ESG On Location – VMware Explore 2022

Sporting a new name, the long anticipated in-person event, VMware Explore, was back this year with new innovation, new conversations, and a new theme, “Cloud Chaos.” The ESG analyst team was there, on location, and in this video, you will hear from me, as well as Mark Bowker, Bob Laliberte, Paul Nashawaty, and Kevin Rhone, on the most impressive announcements and insights from the event.

Check out the video and hope to see you in person at next year’s event.

Fresh off my trip to Dallas for IBM Think, I am reminded how much I enjoy the intimacy offered by these smaller regional events. Unlike their global counterparts, you can often get a closer look at the interaction between a vendor and its customers along with better insight into how IT leaders are handling their own transformation journeys. This setting was a wonderful complement to IBM's theme of “Let's create.”

Last week, I got to attend Pure Accelerate. It was wonderful to be back in out in the world again, and experience the sights and sounds speaking to live people face to face. As for the event, there was a ton to like. I took some video at the event and added my thoughts in the video below, please check that out.

Wrapping up the cloud convention year, with this year's re:Invent conference -- followed by a massive outage in AWS' US-EAST-1 region -- I decided it was time for a deep dive on a few of the cloud provider's recent announcements, particularly from an IaaS and PaaS perspective. See the quick-hit video with myself and Scott Sinclair below and the link to the longer blog over on TechTarget.

Can an IT systems vendor really transform into a cloud service provider? With everything we saw from HPE and HPE GreenLake at this year’s HPE Discover 2021, I think we are going to find out pretty soon. With this year’s announcements, it's clear HPE understands that modern IT wants a cloud-like experience everywhere, and HPE means to deliver it.

June is proving to be a busy month in the tech world. Cisco is no exception and has announced a new launch within their portfolio. I had the opportunity to attend Cisco’s Future Cloud event, and I am providing my summary of Cisco's future direction. They focused on innovation in these main areas:

• Extending observability and automation
• Everything as-a-service
• Accelerating hybrid cloud operations

At this year’s Pure Accelerate we were offered a glimpse into the future of data storage. Contrary to what you might expect, the event didn’t center on some new array or a new version of flash. Rather, the focus was on how Pure is transforming the way it delivers storage technology, how its storage supports modern application environments, and how its customers consume and manage its storage.

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending an analyst briefing with Ben Bolles, Vice President of Products; and Mike Koponen, Senior Director, Product Marketing and Strategic Alliances, at Pivot3 discussing their latest launch. It was interesting to see the advances in the hyperconverged infrastructure space and the differentiation Pivot3 is bringing to market.

When we look at Pivot3’s core areas, it is clear they are competing in a large market, but they keep the focus on video surveillance. This is a market segment that is clearly gaining adoption, not only at the data center core but also at the edge and in the cloud.

IBM Think! 2021 delivered a number of areas IT leaders may want to consider with new and existing initiatives and infrastructure deployments. This year’s event amplified the importance of growth in artificial intelligence as it relates to IBM Cloud Pak, digital transformation and digital business models, IBM Watson Orchestrate self-service automation, public and hybrid cloud, and application and infrastructure modernization, to say the least. Our research at ESG aligns nicely to the messages IBM delivered this year. Listen as Mark Peters, ESG Practice Director; Scott Sinclair, ESG Senior Analyst; Mike Leone, ESG Senior Analyst, and I discuss and share our thoughts on this year’s IBM Think! 2021 event.

One may think that the pace of cloud innovation and changing consumption models have simplified life for IT professionals. However, ESG's annual Technology Spending Intentions Survey highlighted that 75% of organizations believe IT complexity has increased over the last 2 years. Dell Technologies World was packed with announcements and information to help IT professionals address this complexity and transform operations. Listen in as Mark Peters, Practice Director; Kevin Rhone, Director ESG Channel Acceleration; Scott Sinclair, ESG Senior Analyst; and I share our thoughts on the event and the potential Dell is creating with Apex.