They survived the first wave of cloud computing, placing a stake in the hyperconverged computing systems to support public-cloud environments. Now VMware Inc. is doubling down on a software-led strategy to thrive in the Cloud 2.0 era, where computing must converge security, real-time analysis, storage and networking.

From the launch of a new Hybrid Cloud Platform to a string of acquisitions and carefully crafted partnerships, will VMware maintain a stronghold even as the maturing public cloud providers threaten to ultimately make its multicloud management plane a redundancy?

Looking to answer this question and more,  SiliconANGLE Media Inc. is at VMware’s annual conference, VMworld, livestreaming exclusive commentary and interviews from its roving news desk theCUBE. TheCUBE coverage will begin today, Aug. 26, at 10:30 a.m. PDT and ends on Thursday, Aug. 29, at 5:30 p.m. PDT. (* Disclosure below.)

A multicloud management strategy for VMware

Heading into VMworld 2019, there’s plenty of buzz about VMware’s pricy acquisitions of Pivotal Software Inc. and Carbon Black Inc., a cybersecurity company. Announced formally last week, these are just the latest in a growing stockpile of acquisitions, indicating VMware’s growing interest in domain-specific software solutions spanning artificial intelligence and machine learning, security, automation, and open-source software development.

It all points to a multicloud management strategy for VMware, where the company has struggled for more than a decade to own enough of the software applications enterprises need to customize and manage multicloud environments. Hence the intense focus on cloud solutions, leveraging both its acquisitions and partnerships, as discussed recently by Sanjay Poonen, VMware’s chief operating officer of customer operations, and Robin Matlock, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in conversations with theCUBE. Because, despite the seemingly unstoppable growth of major public cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, many enterprises are keeping most of their workloads in private, on-premises data centers. And when a company does move to public cloud, it’s not always an exclusive relationship.

An IBM Corp.-commissioned study by McKinsey & Co. found that most enterprises have only moved approximately 20% of workloads to cloud platforms. The remaining 80% are still being kept and managed on-prem.

The central questions for VMware remain: How long will it take for this ratio to flip, and can the company position itself to take full advantage of the hybrid model? As VMware’s Outposts partnership with AWS has shown, straddling the fence has current appeal. Yet a highly competitive landscape — with Microsoft Corp. aggressively positioning Azure, Google LLC’s deployment of the Anthos tool for managing hybrid applications, and IBM’s purchase of Red Hat Inc. in a self-described play for the multicloud market — will undoubtedly complicate the task for VMware.

This is the state of the competitive enterprise universe as VMworld kicks off on Aug. 26 in San Francisco.

Speakers at VMworld 2019

Keynote speakers at VMworld 2019 include Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer of VMware Inc.; Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer of VMware; and Ray O’Farrell, executive vice president and chief technology officer of VMware.

Other event speakers include Steve Young, San Francisco 49ers quarterback and philanthropist, and Lindsey Vonn, Olympic gold-medal skier and author.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch all of theCUBE interviews that will be taking place at VMworld 2019, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s event on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE’s dedicated website and Ustream

All of theCUBE’s exclusive interviews from VMworld 2019 will be available on theCUBE’s dedicated website. You can also watch all the interviews on the dedicated Ustream channels here and here. All of theCUBE interviews from VMworld 2019 will also be loaded onto SiliconANGLE’s dedicated YouTube channel.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE at VMworld 2019

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE include VMware’s Pat Gelsinger, Sanjay Poonen, and Ray O’Farrell; Michael Dell, founder and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies Inc.; Kevin Shatzkamer vice president and general manager of service provider solutions at Dell EMC; and Ihab Tarazi, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Dell Technologies.

Also being interviewed are Beth Phalen, president and general manager of the Data Protection Division at Dell EMC; Rajiv Ramaswami, chief operating officer, products and cloud services, of VMware; Jerry Chen, partner at Greylock Management Corp.; and many more!

For a complete list of theCUBE guests at VMworld 2019, visit theCUBE’s event page here.

Livestream of VMworld 2019

If you are unable to attend the VMworld 2019 event in San Francisco, you can watch live and on demand.

(* Disclosure: Some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored and will be noted as such. Sponsors have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: VMware