Posted by Terry Anderson
VP of Global Corporate Communications

On December 4, 2012, EMC and VMware shared information on the newly formed Pivotal Initiative.

Q: What is the Pivotal Initiative?

VMware and EMC are committing key existing technology, people and programs from both companies focused on Big Data and Cloud Application Platforms under one virtual organization—the Pivotal Initiative—led by Paul Maritz, Chief Strategy Officer of EMC.  The companies expect to formally unite these resources by Q2 2013, with a specific operational structure to be determined.*

Q: Why is this happening?

We are experiencing a major change in the wide scale move to cloud computing, which includes both infrastructural transformation and transformation of how applications will be built and used based on cloud, mobility and big data.

There is a significant opportunity for both VMware and EMC to provide thought and technology leadership, not only at the infrastructure level, but across the rapidly growing and fast-moving application development and big data markets.  Aligning these resources is the best way for the combined companies to leverage this transformational period, and drive more quickly towards the rising opportunities.

Q: What groups are aligned to this new initiative?

Most employees and resources currently working within EMC’s Greenplum and Pivotal Labs organizations, VMware’s vFabric (including Spring and Gemfire), Cloud Foundry and Cetas organizations as well as related efforts will be joining this new initiative.  This includes approximately 600 employees from VMware and 800 employees from EMC.

Q: Why is this good for EMC?

Over the years, EMC has very successfully built and acquired an impressive collection of businesses and technologies geared toward, among others, the formation of Big Data and analytics, Cloud Application Services (PaaS) and the emerging Software Defined Data Center paradigm. The Pivotal Initiative signals an entirely new level of focused investment and organization to maximize the impact that these assets can have for customers and EMC’s path forward.

Q: Why is this good for VMware?

The Pivotal Initiative will enable a new generation of workloads that can exploit the advancements VMware is driving in the datacenter.  By realigning resources within the Pivotal Initiative, VMware can more fully focus resources on delivering the software defined datacenter, the de facto infrastructure at the heart of cloud computing, and on end-user computing – two areas where we see tremendous opportunity for growth.

Also, the resulting Pivotal Initiative solutions will be optimized for the VMware vCloud Suite, helping to ensure that customers benefit from the best cloud architecture available, top to bottom. Simultaneously, VMware will continue to drive application-aware innovations into its core platform, ensuring best-in-class performance of any application when deployed onto the VMware vCloud Suite.

Q: Why is this good for customers and partners?

Customers and partners are looking for solutions that enable a new generation of increasingly mobile and data-centric applications that can exploit the datacenter of the future. The new organization will accelerate existing efforts in this area by the two companies, creating a primary, unified and focused endeavor around a common mission, roadmap and strategy.

Both companies remain committed to customer and partner success, and there is not expected to be any impact to existing agreements or committed support.  Customers and partners can continue to buy products and services as they normally would from both companies without interruption during this alignment.

Q: How and when can I learn more?

Both companies will provide updates on this initiative in Q1 2013.

• For EMC customers and partners who have questions, please submit an email to pivotal_init_ques@emc.com
• For VMware customers and partners who have questions, please submit an email to pivotal_init_ques@vmware.com 

*Subject to appropriate steps and regulations, including those of the EU