 Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin here with John Furrier. This is day three of our wall-to-wall coverage of VMware Explorer. John and I are pleased to welcome back one of our alumni, Moodu Sudhakar, CEO of Aysera. Welcome to the program, Moodu. It's great to meet you. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for having me. Thank you, John. Great to see you again. You're like an industry analyst coming on theCUBE. You should be like a guest analyst breaking down. I mean, you get your own company running. By the way, recent funding you had. Congratulations in a market that's not getting a lot of funding up around. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Business is good. Very good. I mean, look, Goldman Sachs investing, along with Zoom and Tom Abrower. It was great for us. Great stuff. Well, I'm glad we could get you in. This day three, Lisa and I, and Dave Vellante and Dave Nicholson have all been talking to everyone for two days here at VMware Explorer, formerly VMworld, our 12th year, covering their annual conference, as you know. And we've been talking to the executives, but day three is more of like we're going to, we're going to mix up. We're going to bring people in and get their opinions and about super cloud. Where does VMware go post-broadcom? Obviously that's going to happen. Looks like that's nothing going to stop that from happening. What's next? What's the impact? Who wins? Who loses? VMware certainly not acting like they're going to get gutted. They're like all full throttle ahead. They're laying down. So the announcement was vSphere 8. You got vSan 8. They got cloud native. They're talking multi-cloud. VMware is not looking like they're flinching. What's going on in your view outside of the bubble that we're here in San Francisco, out in the real world in the trenches? What are people talking about? What do you see? Lot, lot to unpack. Whatever you want. Yes. You know, I was a VMware alumni too. Yes, he sold the company to VMware. You know the inside. Okay, so then even better. I worked with Paul and Pat and Raghu. So it's great to be back at VMware now. I think there's a lot going on VMware. VMware is just to stay. The brand will stay. The VMware customers will stay. For years to come. I think Broadcom and VMware is, I think it's a great industry consolidation, right? The way in which I see it. And it's going to help all the customers too, right? Broadcom having such a large footplay into both CA, the software business, the hardware business. I think what will happen is Broadcom will try to create a hybrid cloud of their own with VMware. So there'll be a fourth player in the cloud industry and then back to John, your super cloud. The super cloud, by different, there'll be private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds. So I think Broadcom and VMware will help your vision of the super cloud and what customers are asking. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I want to get your thoughts on, Lisa and I were talking yesterday with the executives, AJ Patel in particular. He comes from, he's a middleware guy. So he did, it was Oracle. He did a lot of the fusion stuff at Oracle. He said, now runs modern apps. And you came in at the time, I think, when they were just getting that kind of app vision going, and Paul Moritz actually had it early with his 2010 vision, but too early on the app side, but that ended up happening too. So the question is, is Broadcom going to be this middleware layer? I mean, and treat the cloud like hardware. And then apps or apps, companies are apps. I mean, in a digital transformation, technology is the company. So the company is the app, is an application. So apps and hardware, middleware model emerging. Do you think they're going for that or is that just making this up in my head? I think to me, I see Broadcom as much more like, they're like a PA company at high level, right? So they're funded by- Like a private equity company. Private equity company. I mean, from a dollar stamp. From a dollar point. So Broadcom is going to fund companies. They're going to buy companies. They bought CA, they bought all the other assets. So Broadcom will have always hardware. The middle level could be VMware, but they also have CA, right? They have a bunch of apps here. So I see Broadcom is also using VMware to run applications. So the consolidation will be, they'll create a super cloud using VMware. They're going to own their own apps. I don't think Broadcom's story is stopped at this journey to come. They're going to buy more acquisitions, more apps companies. I won't be surprised in the future they buy Zendesk. I won't be surprised in the future they buy other apps companies, SaaS companies and cloud enterprise companies, right? So that's where the PE is coming. So the Broadcom vision is, I need a base middleware, like you're saying. There's no middleware on top of hardware better than VMware. So do you think that they'll keep the stuff that's coming out? Yeah, because we've been speculating on theCUBE this week. They have the core business. But there's all the stuff that's kind of coming out of the oven that's not EBITDA oriented yet. Do you think they keep that or they let it go? I think that's a great cushion to hang their CEO of Broadcom, right? But to me, I think knowing them, they are going to keep, and like if you look at Symantec, they kept parts of Symantec, they sold parts of it. So I think all options are on the table for them, right? They'll do whatever it is. But I think it has to be the ones that high growth companies, they may give it. It all goes back to is there profitability or not? But his vision is very good. I want to own the middleware, right? He will own the middleware using VMware to your vision. Create a super cloud and own the apps. So I think you'll see Broadcom is the fourth vendor in the cloud race. You have Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Broadcom is actually going to compete with these four. So you think they'll be a hyperscaler? They'll be in the top three or four? They'll be top four. Along with Oracle now it'll be. So now we are talking about the five vendors will be Amazon, Azure, Google, Oracle and Broadcom. We had an Amazon guy on Steve Jones. I should ask him that question. I just don't see that happening yet. I mean they had to have the full hardware side. How do you see that coming in? Because I mean Amazon's innovating at the atom level and they're working on stuff that's physical, transit, physics stuff. Like down to the root level. I think Broadcom will figure out look, they own the chipset, right? At the end of the day they also have a lot of chipsets that supply to both mobile and this. So if there's anybody who can figure out the hardware it'll be Broadcom. That is their core of area. They didn't have the core in the software in the middleware. VMware is going to give them the OS, the Kubernetes, the VMs. Once you have that layer I think you can innovate both up and below, right? So I think John, I think Broadcom, VMware will be a force to reckon with. And I think these guys are going to get into healthcare space though. See if you see the way the battle you and me are talking Lisa, like Microsoft bought Nuance, Oracle bought Surner. They all paid 30 billion each. So the next battle ground will be they'll start with in the healthcare industry. Somebody is going to go look at the healthcare apps like Epic, right? They're going to look at how we can do the hospitals. They're going to look at hospital healthcare professionals. That area will be disrupted a lot in this side. What other industries do you think besides healthcare are right for disruption with Broadcom VMware? I think endpoint management. Like remember VMware bought AirWatch when I was there back then, right? That whole area is called digital experience management. So that endpoint management will be disrupted. So Broadcom with VMware will go and get into endpoints. Endpoint could be the servers, desktops, VMware, Macs, right? Virtual desktop, VDI. So that whole management of mobile devices to desktop, that whole industry will be disrupted. It's a lot of players are there trying to do more consulting services. I think VMware is a great assets and tools. If I'm Broadcom, my chipsets are going into the endpoints. So it's a, that area will be disrupted a lot with Broadcom and VMware. You know, one of the things that VMware has been, people have been talking about is that the CA acquisition that Broadcom did was the playbooks public, everyone saw what they did. They killed sales and marketing. They killed all the execs metaphorically speaking. They took things, fired them. VMware's got a different vibe here. I'm feeling like it could go one way or the other. I think they should keep them personally, but you don't know, I mean, if they're a PE company, they're EBITDA driven, maybe it's just simply numbers. If that's the case, then I'm worried. But if, but VMware's got pride, they got mojo and they got expertise in software. Maybe a little bit different circumstance. What's your take on this is, or do you think there's going to be black and white to the numbers? I think the knowing Hank, Hank's playbook if he knows what he's going to do, right? His playbook will be consistent with Symantec. You think he already knows what he wants to do? I think so. I think at that level, both with Silver Lake and Broadcom, they already know of a playbook. At this stage, the game is, people already know that game. It's like a chess move. They already know. They look at Broadcom, Broadcom, VMware and see which assets to keep, which one not to keep, which organization. But I think Hank is a master at this. And I think, to me, I'm personally excited with VMware Broadcom combination. It's a great thing for the industry. It's great for VMware and VMware customers and partners. Well, John, you and Dave had a chance to sit down with Ragu. What were some of the things that he unpacked about the Broadcom acquisition? I mean, he was on talking points. He was on message. He was saying the things that any CEO was going to make a lot of cash on this deal. And he's proud. I mean, I