Every year for the past 20 years, virtualization giant VMware Inc. has invited engineers to submit their most creative projects for their yearly research and development event, VMware Radio. Out of a thousand submissions, only 150 to 200 meet the exacting standards for presentation.

2019’s projects cover a broad swath of topics — from technology near and dear to VMware, such as Kubernetes and virtualization, to bleeding edge advancements in virtual and augmented reality. This year also marked the submission of projects which address the cultural and managerial changes required to adjust to today’s dispersed, digital workplace.

There is one common theme that marks all innovations: “You’re seeing it move beyond the technology … [to] how do we as a company become more successful?” stated Ray O’Farrell (pictured), chief technology officer of VMware.

O’Farrell spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the RADIO event in San Francisco. They discussed VMware’s culture of innovation and how the company is using its expertise to help others along the virtualization path (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Virtual technology for virtual teams

Dispersion and virtualization is affecting more than technology. These days, R&D teams are more likely to be spread remotely across the globe than working together in the same office.

“So, what you’ve got is very core pieces of code being done by teams who are acting remotely,” O’Farrell stated. This mirrors challenges already faced by the open-source community, which provides a model for how to manage projects with a dispersed team. The VMware Open Source Program Office offers a resource for building and leveraging innovation across multiple teams, according to O’Farrell.

Openness and innovation are key to mastering the dispersed workplace. “We have a culture of innovation in the company, and we can create new products, new features as needed from that,” O’Farrell said. “But, we also recognize some of those innovations are going to come from partnerships and from acquisitions. So we’re open to wherever that innovation comes from.”

The imminent advent of 5G is bringing business to VMware, as telcos invest in virtual infrastructure. “They are saying; ‘Why can I not leverage that same technology which revolutionized cloud in the data center?’” O’Farrell stated.

Customers across the spectrum of industry are looking to take advantage of VMware’s expertise. “They’re saying, ‘I want to focus on the layer which is specific to my company, the applications, my customer relations. Please somebody help me with all the other stuff,’” O’Farrell said. The “other stuff” is cloud-enabled, virtual infrastructure, which is an area where VMware is happy to help out.

Resilience rather than disruption

“Pragmatic innovation” is VMware’s recommendation for more traditional industries adopting digital technology. This approach focuses on the long term, emphasizing maintaining profitability and security alongside implementing cutting-edge tools.

“We know you want to leverage the latest technology; we know you want to be able to advance in those spaces,” O’Farrell said. “We also know in the end you are a bank or a hospital and you need to manage that transition in a fashion which allows you to keep your business going.”

The Radio R&D event ensures that VMware keeps a diverse blend of innovative products in the pipeline. “There’s a lot of projects here that are deeply systems projects; you’ll also find a lot around customer satisfaction things like user interfaces, ease of licensing, all those types of things. So there’s a good balance,” O’Farrell concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the RADIO event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the VMware RADIO 2019 event. Neither VMware Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE