 Hello everybody, we're back, we're live. VMworld 2011, this is Dave Vellante's for SiliconANGLE's continuous coverage of the event. We're here at day two and we are here with Vittorio Vierango from Aspionization. V-M-Ware. Sorry, did I get that right? Perfect, yeah. Excellent, my ancestors Italian, so I'm an American. I only speak one language, that's how you know I'm American, but Vittorio's the VP of end-user computing. So welcome, Vittorio, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Yeah, thank you for having me. End-user computing, personally I'm very happy and my colleague and John Furrier and I have talked about this a lot. For years we've been calling it desktop virtualization and that really sort of misses the whole point and I think everybody fell into that trap. You guys are calling it end-user computing, why is that? Because we look at the data and in the world where tablets and smartphones are already out ship the PCs, we are already in the post-PC era and so we are very focused on solving that problem. How do we enable both the desktop to be brought forward but also how do we get to the application and the data in this post-PC world? Yeah, you know that post-PC era, it's not just rhetoric, is it? I mean, you see a big company like HP talking about exiting the PC business. I mean, we're at a suspounding times. I mean, the PC's not dead but we're evolving. So how do you evolve your end-user computing strategies to accommodate all these different devices? It doesn't happen overnight. Talk about that a little bit. So we're not naive about this. Windows is going to be here for a long time when we get that. And that's where with Vue and Thena we help organization break that into the future and turn it into a managed service but now we're with this new project that we announced today, like Project Octopus and Atlas we're really shifting gears into this new world. So you made some announcements today. You announced Vue 5, a bunch of new enhancements, improving graphics, and just making the end-user experience better, right? But you talked about Octopus and App Blast. What's Octopus? So Octopus, think about it as the drop box for the enterprise. Have the same seamless experience for end-users but give IT control. So when they need it, when they need compliance, they need to do an audit trail, when they need to wipe a device, they have the capability. Okay, so is that going to become part of the App Store, if you will, that you're going to offer, right? Yeah, we foresee this world where the user goes to one place, they have their enterprise apps, their SaaS apps, mobile apps, and their Windows apps and their data, and they follow them across all devices. Now, what about App Blast? What's that? So App Blast, traditionally, if you want to access a Windows application on a no-Windows device, you need to set up a big server farm, publish that application, technology that works, it's been there forever, but it's only targets like maybe 10, 15% of the users. So with App Blast, we really want to make it very, very simple to drop an agent on even a physical desktop, and then as long as you have an HTML5 browser, you can get to that application. That's okay. Victoria, last year at VMworld in San Francisco, Maritz basically said, look, we have to do better at end-user computing, desktop virtualization, VDI, whatever. It was calling it VDI at the time. We have to do better. Thus far, that whole space has been relegated to pretty narrow niches, maybe call centers, maybe certain industries, certain use cases. Are the economics there finally, or is it really a case where we have to accommodate more devices and that's the business value that's going to push this thing over the edge? It's a combination of the two. The business value is absolutely there for those use cases. If you're a bank, you need to secure your data. It doesn't even matter how much it costs. So on that front, we always try to bring down the acquisition cost, and our solution is so nicely integrated that you actually get benefit on the management side. And then all these devices coming into the organization has been a great catalyst for us because IT is going, hey, I know how to deal with a desktop. If you can make it mobile for me, that's great. But we see that as a transition. Eventually, I think we need to get to the data and apps and deliver three of them, apps, data and the desktop, depending on the use case for the different devices. What's different about virtualizing and user devices and applications versus virtualizing servers? Well, there are many differences. First thing, on the server side, you can get away with virtualizing stuff under the covers, the stuff that IT uses, file print and all that for a while before you mess with mission critical applications. So now in our journey on the server side, we are doing that. We're doing the mission critical application and so on and so forth. Within users, you're mission critical for day zero. Now, if your CEO cannot access that information on a desktop or on the device, or forget about the CIO, sales guys, anybody. And so it's mission critical for day one. The second thing is the heterogeneity. It's so much more heterogeneity, it makes the problem a little more complex. Yeah, okay. Are there workload differences as well? I mean, a lot of people think, okay, well, I'm going to virtualize my servers and I'll use maybe this hypervisor or whatever and I'll just apply that same company's technology to my end user computing devices, but it's different, isn't it? It is different. You got to think about it differently. You got to size it differently. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, so the workloads are different if you talk about just desktop utilization because there's different type of IO patterns. And if you just take the approach of taking your desktops and virtualizing them, you're going to fail because you're going to have your boot storms, you're going to have your antiviral storms and so on and so forth. But over the last two, three years between the storage vendors and us, we have figured that out. So now we have the best practices to do it right. It's not a rocket science anymore. And you think the economics are there now? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, all right, good. Let's talk about the competitive landscape a little bit. It's really a two-horse race. You guys and Citrix are out there, banging heads, going after this space. I think, again, based on what Marit said last year, you guys were rethinking this a little bit, trying to broaden the scope into end user devices, into mobile, take advantage of mobile. What are your advantages relative to your major competitor? Well, I think in the world, but 50% of the servers run on vSphere, companies are making a big strategic investment in us. And I think we have, so we have that credibility. And on the end user computing side, we have brought in a lot of DNA because it's a different ball game. We understand that. We need more of a desktop and end user DNA. And we see us as a viable partner to take customers in the post-PC world. But I think that our competition has a kind of a conflict of interest with the relationship with the Microsoft. So it's going to be interesting how that plays out. Well, I mean, the customers are clearly entrenched, right? I mean, that's an advantage and a disadvantage in some cases. But essentially, your premise is they're doing server virtualization with you guys, so there's an affinity to do end user computing virtualization with you guys, even though the workloads may be very, very different. And we don't, but we don't take that for granted. We understand that we... Don't take what, that the workloads are different? No, we don't take for granted that it's just going to go with it. Well, it's not, right? It hasn't, historically. So what do you have to do better? I think we just have to be more assertive about the strength of our platform and our vision. In the past, I think we are geeks. We like to sit in our labs and build great software. And that is changing, started from this conference. You mentioned vision. Last question for you is lay out your vision. What do you see in the future? Put on your telescope, look out there. What do you see? Well, we see this world where the windows is not the choice. It's just one of the choices. And end users get their work done with the devices that they like. And where IT becomes this, if we do this right, becomes a partner. It becomes that, like I said today on stage, I love this IT because I never see them, I never meet them. They set it up and I just get my work done. Yeah, our man, Alex Williams, who heads up services angle, was showing me a demo last night. He videoed a demo of a device that showed a work footprint and then a personal footprint, just switching back and forth seamlessly. Brilliant. What can I get one? Soon. We announced it today. It's in beta, and stay tuned. Vittorio, thanks very much for coming inside theCUBE, sharing your knowledge with us. Good luck with the announcements today. It was a pleasure.