Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B • Hacker News Board

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#281

Post by theptip » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

WanderPanda wrote: post #244

hodgesrm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VMware learned their lesson from OpenStack, where emerging upstream technology threatened their virtualization monopoly. They also were forced to go in this direction by their enterprise customers, who are very dependent themselves on open source technology. One of the opportunities at VMware is monetize the open source investment more effectively, especially Kubernetes. I still don't totally understand how they plan…

Given the situation of Docker, it doesn’t look good for the monetization of Kubernetes, or am I missing something (I‘m not too familiar with Kubernetes)?

Given how pluggable k8s is, it should not surprise you that there are companies at every integration point. Tigera for network policy. Security policy vendors using admission controllers to secure clusters. Linkerd/Istio for service mesh. Storage vendors. Etc. Each integration point provides a hook for someone to do better than the default behavior and charge for it.

The ecosystem is thriving and because the k8s platform was built to be pluggable; it is an actual platform. Docker (the company) tried to monopolize and monetize when they built Swarm, and that’s why they lost the cluster orchestrator space IMO. Docker (the tool) is just a tool, not really something you can monetize easily. Docker (the image format) is where most of the value lives, there isn’t much value to extract there as it’s an open protocol.

Docker (the tool) was commoditized by k8s, and now there isn’t really any way to charge for a differentiated implementation. Providing a registry and a best-in-class Docker for Desktop experience isn’t going to be a huge TAM.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#282

Post by imwillofficial » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #137

ghc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for a second, imagine a company that isn't a software company, but needs software to run its business. Think manufacturing, logistics, shipping, construction, food (industrial scale egg production, for example) etc. There's a lot of companies like that out there...in fact it's almost all of them. Those companies run all their boring, essential software (accounting, ERPs, etc.) on VMWare, Oracle, Azure, etc. Sinc…

> Why should enterprises deal with Linux directly? Not just Linux but IT in general. It may have to be about security; my impression is that at least some of the widespread successful attacks in recent years might have been prevented if non IT companies had their own IT department, servers and in house security teams. Relying on an external provider is cheap and comfortable, until the day a single vulnerability screw…

I work in this area and it’s the opposite.

Small businesses with in house It get hacked waaaaasy more.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#283

Post by houseofzeus » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

WanderPanda wrote: post #244

hodgesrm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VMware learned their lesson from OpenStack, where emerging upstream technology threatened their virtualization monopoly. They also were forced to go in this direction by their enterprise customers, who are very dependent themselves on open source technology. One of the opportunities at VMware is monetize the open source investment more effectively, especially Kubernetes. I still don't totally understand how they plan…

Given the situation of Docker, it doesn’t look good for the monetization of Kubernetes, or am I missing something (I‘m not too familiar with Kubernetes)?

Docker didn't really attempt to monetize Kubernetes at all until the writing was on the wall, instead they had their own thing (Swarm) that they were pushing but most of the ecosystem went in the other direction.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#284

Post by jnovek » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

yencabulator wrote: post #217

jnovek wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lease a car every four years in part so that I don’t have to deal with the inevitable car repairs that come after that point. For some — but not all — people, that’s a preferable option. For some — but not all — companies, enterprise tech is a preferable option.

I typically own cars 4-10 years old. I'm currently still happy with a 2008 model that has had exactly one non-maintenance, non-upgrade, cost -- which wouldn't even have prevented using it in any way, I just like the emissions system to be as eco-friendly as it can. "Inevitable repairs after 4 years" is just a delusion, and silly. Might I suggest you be honest with yourself and say you like the new car feel? Maybe eve…

“Might I suggest you be honest with yourself and say you like the new car feel? Maybe even like it as a status symbol? Don't want to think about what tires to buy to replace worn-out ones?”

Dead wrong.

I lease the cheapest car that is practical for my situation. I consider cars completely utilitarian tools. I get no joy from them, I hate driving and take public transit whenever I can.

I had very little money until I was in my late 20s when my career prospects finally took off. Cheap cars that failed frequently were a constant source of anxiety because I couldn’t get far enough ahead to maintain savings. When my career improved and I could afford small luxuries, I spent the money on leasing because I wanted to avoid the anxiety of cars breaking down. It was a gift to myself to lower my stress level.