think it wasn't about the money for him that I sensed that he's certainly going to make a lot of cash on this deal as an executive. But he's a longtime VMware employee and a well-loved and revered person. He's done a lot of great work, technically set the agenda. So I think their mindset is, we're going to just continue to do an amazing job as VMware as we are. And then let Broadcom, let the chips follow they may. And hopefully, if they do a good job, maybe they'll either refactor some of their base plans or they lay it all out in the field, so to speak. So that's my vibe now. Specifically, he made some comments like, yeah, we're really proud and he's staying technical. He's still like, this is really happening. So I think he's like, he's going to essentially, till the very end, be like cross cloud and hybrid cloud. This is our third generation. So there he's hanging on to the VMware third act that they're saying and he hopes that it comes home. And I think he's going to just deal with it. He didn't seem flustered and he didn't seem overly confident. I guess that's my opinion. What do you think? I personally worked with Ragu, worked for Ragu. So I think of him as the greatest CEO for VMware ever could have, right? It's a journey. It was Paul Moridge, then Pat Galsinger now Ragu. I think he's in the right place, right time to lead VMware and Ragu is doing the fantastic job. And personally getting these two companies married, I think Ragu did the right partnership with Broadcom. Well, I mean, I think if this event's any indication of their, if they're just sitting back and waiting, they're not, and this event was well done. It was pulled off. The branding's amazing. I thought they did a good job with the name change. And then in light of all the Broadcom issues, the execution was great. I mean, it was not a bad show here. I mean, it was a good show. It wasn't terrible at all. People were excited. I think the ecosystem also felt that Broadcom, like an electronic shock to the system, like something's going to happen. Let's wait and see. I'm going to go to the event to see if it's going to be around and kind of getting a feel first party in person. What's happening? Again, remember, VMware didn't have an event since 2019. This is a community that thrives on physical face-to-face camaraderie, community. And so I think the show was a success. And I think that's a result of Ragu and the team. Because we have a booth there for, I said I write my company, we have a booth. I mean, we are offering coffee and donuts. You guys should come by and tell people, like we're a free coffee and a donor, but it's one of the best shows I've seen. I think people after pandemic are back. People are interacting. We are like 500 people in one day at our booth. So for a startup company, like I was getting that much crowd is unheard of. So it's great. I'm really excited. The vibe from the partner community, I had a chance to talk with a lot of partners, AWS, NetApp, Rackspace. Really seems like the partnerships side of VMware is very, very strong. And the partners are excited about what's next for VMware. Did you have a chance to talk with any of the partners? Actually, look, I'm actually meeting with Karen. So Karen Negan is my contact at VMware too. And Sumit Mohit, a bunch of the customer success organization. We talked to people in their digital experience management team. I mean, we are very excited to be partnered with both VMware's customer partner in all respects, right? I'll need the VMware ecosystem for my company to thrive. So for us, VMware customers are my customers. And leveraging VMware APIs, integrated VMware, that's important for us. Lisa, that's a great question because that brings us to the question of, okay, clearly this show also proves to us from our conversations and exploring the floor. The wave is coming. This next cloud wave is here. We're calling it super cloud. Whatever you want to call it, it's coming and it's real. And people know it. And also the lines of sight into economics around where people can fit in this next level ecosystem is becoming clear. So I think people kind of know what's the right side of the street to be on in this next shift. So that's coming. That's independent of Broadcom. So the floor represents to me the excitement for not only the VMware workload powering software with or without Broadcom, but the next wave. So the question is, if Broadcom goes down their path and Hank does what he does, who wins and who loses on where things flow? Because this energy is going to flow somewhere. Is it going to flow to AWS? Is it going to flow to Microsoft? Is it going to flow to HPE with GreenLake getting some great traction? NetApp's doing great. We just heard from them. So the partners aren't hurting. It's only going to get better. I mean, re-invents right around the corner. That's a packed house. Their ecosystem is growing like a weed. Who wins? Because the customers at VMware are enterprise customers. They're used to being service. They have sales reps from Microsoft. They have sales reps from ULIPAC and Enterprise. Real