VMworld 2017 US – The future is bright again

If you didn’t get the chance to attend the conference in person or have been one of the few to have been on holiday or under a rock then WOW – you’ve missed a lot of news. There have been a lot of posts from bloggers and media alike but I want to deep dive on the VMware business itself and how its turned around since 2015.

Strategy

If you listen to a lot of analysts and the tech community it is evident that VMware was disjointed in parts of the business and needed to stay relevant and not just a hypervisor company. Fast forward to 2017 and we can see that the digital transformation message that Michael Dell has pitched is now flowing to all parts of the Dell Technologies umbrella. Cloud had a big focus this year and especially multi-cloud and VMware has now seen that vCloud Air alone was not the answer to the cloud question.

By pivoting the business to collaborate with giants such as AWS, IBM and Google this year has been a year of embracing change. The VMware exec board has a clear ambition to partner with a lot of established cloud players instead of going head to head with them and this will bear fruit in quarters to come.

The announcement of PKS (Pivotal Container Services) using Kubernetes as a Container-as-a-Service offering both on premises and also with Google Compute Platform has been a revelation to say the least. We still have the key technologies underpinning the solution from VMware but now customers can use Kubo (Kubernetes on BOSH from Pivotal) and have the ecosystem in place to aid their cloud native agenda. VMware PKS will also be brought to market by Dell EMC on VxRail Appliances and VxRack Systems after Q4 of this year which is exciting news. Pat & team know that the platform is where the future is heading and giving customers choice and staying with enterprise grade solutions will help this digital movement we are seeing in the industry.

Finances

Not much to say here other than VMware are in a rock solid position with excellent Q2 results that have boosted to stock price. As well as significant cashflow and good results the company has really turned itself around from a couple of years ago. The management team have really upped their game in the last couple of years and focusing on key pillars such as security, workplace, cloud etc. as refined the business go to market. Bravo !!

Useful Links

The event itself always generates a lot of information and blog posts but I want to share some links that provide you with more background and candid information that isn’t always shared after big events like this. For me – the information below helps to cement the knowledge coming out of the event and also represents how the industry provides additional collateral that my readers may miss. Enjoy.

SiliconAngle – One of my favourite playlists with Dave Vellante and John Furier talking with key industry folk at the event

vBrownbag – Techtalks are always worth listening to as they are by community folk and having contributed to these before at other events I make sure I also tune into these. Credit to Alastair Cooke and team for their hard work.

So what next ?

Of course Barcelona is right around the corner and we can bet that VMware have saved some key announcements for this event. We could see some news around Workplace which was a little light in the US and perhaps more around product updates.

I’ll be there so please reach out and connect if you’re reading this.

I’ll also be hoping to connect with the Dell EMC Elect and vExpert communities with new and some old faces as well as customers and partners of Dell EMC so it’s going to be a busy few days.

Looking forward to something different this year – I will be interviewing with the OpenTechCast team and we have some VIP guests so make sure you subscribe as you won’t want to miss the content.