Attending one event in person and then catching content from a second held virtually proved challenging -
Greetings from the road, once again! Last week we drove
to Las Vegas where it all seemed so strange to be participating in an industry
event that wasn’t associated with HPE. Up until 2020 we had always scheduled
time to be in Las Vegas for HPE events so it was good to get back to the place.
Whether they were the HP Technical Forum (HPTF) events – the events that
replaced the ITUG Summits of years passed – or HPE Discover simply being with
the community was always an experience in itself. However, on this occasion,
Margo and I turned up for the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) US Conference.
While our primary focus was on the ATMIA event where I
was attending in person and yes, it was held in the Mandalay Bay Resort and
Casino (and Conference Center), we also had to interact with our colleagues who
were participating in this year’s HPE Discover 2021 as a “virtual experience”
via ZOOM. Now that we have returned to Windsor, Colorado, and managed to pull
note pads from our back packs impressions formed in a matter of minutes have
result taken hold. And what a story we have to tell!
But first, driving across America continues to be an
eye-opener. For those that like to see the numbers, between the end of May and
the end of June, we covered 7,000 miles. This included a ten day break back in
the home office to ensure we were able to produce the June 2021 issue of
NonStop Insider. All the while, driving
from one place to another, we couldn’t ignore COVID-19 and the normalcy in many
guises that now existed across the country.
The impact from the global pandemic may be in retreat
in selected areas but its lingering presence can be felt everywhere we went.
Hotels of major chains are still on the defensive whereas restaurants seemed to
be responding to local conditions. Social distancing? Not always an item.
Masks? Again, inconsistent implementations! Gas stations? All bets were off as
there were no restrictions on social interactions at all – you couldn’t stay in
the lobby of the McDonalds but walk ten feet into the gas station where there
was seating and all was good. Sit down and eat where you like!
The first impression that we took away with us was from
HPE Discover, 2021. Do you want to hear the good news first? In a
pre-conference press briefing I have attended (under a 24 hour news embargo),
first up was Keith White, General Manager of GreenLake Cloud Services. He had
been talking for only a few minutes before he came to his second slide HPE
GreenLake for Critical Industry Applications / Platforms. A screen shot appears
above and hopefully, I will soon get something that is a little clearer.
The significance of this slide is the reference to
Financial Payments where you will see the reference to Lusis. “We are
partnering with industry leaders around verticals,” said White which will
include “delivering Lusis on our NonStop; all delivered as a service.” Barely
five minutes into the press briefing and there it was – an unabashed reference
to NonStop and to a key NonStop solutions partner. Occupying PowerPoint real
estate alongside Epic, Splunk>, and Nvidia along with references to Intel
and Microsoft, it certainly represented change from previous briefings where we
hadn’t heard any references to NonStop at all.
The big announcement was Lighthouse (one screen to rule
them all) along with Aurora (zero trust in everyone / everything). While
announced together they were clearly two separate announcements and I will be
covering in more detail in subsequent posts. I have always liked the symbolism
of Lighthouses, safe havens and a beacon of hope and certainly, this caught on
with the press. As the press briefing continues, Lighthouse was described “as a
unified platform that has everything for hardware and the software (accessed
through) a console; API driven to the customer.” Again, solid messaging – a
haven of help presenting a unified solution to how best to provision cloud
experiences with GreenLake.
More on HPE Discover 2021 will follow shortly but the
prime reason to be in Las Vegas was for the ATM Industry Association US
Conference 2021. I have attended many of these events in the past but simply
turning up to the Mandalay Bay brought back not only a multitude of memories
but was a reminder that there will be many more events being held over the
coming months. So what were the dramatic announcements at this industry show?
For starters, the most basic question had to concern the future of ATMs and
even though there is a funded project for ATMs called NextGen where the goal
remains for “NextGen to be what we make it … seamless interoperability across
the ecosystem, including mobile.”
It was the reference to mobile that dominated many of
the presentations and much of the conversations that followed. ATMs and the cash
that they supported needed to be accessible seamlessly from a smartphone – and
don’t tell today’s youth that we are talking about a smartphone but rather,
simply a phone. One outcome from the global pandemic was that bank branches had
to shut down and for many this closure has proved terminal. The only access to
cash was the ATM and studies showed that customers wanted access to their cash
and wanted such access when they wanted it!
With as many natural disasters as are occurring today,
one illustration struck a chord. Imagine waist deep in water waving your
smartphone around when the network was no longer operable. How do you then get
access to cash and for many, cash was the only means of survival. When all at
sea, holding a smartphone above the waves doesn’t seem to be that smart after
all? However, as we all realize, illustrations are only useful up to a point.
The global pandemic has put the spotlight directly onto financial institutions
and they are rethinking their ways to serve their customers.
ATMs are going high-end, multi-function even as they are going low-tech dispensing only cash. With the demise of bank branches high-end functionality includes the whole gamut of self service features that mirror what you could do at the branch – the ability to open accounts, go for loans, etc. Certainly, cash withdrawals have gone down significantly but in the US, the value of each withdrawal has gone up significantly even as the time spent at the ATM is not much longer. Turns out that the resilient nature of today’s robust ATM infrastructure may be the turning point for the industry but what will that industry look like?
It is looking much like the future of ATMs is going to be inseparably linked to and comingle with crypto currencies and even Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). Evidence of this future was visible on the exhibition floor – every vendor demonstrating ATM support for Crypto Currency attracted large crowds; traditional ATM vendors, including the likes of ATM powerhouse Hyosung, had much less traffic. What banking customers wanted from their banks was the ability to purchase and cash out crypto currency, make payments, and to do so with the same degree of trust that they have in today’s fiat currencies.
“ATM’s supporting crypto currencies represents just
another transaction,” according to Daryl Cornell, CEO of Triton and a panelist
in the keynote session, The future of the ATM industry.” With this observation
I really picked up – NonStop creates data but just as importantly, NonStop
knows transactions. And indeed, the future of ATMs looks to be turning as
vendors enter into conversations with users on a variety of new capabilities,
driven in equal measures by the global pandemic and indeed by the surge in
e-commerce activities. This is goodness for NonStop and brings into even
greater focus the decision by the GreenLake team to go out first up with
industry solutions that included NonStop with well-known partner, Lusis.
The week certainly was all about a tale of two events.
Which one did we prefer? The in-person event of course as the fun returned to
networking! HPE Discover 2021 did its best and its content was impressive – if
you want to read a good summary then you may want to check out the article by
Steven Burke that appeared on the CRN web site, CEO
Antonio Neri: 10 Boldest Statements from HPE Discover 2021.
The renewed focus on NonStop was impressive and I have to believe, got the
attention of many who heard this update. As for our NonStop community then the
news that this year’s NonStop Technical Boot Camp will be an in-person event
has to be applauded by all.
Aren’t we all ready to return to our roots? To HPTF and Summits past! For Margo and me the answer is simple and after spending a week in Las Vegas we cannot wait to see you all in Denver. Until then, look for further updates on our impressions from HPE Discover 2021 in future posts and articles – we have a lot of territory to cover!
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