Ahead of VMworld next week, we’re taking a trip down memory lane looking at highlights from last year’s event, as well as this year’s biggest developments from VMware.  As the world shifts towards software-defined everything, virtualization remains a key focal point for many industries in the enterprise, and VMware is embracing the trend through updated products and open source contributions.

Here’s a look at what the company has been up to from the start of this year leading up to this year’s conference in San Francisco.

VMware Marching Towards Software Defined Datacenter with Acquisition of Virsto

VMware signed a definitive agreement to acquire Virsto, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of software that optimizes storage performance and utilization in virtual environments, back in February.  This acquisition was perceived by Wikibon CTO and Co-Founder David Floyer as a way for VMware to become the Microsoft of the software-led infrastructure.

VMware Says You Don’t Need Dropbox, Updates Enterprise Mobility Suite

VMware finally unveiled the reworked version of its Horizon Suite, the all-in-one end-point management offering,  that allows admins to manage users, rather than devices, in February.  The version was originally announced back in VMware 2012.  VMware Horizon Workplace is designed to transform PCs into “centralized managed IT services,” as it aggregates devices, apps, data and user privileges in easily manageable profiles that can be associated with individual employees or entire departments.

EMC + VMware: Turn Losing Assets into Golden Geese with Pivotal Spinoff

EMC and VMware jointly announced that the reworked roadmap for the Pivotal Initiative back in March.  Pivotal is a joint venture from both EMC and VMware that would pull a number of projects that have failed to bring money for both companies such as Spring framework and Cloud Foundry PaaS.  The spinoff was seen as a good move.  Wikibon’s Dave Vellante stated that the move “increased VMware’s operating margin, make them more profitable [and] get them more focused.”  The move was so good that GE was quick to invest $105 million in Pivotal.

VMware Gets Dumped On As PayPal Embraces OpenStack

All is not well for VMware this year as PayPal has dumped its services and went open source.  The first phase of the new deployment involves PayPal replacing VMware around 10,000 of its servers.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg as PayPal and its parent company eBay are ultimately looking at replacing all of their VMware virtual infrastructure on the estimated 80,000 servers they run across their data centers.

VMware Announces New Public Cloud Hybrid Service – vCloud #vmwarehybrid

PayPal choosing OpenStack over VMware did not dampen their spirit as it announced vCloud, a new public cloud hybrid service in May.  This move puts VMware in a better position to compete with OpenStack and AWS which is the current leader in the public cloud sector.

VMware Comfortably Beats Analysts’ Q2 Expectations

Though analysts believed that VMware’s iron grip on the market is starting to slip, the company proved them otherwise.  The EMC subsidiary posted second quarter earnings of $244.1 million or $0.57 per share, up from $191.7 million in the same period 12 months ago.  Its sales were up 11 percent to $1.24 billion from $1.12 billion in the prior year comfortably beating analysts’ expectation of $1.23 billion.

VMware Nabs SAP’s Sanjay Poonen, Shares Thoughts on Cloud Ecosystem

In early August, VMware announced that Sanjay Poonen is taking over as the head of its end-user computing group.  Poonen is an important addition to VMware’s team as he has a wide range of experience in the industry.  He holds two patents, MBA from Harvard Business School and a master’s degree from Stanford University, served as an engineer for Microsoft, advanced to executive positions at prominent tech firms such as Symantec, VERITAS and Informatica, and served as the president of global solutions and go-to-market for BI giant SAP, before joining VMware.

VMware Bets on $700 Million Share Buyback as Virtualization Battle Heats Up

VMware recently announced that it has given authorization for as much as $700 million in share buybacks, with the shares available for purchase between now and the end of 2015.  The move is said to be a part of its ongoing efforts to offset price dilution from equity programs.  The move comes at a challenging time for VMware who facing fierce cloud competitors.