VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) is aiming for a bigger slice of the pie — the $440 billion data-center industry long dominated by rivals such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) with a new line of all-in-one products and related partnerships.
Today at the VMworld conference in San Francisco, the initiatives being announced will position VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) as a provider of cloud-computing software for running all the hardware — servers, data and storage — needed to operate data centers. This will enable the company to be a one-stop-shop to many of its customers, providing both data center hardware and cloud infrastructure.
VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) all compete in an industry, which Gartner Inc. currently estimates to rise by 11% to $488 billion next year.
The company unveiled its new product, the EVO:RAIL, which combines computing, networking and storage resources into a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance to create a simple, easy to deploy all-in-one solution offered by their qualified partners. The company has also been improving its list of alliances for this new offering with the recent addition of Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET)
This new initiative will position the company to compete directly with its parent, EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), the world’s biggest provider of storage computers. Industry analysts are skeptical about this move as for the possible competition between the two companies.
Meanwhile, both of the companies’ executives are downplaying the possible competition between the two companies. Jeremy Burton, President of Products and Marketing for EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), was quoted as saying,
“The idea that because VMware builds out a little bit of functionality will have a massive negative impact on EMC’s storage business is just speculation at best. And at the end of the day, VMware is part of EMC, so all of their revenue goes to us.”
And Raghu Raghuram, VMware’s Executive Vice President of Cloud Infrastructure and Management, said in a statement,
“VMware and EMC share a common vision for software-defined storage. VMware is working with EMC to provide customers with choice and complete end-to-end solutions.”
This article has been written by John Aquino.
