Nutanix AI and IoT Leader On ‘Pulling Away’ From Edge Competitors

Nutanix’s innovation engine at the edge is roaring as edge computing begins to position itself as the primary point of presence for enterprises, not the public cloud, says the company’s artificial intelligence and Internet of Things leader Satyam Vaghani.

“Public cloud vendors think that the public cloud is the center of gravity. Our thinking is the reverse,” said Vaghani, senior vice president and general manager for Nutanix’s IoT and AI business in an interview with CRN. “We think the edge is going to be so important that you need to treat it as a first-class engineering problem, not just as a secondary thing you do among many other things. … We need to make it equally, if not more convenient, for people to create applications on the edge than in the cloud.”

The San Jose, Calif.-based hyper-converged infrastructure pioneer has transformed itself over the past two years into a software and application specialist with a heavy focus of R&D at the edge, which has sprouting innovations such its Xi IoT platform. On Tuesday, Nutanix unveiled a new technology partnership with consulting and software firm Hardis Group to provide a new solution to boost customers cognitive services, edge computing, IoT and machine learning capabilities.

Vaghani talks to CRN about Nutanix’s market differentiation at the edge, its new partnership with Hardis Group and how IoT will enable channel partners to “become the center of the universe” to their customers.