Cloud computing company VMware is seeing increased adoption of its offerings from traditional physical businesses in India on the back of rapid digitisation in the country. The company is also looking at strengthening its local partner ecosystem.   

Sumit Dhawan, President of VMware, told businessline: “Various physical businesses are adopting digitisation and turning digital as a core competency for them. Traditional industries like steel and manufacturing have now become potential target extensions for VMware.” 

This is in addition to the increased degree of engagement being seen in the early adoptive verticals — governments, banks and telecommunication — where VMware has already had a strong presence.  Dhawan also noted that in terms of its partner ecosystem, India “provides a hotbed for VMware”. The company has major strategic partners based in India inclusive of top system integrators serving its global customer base. 

In addition, it is also seeing increased interest in partnering locally. Pradeep Nair, Vice-President and MD India, said: “Post the Ukraine conflict, there is a heightened amount of interest from public sector bodies, saying ‘I need to be able to provide citizen services even with constraints that might come to bear externally’. Hence, there’s a lot of interest in partnering with local companies who have the ability to build similar environments using our technology.” 

With a significant portion of its employee base being present in India, almost all the functions— R&D and product building to back and front office operations — are driven out of India, Dhawan noted.  Earlier in 2018, VMware had announced that it would be investing about $2 billion in India over the next five years. The company says it is well ahead of the schedule on the investment, as India continues to be an investment destination for VMware.

In terms of the effect of the probable slowdown in the economy and talks about tech spending cuts, Dhawan says although nobody is going to be immune to a significant slowdown, so far the company has not seen any major impact. “Even though there is uncertainty in the economy, technology spending, in general, is something that most businesses stay committed to as slowing down the spending would impact the future of businesses in a significant way,” he opined. 

Broadcom’s Acquisition of VMware

Commenting on the U.S. chipmaker Broadcom’s potential acquisition of VMware for $61 billion which has run into antitrust probes and scrutiny, Dhawan said, “The deal is expected to close in Broadcom’s fiscal year 2023, which began in November 2022. We are going through the regulatory approvals; I would say we are on track with what we expected. We are working through the process and going through all the inquiries from the regulators. So far, the process is going as expected.” 

Broadcom is excited about the portfolio VMware brings to customers in helping them on the multi-cloud journey. The company provides choice and flexibility from its existing products, predominantly in the semiconductor space, Dhawan noted.

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