Just when you’re getting used to the cloud, here come clouds — plural — as in multiple clouds, inter-cloud, cross-cloud. The reality is that different data, different workloads and different applications will likely do better in different clouds that serve unique needs. But these are early days for the multi-cloud environment, and there will be challenges to clearing confusion and making it all work.

Robin Matlock, CMO at VMware, Inc., said that we’re just on the cusp of the potential of the cross-cloud and inter-cloud worlds. “What we’re finding now is that businesses have many clouds. They have SaaS applications, they have their private cloud, they have multiple public clouds, they have managed cloud services,” she said.

Matlock told John Furrier (@furrier), cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, she believes VMware has the experience to see customers through the challenges. “We’ve been down this route before in the compute-server world. Managing these silos can become extremely complicated.”

Industry solutions are the future

Matlock said that going forward, VMware is looking to be more “solutions oriented, and we need to be more industry oriented, look at verticals and help our customers associate, ‘What’s the impact in my world?’ — whether it’s retail or it’s government or it’s healthcare.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of VMworld 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE