What are the challenges that act as a hindrance toward virtualization from VMware’s perspective?
It’s not really challenging but may be just time consuming, as in lot of the areas like moving enterprise application in the private sector or the government, defense are huge sectors and you have to stay invested as any change that happens has to be carefully looked at. The only challenge is ways to increase the footprint which we continually work on.
We have a three layer strategy- the first being software defined data center, the second is the hybrid cloud hosting and third is end user computing. VMware’s infrastructure has mainly been in the server side of the business. We believe that if you look at moving towards the cloud, you will need to virtualize networks and storage. A year ago, we acquired a company called Nicira which was a leader in network virtualization and this offers customers various benefits and virtualize physical network that exist today, to a fair deal. Virtualization adoption will increase significantly in the days ahead.
What role will mobility play in virtualization technology and what changes will it bring ahead?
It will play a very large role in virtualization. The end user computing that I spoke about earlier is where mobility is an essential element. End user computing basically meant desktop virtualization. The fact that mobility has become so important, you have to look at corporate strategy. The doption of corporate applications on mobile devices will continue to increase and new things that will come up will have a continued emphasis on providing corporate applications on mobile devices.
Mobile users want uninhibited freedom and organizations want their data protected, so the key is to strike a balance and keep the data separate. We have technology to help customers do exactly that. Seamless transferring of information from one device to another in case of an emergency, is critical in a mobile era where people have multiple devices. At the same time, corporations need to ensure security of their critical data so they back up the portion that is critical to them. Mobility will be the key, but security will always be a concern for which we have tools provided by VMware Horizon Suite addressing that specific area.
What kind of research and development activities are happening on the India front?
A majority of the software development on the hybrid cloud services that was launched initially happened in our Bangalore and Pune centres. New software based cutting edge projects continue to be developed here in collaboration with other providers. We also have a new campus coming up in Bangalore which is about 420,000 sq ft with a seat capacity of 2,700 employees and the campus will be ready by next year.
How is competition for VMware with the presence of local and global players in the Indian market?
It’s interesting. Our customers like the trust and robustness that the VMware platform offers. Citrix is our competitor in terms of desktop. In terms of the software defined data center, that is managed by entirely virtualizing the network. The value that we bring to customers is that there is one place where you can get software for your data center. But competition could be in smaller chunks from smaller players.
VMware offers cloud service in the US but how do you plan to offer that service in India?
We already have that service here. In the US, the service was launched by VMware but in markets like India we have tied up with big cloud players like Netmagic, Tata Communications, HCL and forty other companies which use VMware infrastructure to provide cloud services. As our cloud software matures, the automation software becomes smoother from our offering to the customers.
How has been VMware’s business ?
Customers have been increasing the virtualization foot print within their organization and we continue to add more customers. We have seen a healthy adoption rate from new as well as existing customers which continue to add on, and that’s a hallmark of a good growth based company. We are vertical agnostic. Any application that can run on x86, can run on virtualization software – be it a manufacturing or CRM application. Top adapters are the BFSI and telecommunication firms as their businesses are steeped in IT than manufacturing companies. Also, we have had wins in the government which is a green field area.