People who scoff at the importance of core information technology infrastructure just don’t get it. That’s the impression left with Nutanix Inc. founder, chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dheeraj Pandey.

And Pandey (pictured) has seen plenty of companies struggle with that concept, including many of Nutanix’s competitors that are increasingly finding themselves in a pitched battle with the hyperconverged infrastructure firm that won’t go away.

On the company’s earnings call with industry analysts on Tuesday, in fact, Pandey issued a challenge to VMware Inc. for a proof-of-concept competition. Let the dueling begin.

“I argue that there’s no such thing as ‘good enough’ infrastructure,” Pandey said. “Companies struggle when they don’t focus on infrastructure itself. Core infrastructure, compute, storage, networking, security, you’ve got to get it right.”

Pandey spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Joep Piscaer, technical pathfinder, cloud and infrastructure at Jumbo Supermarkten and blogger at VirtualLifestyle.nl, during the .NEXT Conference in London. They discussed competitive differentiators for Nutanix, the importance of core architecture and factors that make the hybrid cloud successful. (* Disclosure below.)

Core architecture matters

Nutanix has divided its expanding portfolio into Core, Essentials and Enterprise offerings. Yet the company still believes strongly in the critical importance of a single base to drive the enterprise IT engine.

Its view of a centralized core infrastructure base is one differentiator for Nutanix that sets it apart from other players in the enterprise cloud space, according to Pandey.

“Look at Oracle and how it’s struggling with infrastructure as a service,” Pandey said. “And look at Google; they’re trying to figure out how to make it relevant for the enterprise. Azure has three or four different stacks for infrastructure. For us, what’s important is how we use a single core base for everything, so architecture matters.”

If architecture matters, so does a growing preference in the enterprise world for a hybrid cloud model. Asked for his observations about hybrid, Pandey referenced the experience of other cloud players.

“VMware tried vCloud Air,” he noted. “They went and spent a ton of money on hardware without even knowing that the cloud is not about data centers. Cloud is about experience, it’s about e-commerce and computing coming together, and you have to be passionate about a catalog. Those are the lessons that we have learned about hybrid.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the .NEXT Conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the .NEXT Conference. Neither Nutanix Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE