 Hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE. We are live at VMware Explorer day two, end of day two almost of our three days of wall-to-wall CUBE coverage, Lisa Martin, with John Furrier and Rob Spetcher. We're going to be kind of giving you a breakdown of all of the rifts that happened on theCUBE today. Great content. Guys, here we are, almost the end of day two, about 10,000 people here. What, I want to talk about themes first. John, I'll start with you and then Rob, do you, what are some of the major themes that you heard today, yesterday and today? Well, I think the big story to me that I'm seeing is obviously the multi-cloud is there, underpinning infrastructure layer, which I think people look at and say, okay, that's a future, we can see that. The big clouds like AWS, Azure and Google, they're not really interested in multi-cloud, although the second and third place clouds, Azure and Google are interested because they want to take more away from AWS. Amazon doesn't want to have that. So VMware's in this interesting neutral position, uniquely positioned Rob to get that kind of layer. And I think clearly they're saying that overtly and publicly that they want to kind of go for that abstraction layer. We're calling that the super cloud layer, that they've become the de facto brand that's adopted our super cloud concept that we've been pushing out there as a narrative to focus the attention on less of a multi-cloud, broken, things don't work together to super cloud being an operating model where it's action, where things are happening. And I think what's resonating here at the show is the senior executives who run the cloud group like the main jewels, vSphere, vSan, all the core products, they clearly see that as the cash cow and are going there to support that mission. But if the other groups of modern applications, it's the edge, it's the end user compute, they will get a benefit, okay? And I think the Aria-Tanzu connection is something that I see as great. I think this is what they're leading forward with a strategy, and that's VMware's announcement. Now the rifts we've been having is, what does that mean? So one rift that came out of the here that's validation is that the software development model is open source and developers won. Developers decide what will be the standard or de facto standard tool environment or whatever by the collective voting of the developers themselves, voting with their code. Check, done. Now the game's changing, Rob, you pointed this out in that GoopGun. Platform engineering is the next hill to conquer where that world is going to be evolving and growing where that community of users will dictate the standards, de facto standards, not the officials, there's no standards bodies in cloud anymore. There's no OSI model. So we've identified, it's been validated by pretty much everyone at VMware in their ecosystem that platform engineering is the new DevOps layer operationally that will enable not only DevOps, infrastructure as code, security as code, data as code, application as code, management as code, AI as code. Rob, this is DevOps kind of growing up in front of our eyes. That to me was the big top rift that came out of VMware this year. Yeah, I think the whole platform engineering thing, I'm actually surprised it hasn't been more prevalent in a lot of what they're talking about because I think they're trying to bring a lot of the pieces together. Like you said, Tanzu and Aria bringing that together to really be a platform for platform engineering. They still have a lot of work to do there. Let's be, you know, being realistic on it, but I think it's the right direction. I think you're right. And I think packaging those two together and bringing security and observability into a platform makes a lot of sense. I think that theme is definitely there. I think the theme of ecosystem has been big. I mean, today we've spent a lot of time with ecosystem partners. And I think, you know, they're leaning in on that. Even to the keynote yesterday. So I think, again, that'll be a lot of fun. And those are my two big ones from today and from a little bit from yesterday as well. Yeah, I think the investing in partners came up a lot, that's ecosystem. I think the thing that came out to me was they got all the stuff prepared to grow. And I think the mindset of the old VM when I kind of made a few comments Lisa on this, you heard a few of them, that the VM where chapter is closing that Broadcom about to acquire them. September 1st is next Friday. That's 60 days until the end of the quarter. I think that from what I've been hearing from the hallway conversation sources close to the situation is that the management pretty much knows who's staying and going. And the rest of the employees will hear next Friday, September 1st, if they're staying or going. So that's new information we're reporting here that that's Friday is the big date for that number. That means that we're going to know. So Broadcom is taking over. And they've been saying what they're going to do from day one. So people may not want to listen, but it's going to happen. So the old VM where this chapter is closing and it's a good one. And Jensen from the NVIDIA on stage kind of said it to Ragu, it's legendary. VM where we should be on the Mount Rushmore of Tech icons as the Silicon Valley company. They invented virtualization and changed the game. This is going to go down as a historic moment. Now this next chapter. But whose face is there? Is it Diane Greene? Maybe Michael Dell, Michael Dell might not like that. I think Michael Dell is the mastermind in all this. He makes money from all sides. If Dave was here, Dave and I would probably vote for Michael Dell. And speaking of Dell and the ecosystem, I heard a number of conversations today from the ecosystem. Dell was one of them that are very pro what VM were announced yesterday and today. And very forward, very optimistic about the Broadcom acquisition. Because what they heard yesterday was a big investment in the partner ecosystem, which is critical. And we had a great conversation with Signal One today, CSP. What are some of your takeaways on what's in it for the ecosystem? Yeah, I mean, I think from the ecosystem, I think it's super important that they lean back into the ecosystem. I think to John's point, as they shrink the company to a right size or whatever you want to call it, whatever the proper terminology is, they're going to look at and leverage their partners more heavily. I think on the CSP side, they have to be more than just on bare metal in the hyperscalers. I think that they had some great announcements around that, too, and we can break that down a little bit. But with the CSPs, they kind of have continued to innovate. I mean, John White on with us, talking about how him and I were both at Amazon at the same time, so he took a pause, took a left-hand turn over to Amazon with me, and we both came back to this side of the fence, I guess you could say. And I think what's interesting is, we both had the same realization is that the innovation hasn't stopped, but the investment had really declined in how they had leaned in. And I think you see that not only there, but in other parts of the ecosystem as well. Do you think they got kind of an injection the last couple of days? I think they got some love, because I think that with the acquisition, I think they're gonna be more heavily leaning on them as a lot of their sales was. I think for the CSPs in particular, you're gonna start to see with the portability of licensing that they're gonna be going to the small, even the smaller, I guess what they're calling their commercial space companies are gonna go CSP. I would expect that they're gonna be pushing a lot of people in that partner led strategy. They kind of have this pyramid that they showed us. And then that partner led strategy, the largest part, they're gonna be pushing over to CSPs. What do you guys think that in terms of the CSPs and the bars and GSIs, how do you see Broadcom making this transition as frictionless as possible for them since they're going to be, ah, getting left here, leaning heavily on them? Rob, what do you think about that? Well, I think there's gonna be a very interesting play between the GSIs and the traditional bars and the services that are offered. I think we've had some great GSI conversations so far. I mean, John's had Kindralon. I've talked to, we'll be both talked to HCL, we've talked to several others. And I think when you start to see how they're bringing their methodologies, I think VMware is doing a really good job at the GSI level. I have question marks about what they're saying about the bottom layer and pushing those to the channel, as they said, because they're also saying the top two layers are still direct selling. I'm wondering how long that sustains in the Broadcom model. I mean, I've been hearing, I've been witnessing some successes, Kindral's one of them, but VMware's got a lot of work to do with the GSIs. They, and it came up, because you pointed out a few times in different interviews, that you need decoder rings. VMware's always moving fast on things. And I think they have to do, and they've, I've heard privately and publicly the focus with the dollars, but privately, admittedly, they need to do a lot more with the GSIs, education, certifications. Broadcom has to nail that. And I think Octan's video, he talked about the $2 billion investment, R&D and ecosystem, that they got to spec more VMware, otherwise there's no license to renew, right? So it's very clear, Broadcom's going to be very pragmatic. The scoreboard will tell the tale. And the scoreboard is revenue, renewals, which is renewals and new business. So I don't think they're counting on a lot more new business. Maybe they can with Tanzu and Aria to bring some more multi-cloud in. That's upside potential. But base business, Rob, they got to get there. You know what together on education, what the solution is going to be. Because you're talking about multi-cloud, this is a transitional market. So they got the on-premise nailed, okay? Cloud, Amazon's kind of taken some stuff to higher level services. They're not relevant in the cloud conversation with spend. They're relevant on-premise, but it's the renewal. So they got to get more of that shelfware installed. That's clear from the data with VMware. So if you're Broadcom, if you crack the whips, it's going to be focused execution. That's the word that VMware will be all about in the future with Broadcom. Focused execution, happy customers equals revenue. Revenue equals numbers. Numbers will drive whether you stay or you go. And that's what's, I mean, this is their playbook. They've said this from day one. Dave Vellante reported this in clear and Broadcom been saying nothing's different. People just choose not to listen. What are you thinking? So you said you rightly put it on out. September 1st is next Friday. A little over a week from now. News is going to be coming out to folks internally. That's 60 days from the end of the fiscal year. You have to keep people noticed. Right, 60 days. So if the, what Hock Tan said was the expectation that the deal will close this year. Their core, which is the 31st. Right, October 31st. What do you think VMware and Broadcom need to have from a strategic vision perspective that day? Around the personnel, around the strategy, the direction, the R and D. What is that acquisition completion state? I said, Dave and I talked to us yesterday on one of our segments. He laid out the chart in his breaking analysis where there's a math between revenue per employee. And we had someone come in and say, it's revenue profit per employee. That might be a little bit too, I'm going to go back to Dave and talk about that. But the end of the day is VMware is way over their skis in terms of revenue per employee. And Broadcom is very efficient. So what they're going to do is the math points out between four and five billion dollars will be taken out of VMware in cuts. Okay, so if they give two million back in R and D and ecosystem, they're netting two to three million. So they're going to cut a lot of the, what I would consider the Broadcom's view of fat, which is sales and marketing. They'll probably want to keep the SEs for the shelf where that's my prediction based on my, just my personal gut feeling based on the data. They'll probably want to keep the professional service relative to the certifications and the training for the ecosystem. And then they're going to go all in on engineering. If you're in engineering at VMware, you're probably safe. If you're in a profit driven mode in a P and L, like a business unit, you're going to be good out of the gate, but then the clock's starting. And this is why I call it the new chapter of VMware. This is the new chapter. It's a new reality. It's focused execution. That's the word of the day, in my opinion, or the word of the year for VMware. And I think to the discussion you, Lisa and I had with Josh Hodgers and Matias Eisner from, what is it? Com division and ETE associates. I think when you start to look at what they're doing from a training perspective with their VC DX, I believe that's the proper, I think I got that out of him finally, right? And how few of them there are. And I think John and I have been riffing on this the whole two days here about, is that going to be the really, how sexy is that? Are you going to get people to actually sign up to become that as customers to get rid of that shelf wear? And are you going to have that in the ecosystem? Well, what's the value in it for customers? I think the value for the customers is to, the big question mark, are you going to put that on your LinkedIn? Does that help you get your next job versus being a cloud architect? Cloud architect, yeah, our super cloud. We've been getting people to our super cloud side from the VMware community, because if VMware loses its brand, there's an extinction kind of concept here. And if the psychology of this next gen younger crowd is like, I want to be with a brand that's growing, not cutting, or, so I think VMware is perfectly, and they're doing this. It's not like they're hiding it. Multi-cloud is the future state. Super cloud's the future operating model. That's why it's resonating. And people want to be super cloud analysts and architects. So that's, and AI is a great gift for VMware. I think that is a huge win. The timing of AI hitting the market right now, given it's a transitional market with multi-cloud, VMware has legs to go that next level. So this is not like VMware is going to be sucked in the Broadcom and sold for peace parts. They're going to give, it's going to be business. It's going to be a software business. So it's just not going to look like the same VMware as we know for 13 years of cube coverage. So there's, you know, on one side it's like, oh, wow, that chapter's closed. But that's what it is. It's a chapter closing. That's a good point. And the new chapter is going to be about what's going forward. And all the SBPs, they're geared up. They know what's ahead of them. They know what they got to do. They got to get customers and back into it. So the customer scenario is simple. Customers are driving multi-cloud, not the cloud. So what's in it for the customer is a cost of ownership architecture that they can manage. Deal with things like LLM cost models that are coming. Dealing with their data, which is now an intellectual property. Remember, you go back two years ago. There was not one conversation around data as intellectual property, not one. Not one. Yeah, maybe data is an asset in the balance sheet, but not like hardcore. Like I'm going to change my architecture. Yeah. I mean, that's game changes. So there is so much action happening right now that if you're an architect and you want to be someone, you're not going to just go into Amazon. You want all the clouds. You want all the environments. That's an operating system. That's like Linux in the cloud. But it's like, if you're, and it's a good opportunity. I tell you, it's very aspirational. If I'm an operator on VMware's ecosystem, I'm going super cloud. I'm going multi-cloud. What is it going to take for one of the things that you were participating in, Dave's breaking analysis last week about the event. You guys were having, there's a crystal ball somewhere. But for VMware to really be able to be uniquely positioned to attack that multi-cloud complexity, play a critical role in the super cloud era, what are some of the defining success factors that they have to have post acquisition? Well, I think they really need an ecosystem. And I think the one place that we didn't hear a lot about was ISVs this week. That's right. And I think we had, you know, we had Morpheus on Dave and I, or John and I were talking to Morpheus, who, and I think they've, over the last decade or so, they've kind of shut some of the ISVs out of the conversation. I think now, you know, there's been a little talk about open source this week. I think that's a missing piece that we're a big miss here about how they're embracing open source. And I think that open source is one in many of the different regards outside of the underlying bare metal infrastructure. And I think that for them to win, they're going to have to have a better data story as well to really win in this market. I think to John's point, they have a great story from a reference architecture, a 60 page reference architecture about private AI, but there's a gap there right in the middle. And I don't think Postgres is really the answer. Yeah. I mean, I think Raghu's slide that he put on the keynote at least it was very telling because, you know, I even asked on an interview, you forgot the cloud, no, that's mobile apps. I said, he went PC apps, web apps, mobile apps, AI apps. I said, I think you miss cloud native. No, no, that's part of mobile or SaaS. I'm like, oh, okay, I'm not going to, okay, you're a VMware, you're on premise guy. He's on premise, he's not a cloud guy. So, but he's right. AI apps are the future. Okay, that means what, where do they land? And we are saying on theCUBE and our research and the community is validating. And now the V experts, there's 300 influencers, 1400 V experts in the community, they're validating. Super cloud is that environment. And that's an operating model for apps to run on. That's going to be the secret I think in this world is AI apps are going to come fast. First they'll be augmenting apps, but then they become AI apps in themselves. And what runs that? Yeah, that's the question. And if you're in the question to customers, if you're an admin today, you're an architect tomorrow with AI and you're running on a super cloud. So to me, that is exciting. Being a virtualization bare metal. Yeah, but I agree. And I think to that point when they showed the slide that there's 150,000 people involved in Vmugs around the world, that's massive. And I think it's what they go and build, what they do with that community is going to be very telling over the next six months. They have close to 10,000 V experts. That's the highest that's created certification. They're customers who do, that's a career. So, and we heard from the executives, career path is cloud architect. Guys, thanks so much for joining me to break down some of the themes, some of the riffs. I'm sure there'll be more tomorrow. We thank you for watching. We're back tomorrow for about a half day of coverage. We've got some great guests coming on. We're going to continue the conversation about the major themes at VMware Explore 23. For John Furrier and Rob Stretche, I'm Lisa Martin. Have a great night guys. We'll see you tomorrow.