In a series of bold moves, Broadcom has restructured VMware shifting to subscription-only licenses across all offerings. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan wants VMware to focus on resiliency, developer efficiency, and infrastructure efficiency. Tan outlines three key strategies: radical simplification, substantial R&D investment for on-premises to private cloud solutions, and enhancing the ecosystem. The discontinuation of products, including Aria SaaS and Carbon Black, and divesture of EUC is part of a plan to streamline VMware’s portfolio into bundled suites. Reactions are decidedly mixed, but we are starting to see the strategy come together.
2:09 – Google Announces Gemini Features at MWC
Google is continuing to play catch-up to Microsoft with the announcement of Gemini for Google Workspaces among other announcements at Mobile World Congress. Naturally they also had updates for Android, Android Auto, and their smart watches. Google’s biggest obstacle may still be naming, as their previous AI effort Bard is being renamed Gemini, Duet AI for workspaces also being renamed to Gemini, along with several other Gemini offerings across the personal and enterprise spectrum. We also got a look at this at AI Field Day last week.
Read More: Google brings AI to Google Messages, Android Auto, Wear OS and more
3:49 Anticipation is Building as Intel Previews Clearwater Forest
Intel’s announcement of Microsoft as a foundry customer got all the attention, but the preview of the next-generation Xeon, code name Clearwater Forest, might actually be more important. Building on Sierra Forest this new Xeon moves to 18A process technology, RibbonFET, and PowerVIA and brings in advanced packaging techniques like Foveros Direct 3D and EMIB 3.5D.
Read More: Intel Clearwater Forest is Set to be a Tech Breakthrough Server Chip
7:55 – NVIDIA’s AI Data Center Boom
NVIDIA reported incredible financial results, pulling in $22.1 billion, which is more than AMD’s annual take! This is skewed towards the data center segment, at $18.4 billion compared to just $2.9 billion for gaming. This shows just how important the AI market is for NVIDIA, and yet the H200 promises even more! But this is a competitive market, and there’s lots of talk about NVIDIA stumbling any day now.
Read More: NVIDIA Blows-out Earnings as Over 83 Percent of Revenue From the AI Data Center Boom
10:55 – Hammerspace AI Training File System is Fast, but How Fast?
Hammerspace unveiled what it calls Hyperscale NAS, a new storage architecture that functions as a bridge between GPU-based AI processors and storage infrastructure. The technology combines the characteristics of an HPC file system and an enterprise NAS, promising high performance and scalability for AI training, GPU computing, and unstructured data processing. Hammerspace presented this technology in a product launch last week, including presenting at AI Field Day.
Read More: Hammerspace Hyperscale NAS Targets Fast File Services For AI On GPU Servers
Watch Here: Hammerspace Presents at AI Field Day 4
15:14 – Juniper Networks Gets Sued over Buyout
Juniper Networks is being sued in federal court over alleged omissions and misrepresentations in the Proposed Transaction filing presented to stockholders. The complaint alleges that Juniper did not properly present the financial analysis performed by Goldmans Sachs. And also that the deal favors executives at Juniper with massive golden parachutes should they choose to leave, and an massive buyout of their private stock and RSUs that common stock holders will not enjoy.
Read More: Juniper sued over HPE buyout after allegedly ginning up execs’ wallets
18:41 – Mobile World Congress is All About AI and 5G
Mobile World Congress is an incredible event every year, with lots of consumer announcements including expandible screens and an actual flying car! But there’s lots coming out of the show for enterprise and cloud as well, and Futurum sent a team to cover this. It seems that everyone is talking 5G, though it’s more about private and fixed networks this year, and there’s lots about Wi-Fi 7 too. But of course we’re hearing a lot about AI too.
24:57 – The Continuing Transformation of VMware by Broadcom
In a series of bold moves, Broadcom has restructured VMware shifting to subscription-only licenses across all offerings. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan wants VMware to focus on resiliency, developer efficiency, and infrastructure efficiency. Tan outlines three key strategies: radical simplification, substantial R&D investment for on-premises to private cloud solutions, and enhancing the ecosystem. The discontinuation of products, including Aria SaaS and Carbon Black, and divesture of EUC is part of a plan to streamline VMware’s portfolio into bundled suites. Reactions are decidedly mixed, but we are starting to see the strategy come together.
Read More: Broadcom Redefines VMware
The rapid transformation of VMware post-Broadcom acquisition continues with the EUC unit of VMware being sold off to private equity firm KKR. For those not familiar, the EUC division encompasses Workspace ONE and Horizon.What was once a plentiful marketplace of VDI and mobile device management solutions has matured and been whittled down to a few key players. Microsoft, Citrix, and AWS for the most part.
Read More: VMware’s end-user compute unit reportedly headed to private equity firm KKR
Broadcom is reportedly no longer selling Carbon Black and is instead preparing for major layoffs in March. Initially planning to divest Carbon Black, Broadcom seems to have altered its course after failing to find a suitable buyer. Rumors had suggested the possibility of merging Carbon Black with Symantec which is already owned by Broadcom, but this might end up more of a face and customer saving move as the product goes black.
Read More: Carbon Black no longer for sale, Broadcom preparing major layoffs
38:11 – The Weeks Ahead
Networking Field Day 34 – February 28 – 29
Security Field Day 11 – April 10 – 11
The Gestalt IT Rundown is a live weekly look at the IT news of the week. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
