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?

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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

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