By: VCE CTO Trey Layton at EMC World 2013     (@treylayton)

Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said "change is the only constant in life." And without question, change is the lifeblood to our industry and like any transition, albeit from VHS to digital, from board games to mobile apps, or even dare I say it, Tom and Jerry to Jerry Springer, the "customer" conversation takes on a new shape, with new questions and a fresh dialogue.

Today, we're seeing something very similar with a natural transition towards convergence in the data center market. No longer is the conversation about the impact on IT departments, but about how to influence change to meet the business needs of the company. Refocusing an entire business around a common goal is no easy feat, especially within those longer standing companies with more traditional, more siloed approaches to their business -and as such skill sets are once again going to have to change or people will find their options becoming limited. Like the technology they're going to have to adjust; it's a natural transition for not only the IT department, but leaders across multiple faculties of the business.

Economic and competitive pressures are demanding we do more with fewer resources. Take Columbia Sportswear who deployed Vblock systems in order to transform IT to be much more service orientated in order to fulfill business requests that much faster. Rapid deployment and ease of use also enabled Columbia to redirect IT staff to find new ways to solve business problems, rather than focused on the IT "plumbing". Above all, the need for flexibility is commonplace in today's business environment and hence require their IT to "never say no" regardless of the project that comes through the door.

VCE is leading the charge into the next generation data center, simplifying and accelerating data center modernization efforts for our customers. Simply put, VCE represents the next evolution of IT, one focused on the next generation data center and the future of cloud computing.

So where do we go from here?

As the IT industry and the needs of the customer continue to evolve, so will VCE and the Vblock systems. Already we've taken our Vblock family to the next level by enhancing the existing 300 and 700 systems and expanded our portfolio by adding the 100 and 200 systems. We also developed Vblock Specialized Systems that are optimized for SAP HANA software and added our own layer of intelligence to existing management toolsets by creating VCE Vision Intelligent Operations to enable and simplify converged operations.

As we look to the future we will continue to innovate on top of the success we've already seen to ensure converged infrastructure retains its position as the foundation for next generation data centers. And trust me, there's a lot more coming to you this year, including the notion of "hyper-convergence" -something you'll hear a lot more from me on in the coming months.

Join us at this year's EMC World in Las Vegas to experience for yourself the simplicity behind the Vblock converged systems and see what the future holds for the next generation data center.