The Decisions that VMware made

VMware was one of the great IT successes, but their journey from start-up to behemoth was fraught with decisions that led to the Broadcom acquisition. How did they get here? SHOW: 685 CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS" SHOW SPONSORS: CloudZero -- Cloud Cost Visibility and Savings Section is the fastest, easiest and most cost-effective way to run applications across multiple clouds. Cloudcast listeners can experience the benefits of unparalleled performance and uptime, plus the ability to scale as needed. There’s no risk to try it out – run one project for free with no credit card required! SHOW NOTES: EMC acquires VMware for $625M (2004) VMware’s 1st IPO (2007) History of VMware acquisitions Diane Greene replaced by Paul Maritz as CEO (2008) VMware revenue history (2005-2022) VMware acquires Nicira (2012) Pat Gelsinger named CEO (2012) VMware launches VMware vCloud Hybrid Service (2013) VMware launches vSAN hyper converged (2013) VMware acquires Airwatch (2014) VMware on AWS cloud service announced at AWS re:Invent (2016) HOW MUCH VMWARE COULD CONTROL MAKE NEVER TRULY BE KNOWN VMware was acquired by EMC in 2004, and operated as an “independent” entity, but how independent was it really? What might VMware have become if they weren’t owned by an infrastructure company? HOW TO FOCUS ON CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND SUBTRACTIONS What happens if VMware is allowed to be spun out from EMC? How much did it impact growth? How much did it impact innovation? What happens if Paul Maritz doesn’t acquire all the companies that tried to become Microsoft? What happens if VMware didn’t spinout Pivotal, and instead delivered a more vertical software stack? What happens if Pat Gelsinger doesn’t buy Nicira, and instead focuses on the public cloud offerings 4 years earlier? (AWS revenues by year) Why didn’t VMware define the integrated computing model (e.g. Cisco UCS)? What happens if VMware (or Pivotal) had adopted Kubernetes in 2015 instead of 2019? FEEDBACK? Email: show at the cloudcast dot net Twitter: @thecloudcastnet FEEDBACK? Email: show @ the enterprise ai show dot com Bluesky: @TheEntAIShow.bsky.social Twitter/X: @TheEntAIShow Instagram: @TheEntAIShow