UPDATED 13:34 EDT / AUGUST 08 2016

NEWS

#VMworld 2016 preview: VMware confident, but Dell takeover looms

As VMworld 2016 kicks off in Las Vegas later this month, there is new confidence at VMware Inc. about its competitive position and future growth prospects, but the forthcoming acquisition of EMC by Dell Inc. casts a long shadow.

In a video interview previewing theCUBE’s coverage of VMworld, Wikibon analyst Stu Miniman (@Stu) says the annual event continues to be the chief rallying point for the VMware partner and customer community, with 20,000 attendees expected along with a host of announcements.

“You will probably see 400 press releases go out from 200 vendors who are going to be there,” Miniman said. “Everyone lines up around VMworld.” VMware itself usually uses the spotlight to preview a major new release of its flagship vSphere virtualization platform as well.

But there will be a lot more to talk about than vSphere this year. VMware has been focused on diversifying outside of virtualization and has had some success, with its AirWatch mobility management platform and VSAN virtual storage area network, leading the way, Miniman said.

VMware’s cloud strategy has been muddled in light of EMC’s decision late last year to scrap a joint venture based upon its Virtustream cloud platform, along with several high-level executive departures in the vCloud Air organization. VMware subsequently repackaged vCloud Air as a vertical-market-oriented service rather than a packaged product. “The vCloud Air network is doing okay, but vCloud Air as a service has been doing that great,” Miniman said.

There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the pending Dell acquisition, which may or may not be completed by the time the conference floors. The biggest question is whether VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, will remain with the company after VMware becomes part of Dell and moves him further down the corporate hierarchy. Gelsinger has said he is staying, and “at this point we expect Pat to be up on stage giving the keynote, and we expect to have him on theCUBE,” Miniman said. However, executives often insist they are staying on the job to avoid a negative impact on the stock, even when they’re halfway out the door.

Expect a lot of chatter about Nutanix Inc., which has filed an S-1 statement in anticipation of a public offering. Although the hyper-converged market is less than one quarter of the overall $6 billion-$8 billion converged infrastructure market, a successful Nutanix IPO could improve VMware’s fortunes with its own hyper converged products.

Competitively, VMware is under pressure from two sides, Miniman said. As container technology matures and OpenStack becomes a popular deployment platform, some customers may opt for the cost benefits and flexibility of open source compared to the proprietary VMware manager. At the same time, Microsoft is moving at full throttle with Hyper-V, a vSphere competitor. “There’s a pincer move going on to squash VMware from both sides,” Miniman said.

This will be the seventh year that SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE has come to VMworld, and its presence will be bigger than ever. In addition to streaming from two separate stages, theCUBE’s coverage will feature multiple guest hosts, including VMware community organizer John Troyer (@jtroyer), storage expert Marc Farley (@gofarley), and VMware expert Keith Townsend (@CTOAdvisor).


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