senior enterprise stakeholders there. So someone's going to end up filling in as VMware settles into their Broadcom position. Who wins and who loses in your mind? Very good question. My thing is, I think it's, I put Microsoft and Amazon the winners. In that way, actually, I mean Microsoft will win because in a true super cloud, your vision back to hybrid cloud, on-prem and public cloud, VMware disruption with Broadcom, as if there's any wedge in the market, Microsoft will take advantage of that Azure, right? Amazon VMware is there. Then you have Google and VMware. So I think Azure will probably try to take advantage of this. But very next will be Amazon right away there. That leaves you with Google Cloud, right? Google Cloud is the one. So they are the people that have to figure out what to do in this equation. And then obviously the other one is Oracle. Oracle has no hearts in this game. So to me, the people who are going to probably lose are impacted more will be Oracle. If the Broadcom and VMware will happen. So it's Azure, Amazon, winning the race. Probably Google is right behind them. Oracle will be distinct. It's even more, other side is Dell. Actually, Dell has no game in this. I mean, our Broadcom and VMware, Dell should be the one. Dell might have a little secret sauce on the table with Michael Dell. That's true. If he doesn't share, convert his shares, he might be the largest shareholder of Broadcom. That's true. He could end up owning all the back. So he may be the winner. Don't count them out. Well, this is a good question. I want to just double click on this. So you get customer dynamic. Where do they go? You get the community, which is a big force multiplier in this world. And if you had to bet on community between Microsoft and Amazon web services, Amazon, Trump's, Microsoft on force multiplier community, ecosystem, AWS beats Microsoft on that one. So it's interesting because it's now multiple dimensions we're talking about here. It's customers. Now that's the top order, right? Like the customers. But also you got community. The people who put on sessions, the people in the community are the influencers that are like leading the trends. And developers are very trending relative to what kind of code they use, what's their environments. So the developers is changing that landscape. And ultimately the ecosystem of partners. There's a lot more overlap between AWS and VMware's ecosystem than there is between Microsoft and that and HPE is just starting an ecosystem. So it's going to be very interesting. It is. I think it's a broad come and VMware cannot be any best time for the industry, right? As you said, HP is coming in, Oracle is coming in. And to your point, VMware and AWS were one of the best partners. Now this going to create any gap for Microsoft to enter. For Azure, I think that's where the market is saying that it's going to open up a hybrid cloud player for Microsoft to enter. What is to be a tight relationship with VMware and Amazon, right? So people will rethink through their apps. And more importantly, the endpoint to me. See the key is that like you talk about super cloud, nobody's talking about super cloud for the endpoint. You mean edge or security? Not an edge endpoint. Endpoint could be your devices, laptop, desktop. Or building our light bulb or whatever. Desktop your VDI, desktop services, servers, right? So we call it like endpoint cloud. There's no endpoint super cloud. John, that's an area that you could like double click on super cloud for the servers is different from super cloud for endpoint. Well, super cloud dot world is the URL out there. If you're interested in super cloud, we are adding tracks to that body of work. So we had our event on August 9th was virtual event where Dave and I are going to add a data track. We're going to add a security track and we should add maybe an endpoint workspace work. That's a VMware brand workspace and horizon. So that whole workspace endpoint for super cloud is going to happen. That kind of deviate from the public cloud. Do you think, are you bullish on super cloud? I'm very bullish on super cloud because I myself is running on-prem in the VPCs, public clouds, private clouds. Super cloud kind of compasses that so apps should be designed because I don't want to design an app for one cloud. It's not going to work. So it's like how Java came in. I can write it on any platform. The idea is you build it on super cloud, run it wherever you want. Right, that's exactly it. So what would you want to see in super cloud as it evolves? We were part of this open conversation. This is our point for today. We're going to have a great panel. Come up later today. We're going to have the influences come on to debate what super cloud should or shouldn't be. If you want to add to the contribution, we'll add this into the work. What's needed in super cloud? What's table stakes? I think we need like a Java compiler with Java happened for super cloud. I build it once, execute it any place I want. Right, using the Terraform, Hashicom, so what I don't want is keep building this thing