mr. Dell taking his company private. He graciously shared his insight regarding the world of Dell - the man and the company:
- As one of the largest private family owned business in the USA, Dell will be more nimble and able to create and innovate at a faster rate.
- When asked about cell phone market, Dell indicated that his company will not be getting involved in that sector.
- In the near future, the company’s main focus will be laptops, tablets and security devices.
- He made it clear that his laser beam focus was towards the future, particularly in the area of memory/disc/enterprise all being closer to each other from a speed perspective. Although he didn’t mention it directly, I’d like to think that we are nearing to the quantum computing realm.(wishful thinking)
The group discussion was fascinating, but the most interesting part was my conversation with Mr. Dell that related to the evolution of computing. The conversation traversed terminal to mainframe to distributed computing, then full circle to mainframe, or worldframe. We discussed the advent of networking, Banyan, Novell, (late 80’s), when you actually had to configure each component of a server, installing (sometimes soldering) memory chips in a motherboard, formatting hard drives, and performance-tune the Operating system to the specific business use of the server. As time went on these activities became wizard driven, where one would choose the business function of the server whether it be database, file service, or other business utilities- and then "push the button" and start feeding disks (mid 90’s)
After leaving the time capsule conversation, I posed the question of the smart appliance approach. "Are we nearing the time where a business can consolidate all enterprise services?” We discussed the possibility of the consolidation of network switches, servers, server clusters, storage devices, etc., into one appliance or even separate replaceable intelligent appliances that can autonomously learn, spawn, and tune the environment to make a new installation or upgrade of a major system. The amalgamation of these devices would culminate in an enterprise appliance wizard whose purpose is driven by a need to lower the overall cost, support, and complexity, while increasing optimum performance across a global organization.
Michael said, "Yeah, like enterprise in a box," which, later in the conversation, was referred to as the “easy button” concept. This ideal is an integral component in their R&D efforts.
Many technology companies are in a constant game of leapfrog to keep pace with the ever-evolving landscape (e.g., IoT). I asked Mr. Dell to expand on his R&D team structure and how many of them were actual futurists, staying out in front of the fast paced technology time curve. He explained that he had multiple CTOs across the globe, reporting up through one governing CTO who, as part of his charter, keeps a measured segment of each group’s eye on the future, building and creating new things through very close collaboration.
During our conversation, I realized that the overarching concept was a modern derivation of Moore’s Law, which is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits (IC) doubles approximately every two years. The conversation morphed into a macro version, out of the actual realm of IC’s toward the physical technical appliances housing them.
When reflecting back on the entirety of the experience, while the food was good and the conversation was better, the best part of the afternoon was a personal invitation from Michael to visit Dell’s research and development lab to be a first-hand witness to the exciting advancements the company is making in our industry.
A couple of days after the luncheon, I received a personal follow up email and Linkedin connection from Mr Dell. The email ended with “contact me directly anytime you feel I can be helpful”
I have reached out a few times since relating to new technology, but no contact with Mr. Dell has been more important or beneficial to than the one I made about my company’s security position.
After the rapid succession of breaches that impacted over dozen large corporations, it became clear that the landscape of security had been changed forever. These breaches clearly demonstrated that regardless of best practices and PCI compliance, there is no network or system that is 100% safe from a cyber-attack. With this in mind, I set a goal of strengthening my company’s security posture with focus on awareness, monitoring controls, and strong vendor partnerships.
I reached back out to Mr. Dell, who put me together with the security arm of his company.
From the very first meeting, our two organizations naturally formed a high performance work team with a hive mentality. Each and every individual contributed thought capital that lead to the creation of a program designed to meet an ever-evolving threat landscape.
The combined team concentrated their efforts on identifying key weaknesses using the Cyber Kill Chain - a variant of a military kill chain. With focus on people, process, and best in class systems, the team swarmed and collaborated against an aggressive timeline to introduce additional security tool sets into our enterprise infrastructure. To assist with diligent monitoring, we integrated with Dell’s Security Operations Center. The added expertise of highly trained security professionals provides us with 24/7/365 staff augmentation, shortened operational cycle times, and expedited detection and eradication of attacks, vulnerabilities, and threats in our environment. The end product is designed to be as polymorphic as the threats that exist in the wild.
Due to the proprietary nature of the implementation, I cannot disclose specific security solutions in place. I can say that the systems generate log data that is fed to the SOC, where a secret sauce correlates millions of logs to filter data and generate truly actionable events. We are leveraging Dell’s proprietary Counter Threat Platform, powered by their Multiple Process Logic Engine (MPLE), that processes more than 110 billion events a day, and correlates, analyzes and identifies those events down to approximately 4,000 security incidents that are escalated to clients.
At a recent TAG event, I met up with Michael and personally thanked him for brokering a business partnership that my company will benefit from for years to come. The photo below commemorates the event, with Michael, my mentor Kent, and me. I look forward our paths crossing again in the very near future.
From left to right - Kent Kleeberger, Michael Dell, and Alan Mariotti