EDIT: also, in northern Minnesota where the winters are hard and everything is covered in salt, car trouble DOES start after 4 years. Sometimes before.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#285

Post by gunnarmorling » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

chrisjc wrote: post #146

Probably an insignificant detail when considering the entire portfolio of subsidiaries and services under VMWare, but I guess there are some pretty notable projects included in this acquisition. Especially from the Pivotal portfolio such as RabbitMQ, GreenPlum, Spring, Hibernate, etc... although I'm sure most here couldn't care less about Spring related projects.

Hibernate isn't part of the Pivotal portfolio. I'm sure there are contributions by Pivotal employees, but the core Hibernate engineering team is employed by Red Hat, who also own the trademark, etc.

Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat and used to be part of the Hibernate team

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#286

Post by luma » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #222

vkat wrote: post #196

For anyone who doesn't know, VMware has doubled down in open source in the past 3 years, especially Kubernetes. I don't think Broadcom really understands how investment in open source works or for that matter cares. Half of my org of ~500 engineers works on upstream projects. Disclaimer: Current employee of VMware

I would be mildly interested in a 5 minute pitch of what VMware is offering these days, it's been 15 years since I've touched any of their products and the way they were doing things then really seems like it is becoming increasingly irrelevant so what have they been doing instead? It looks like my vague guess of "the same but also on top of cloud providers" seems to be about right given a quick glance at their websi…

They own a substantial chunk of the on-premises datacenter virtualization space. Loads of orgs still run their own kit, and VMWare makes some damn nice tools to squeeze the most from that investment. There are competitors in the space, but none with the breadth and depth of VMWare.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#287

Post by scarface74 » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #175

technion wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relevant that they are talking about VMware's security portfolio. The vast majority of why people are VMware proponents is down to their virtualisation software. It's why we were big resellers for a while. But for the last few years, their own sales people have only wanted to talk about security products, quite plainly acknowledging stagnant growth in on premise virtualisation. But virtualisation is in my view t…

This. Virtualisation has been commodified - cloud, kubernetes, docker, hyper-v, even virtualbox. Whereas securing a decade's worth of on-prem infrastructure is a real pain-point for enterprises. VMware Workstation blew my mind when I saw it demoed in (I think) mid-2000 [1]. I genuinely couldn't believe what I was seeing - it seemed that revolutionary, running an OS inside an OS on a desktop. I wonder whether VMware's…

I was running an x86 VM on my 16Mhz 68030 Mac LCII in 1996 in college - SoftPC by Insignia Solutions.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#288

Post by ghaff » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

CaptainNegative wrote: post #258

bombcar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone knew something - that's an insanely low valuation for a major player in the (then just starting) virtualization market. But at the time virtualization was considered as something "to keep that old Windows NT server/software running" - not foundational for all cloud services ever.

> Someone knew something A broken clock is right twice a day, and even EMC CEO Joe Tucci was right once in his lifetime. But don't look at his other acquisitions.

The Data General acquisition, which got them CLARiiON, arguably saved the company during the downturn--given that belt-tightening really hurt Symmetrix sales.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#289

Post by jnovek » Thu, May 26, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #220

jnovek wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presuming for a moment that you’re under 40 for the sake of conversation: Have you ever considered the other way around? That is, “What changes with age that would make someone over 40 prefer outsourcing a problem to an enterprise?” It’s possible that this trend is a result of a different perspective.

Certainly part of it is that, as you have been around longer and maybe moved higher up, you probably better appreciate how expensive it really is to have "just" a small team doing something that could largely be outsourced. You have the developers of course, their benefits, their manager's salary and benefits and some small slice of attention up the management chain and across other functional groups like HR. And it'…

Everything in this conversation is dancing around the same thing: core competency.

Something I saw in action building a startup is that the fewer people you have on your team, the more efficient they are.

As you grow, it’s wise to focus your headcount on your core competency and outsource everything else so that you are committing the organizational expense of more employees to all and only what you need as a business.

Of course, enterprise stuff is not all roses. You still have to have someone with product expertise. There’s vendor lock-in. Enterprise software is often oversold. Etc etc.

There is no panacea, just stuff that works better in different situations.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#290

Post by AcerbicZero » Thu, May 26, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

I was hoping an independent VMware might recapture some of what it lost during the Dell years, but they still produce a solid product that I generally enjoy working with. Not sure if Broadcom is going to make the situation much better though.