for every cloud. I want to abstract that out. The whole idea of super cloud is how Java gave me the abstraction for hardware 20 years back or 30 years back. We need the same abstraction for the cloud today. Otherwise I'm customizing for VM cloud. I'm customizing for AWS, Azure, Google cloud. We as an application vendor, it's too hard to keep doing it. I have now 1000 tuners. I don't need 1000 DevOps people. I need maybe 10 DevOps people. So there's a clear abstraction complexity that industry should develop and your concept of super cloud with everybody thinking that and it has to start from the grassroots ecosystem. What do you think about the participants in this abstraction layer? Because someone said on theCUBE here this week the people in the abstraction layer shouldn't be participants in the below or above the abstraction. I think it should be everybody, right? It's all inclusive. It's like, you need the apps guys to come in. You need the OS players to come in. You need the cloud vendors to come in infrastructure. So you need everybody. Okay, let's just say that you are the spokesperson for the super cloud organization, super cloud.world. How would you sell AWS on why it's important for them? It's because they can build it and sell it in various ways in multiple AWS GovCloud, AWS on-prem, VPCs. It's even important for them, for them their expansion, their market time. If I'm and agency, if I'm built on super cloud, I can increase my time share. Otherwise I'm bringing only to public cloud. Okay, so I'll say I'm Amazon and we have a concept called one way doors. We don't want to go through a one way door. Is super cloud a one way door for them? What's in it for them? Do they make more? Does it help their ecosystem? And the same question from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. It's they make more money. They're making their apps run in multiple places. It's a natural expansion. You're solving your customer problems for Amazon and agency. My job is give people choices. I give choice to Lisa. Lisa can run it on public cloud. John, you can run it on VPC, AWS GovCloud. So you're saying, so you think customers are asking for this right now, but don't really know how to say it. Customers are asking, partners are asking. All of us are asking. Okay, what's the ask? Ask is give me a one place to build applications and run it anywhere without adding the complexity. Okay, done. That's super cloud. A little ship tomorrow. Well, all right, well done. Final question for you. Lisa and I have been talking with folks here. What advice would you give the folks that are in here? Cause we have a lot of active people marketing their solutions and products. They're trying to put a voice out there around thought leadership and trying to figure out what side of the street they should be on relative to the next 10 years as they're here at VMware Explorer as the next gen cloud comes around. What's the right narrative? What's the right positioning for companies to be on right now for, to be the most relevant and in the flow? I think, I don't know about 10 years. Right now we are in a difficult economic times, right? Markets are down, inflation is up. So I think the first is cost. People should focus on cost. How can it take cost? Automation is the key, right? Whether you use AI or automation like you and me talking John last week, right? That's important. Every CAO I talk to is focused on cost. How do I cut my cost? How can I do it with fewer resources? How can I do it with fewer people, right? So the new budget right now is cut your budget in half. So every company, every exec should think about how can you be a good citizen? How can I get growth and scale? I can do more with less. And that should be the next 12 months. That was a lot of the theme of conversations that I had with the VMware ecosystem doing more with less. So that's definitely on everyone's minds. And that's what my company is fully focused on. ISRA is all about AI automation. How can we solve your thing? We want to be solving customer problems. Like we are like your automation engine for your enterprise, right? We are a platform of platform. That's where I like the SuperCloud is. I can run ISRA as a platform on top of SuperCloud. Excellent. Wow, if only we had more time. I know that you guys can really dig into SuperCloud and take it even further. So you have to come back, Mudu. I will, I'm happy to be back. He's on the team. She's contributed to the open source effort of SuperCloud. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining John and me and kind of breaking down your vision on VMware Broadcom and the future. Next up, we've got to get some customers on here. I really want to understand what the customer experience is going to be like, but we'll have to have another segment on that one. We will do that. Thank you, Lisa, for having me. My pleasure. John, thank you very much. Thank you. For our guests, I'm John Furrier. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live on day three of our coverage of VMware Explorer. We'll be back after a short break.