• Ross Brown on stage (head of partner stuff worldwide)….I’m going to post general items here but not NDA stuff.
  • Only in this role 4 weeks – started as a coder, decided didn’t want to do it, then at TechData. Vendor side with IBM, Citrix, and Microsoft.
  • Been in startups, mid-cap companies in rapid growth, larger companies, etc. Wide range of experience.
  • Best vendors are those who work to reinforce the partner relationship with the customer.
  • Doesn’t like the saying that “partners are an extension of the vendor sales force” – not true. VMware is privileged to be a part of your business but realizes you’re independent companies.
  • Bootcamps yesterday – ran out of space actually.
  • Content previews today of what will see at the general session so you’re ready for customer questions.
  • Want to help you build out out a business where don’t just make money but can do so repeatably & consistently
  • Going for…
    • Predictable Profitability
    • Creating Value in your business
    • Rewarding Healthy Growth
  • Definitely a very financial/business feel so far…which is good given we need to do enough to pay our people & stay in business.
  • Evolution of the Cloud – see 4 phases – it’s interesting how long term this is looking. This is going out to 2030 for the 4th phase.
  • We’re just about done Phase 1 and just into Phase 2 as stated.
  • Seeing major shifts with application scaling approaches
  • Doubling down on hybrid cloud – enable stretching private cloud into public cloud easily.
    • Lots of flexibility, add capacity dynamically + compliance standards + policies that follow the application as it moves.
  • 1/3 of clients will say “this is awesome and we’ve seen how hard it is”, 2/3 will say “so why this is this hard? it’s easy, right?”
  • Also have to persuade developers to develop on the hybrid cloud platform – this makes a ton of sense given how intoxicated developers are with AWS overall.
    • Must address this by offering application services that are attractive to developers.
    • Trying to create an ecosystem by encouraging 3rd party applications.
    • Calling this “Hybrid Applications”.
• Raghu Raghuram onstage….
  • At VMware 12 years….narrating a bit of the history of applications…..started with one app per server – simple virtualization play.
  • Need a common networking backplane and common management backplane to build a hybrid cloud.
  • Digging into the networking challenges – same application with components in your datacenter and also in your service provider datacenter. Have to maintain this network as the applications move around….and for hundreds of applications.
  • Only way to solve it is network virtualization at scale at both ends….but even that isn’t enough. Working on a hybrid network approach to help with this…
  • Management – consistent tools between public/private/hybrid clouds that can track, deploy, manage across all cloud options. We’re doing great stuff here! 😉
  • Comprehensive, unique, differentiated approach.
  • Cloud is only 1/2 of what customers are thinking about, other 1/2 is Mobility.
• Sanjay Poonen, EUC president
  • “You complete us” to partners.
  • Saying nice partner things – you extend our reach, give us feedback, extend our solutions in ways we can’t do.
  • Phones are becoming the “remote control” to our life – yep.
  • Customers telling Sanjay “If don’t have a mobile strategy, you can ‘end’ User Computing…get it?”
  • Went out and bought Airwatch to respond to that
  • Identity Management to help with that as well….the next IaaS
  • Identity Management now sitting inside vCenter – tied together like the head to the body.
• Martin Casado on stage….wins the “best sport coat contest”
  • Video case study for the Tribune –
  • New version of NSX tomorrow – no, I won’t post details.
  • Main business drivers behind network virtualization
    • Automation
    • Security (automation could be part of this)
    • App Continuity – ability to do HA & DR between datacenters
• Pat Gelsinger on stage
  • Good strategy overview and story – not posting much of it here.
  • Who do you hitch your wagon to?
  • IT industry is not allowing any of us to stand still.
• Carl Eschenbach – President and COO
  • Doing a one on one with Ross – both sitting down
  • Ross – I came here because of completeness of vision.
  • VMware overhauled it’s approach to ELA’s to be more partner-friendly a couple years ago….evidence of listening to partners. Still need to improve more….
  • Discussing specific programs targeted at helping remove competition between VMware and its partners over services. This is a big deal and could make a huge difference for partners and VMware working together on ELA’s and Professional Services.
  • Reviewing various themes but need to wrap up my notes for next sessions.

That’s a wrap…