VMware plays role in Technology Transformation at the global level

Robin Matlock
CMO – VMware 

The technology sector is one of the strongest sectors for consuming VMware’s technology. I would argue that we play a bigger role than just virtualization. The entire VMware ecosystem is a part of our success and we will not succeed without it. It is in Dell’s best interest to allow VMware to nurture our ecosystem. Michael Dell personally has been very public and very consistent on his point of view on supporting VMware’s need to have a very diverse ecosystem.

Working with IBM... 

We have got a great joint traction in the market. They have become a very strategic partner to us. So we have actually showcased our relationship with them. We had a wonderful advancement with IBM with the announcement on the cloud relationship with IBM Software Bluemix where VMware was running our stack on the IBM environment. We also boast of an extending and expanding cloud relationship with IBM. They are really vital partner of ours and we do business with other cloud providers as well but the IBM one was actually the first big one out of the gate.

Major achievements in 2017...

If you could look at our revenues, that would be probably one of the most comprehensive measurements of our growth. With our NSX portfolio, management automation and mobility with our end user computing portfolio, we are now delivering cloud services. We have over 5000 virtual SAN customers and over 2500 NSX customers, so those are business that are coming out of that incubation stage and are starting to really get traction. That’s a really important matrix of ours. 

Engagement with the customers to maintain leadership...

Well there is no silver bullet. There is no one thing. I think it’s a lot about creating forums for customers to come and engage. So this is a big one of course. We also engage with business leaders because sometimes it’s not about just the technical stuffs, it’s about the understanding of business. If they want to transform their businesses and they are having an agenda of digital transformation, so, how do we help them in that journey? To address this, we have to connect the dots for them based on our experience of those 5, 00,000 customers. We have seen it done time and time again, so we are trying to bring that insight and create those opportunities to discuss that.

Public cloud demand…

The demand for public cloud is growing. I think in different regions, it’s in different stages of maturity but I definitely believe that public cloud is the real thing. Now I don’t believe that all workloads are going to move out of the datacenter to public cloud. I think some workloads will and I think some will not. There is regulation. There is privacy concern. So there is a lot of complexity in managing an enterprise and the applications and data that our enterprises run on. But I do believe that public cloud brings some value to the enterprise that is very attractive. If it is done and if you are careful, you can have low cost elasticity. So I think the more we are enabling a nice seamless integration between on premises and public clouds, it will make it easier for enterprises to use the cloud that is for them.

Convergence of technology...

VMware is the pioneer of software defined. Talking not just compute, but about the whole networking industry, we got a tie up between networking hardware and the networking operating system and creating network virtualization. It’s got just as much potential as compute virtualization had 10 years ago; I would predict network virtualization to become equally as big. We are big advocates of software defined. Hybrid cloud is the foundation of our whole strategy and the reason it’s the core of our strategy is because we believe customers require hybrid cloud architecture to prosper in this new decade. So hybrid cloud is just paramount to our whole strategy and we believe very passionately that it is here where the world will go and we are at the forefront of hybrid cloud architecture that will enable hybrid cloud computing.

Role in designing partner programs as a CMO 

VMware business is largely dependent on a vibrant ecosystem that is called Partner Exchange. We are bringing all our partners together and share with them by engaging and understanding their businesses to work together. This year we are holding a very high-end business leadership meeting where we bring senior leaders to understand where is the industry going. Our ecosystem is one of the critical success factors of our history and our future success. It’s all about deploying and getting customers to use all the capabilities served to them and our partners play a very vital role in it. The global partner program serves our partners worldwide because a lot of our partners have representations in multiple countries around the world. So, we have one global program supportive regionally. 

Tags: VMware, Technology Transformation, global level, VMware ecosystem, vmware virtualization, michael dell, Robin Matlock, CMO, Robin Matlock CMO VMware , robin matlock vmware, varindia, IBM Software Bluemix, varindia