When the VMware community gathered in Las Vegas last year for the annual Explore event, the company’s acquisition by Broadcom Inc. had yet to be finalized. The $69 billion purchase was completed three months later, and this year’s VMware Explore 2024 conference will be closely watched for signals around how Broadcom intends to manage its major investment in one of the world’s most significant enterprise players.

Based on its actions to date, Broadcom has followed a process similar to other acquisitions it has made over the years. The chipmaker made changes in VMware’s sales and licensing plan, offloaded the firm’s remote access computing operation in a $3.8 billion deal, and restructured the company into four divisions.

“Broadcom’s doing exactly what they said they were going to do back when they announced they were buying them in 2022. [Broadcom CEO] Hock Tan laid out the rationale,” theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante said in a recent analysis on theCUBEPod. “They basically said, ‘We’re going to use the same playbook. We’re going to focus the company. We’re going to narrow to the top customers. We’re going to invest in research and development.’”

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, will be on the ground in Las Vegas for up-to-the-minute coverage of VMware Explore 2024 Aug. 26-28. TheCUBE’s coverage will include on-site reporting and exclusive interviews with cloud experts, virtualization insiders, analysts and thought leaders to discuss the latest developments and innovations within the enterprise computing community. (* Disclosure below.)

VMware Explore 2024: Restructuring with a focus on application platforms

Broadcom’s post-acquisition restructuring reflects how it intends to focus VMware’s efforts. The four divisions include the Tanzu container operation, the VMware Cloud Foundation private cloud platform, application networking and security, and software-defined edge units.

Of these four, Tanzu and VCF will likely receive a great deal of attention at Explore later this month, along with the company’s vision for Private AI. Tanzu has evolved as an application platform that can sit on top of any infrastructure-as-a-service solution. Its advantage is that it can be paired with tons of data to accelerate app delivery.

VMware’s message to customers over the past nine months has been one of simplification, and this includes how the company intends to deploy Tanzu for its enterprise customers.

“We will simplify our portfolio,” said Purnima Padmanabhan, general manager of the Tanzu Division at Broadcom, in a recent exclusive interview with theCUBE. “We will set up cluster management and connect the service mesh and the load balancer automatically so you don’t build each component individually. Whether you use the Tanzu platform to deliver to a Cloud Foundry-type runtime on virtual machines or Kubernetes, we will deliver a common set of promises.”

Integrating VCF for diverse workloads

Since the acquisition by Broadcom, VMware Cloud Foundation has experienced a transformation toward more sophisticated and integrated cloud solutions. This has positioned VCF as a resource in supporting a new wave of AI-driven applications and diverse workloads.

“I think they needed to make a lot of those changes to bring everything together,” said theCUBE Research analyst Rob Strechay, in a discussion of VMware’s market position. “Kubernetes used to be a plugin on top of what is now VCF. Bringing it in as a first-class citizen … managing everything the same, same observability, same workflow, being able to do the clusters at scale definitely gives them a better play.”

A subtext to the changes at VMware in 2024 is the potential impact the acquisition will have on Broadcom. As much as the chipmaking giant’s focus has been on realigning VMware’s offerings, the outcome could very well mean a transformation for Broadcom itself.

“Broadcom is clearly in charge, but Broadcom is clearly now signaling publicly that VMware will reshape what the new Broadcom will look like,” said theCUBE Research’s John Furrier. “Broadcom never really nailed it on software … but with VMware, this is the crown jewel of software. Our narrative of chips to apps is absolutely the key. You’ve got security, machine learning and AI. VMware will absolutely be the Broadcom stalking horse to establish their chips for those workloads.”

TheCUBE event livestream

Don’t miss theCUBE’s coverage of VMware Explore 2024 Aug. 26-28. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of VMware Explore, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

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.

SiliconANGLE also has analyst deep dives in our Breaking Analysis podcast, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

Guests

During VMware Explore, theCUBE will bring you exclusive interviews with private cloud experts, virtualization insiders, analysts and thought leaders to discuss the developments and innovations within the enterprise computing community.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VMware Explore 2024. Neither VMware Inc., the primary sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE