The big news of the week is of course change of leadership at our company. On September 1, 2012 our CEO Paul Maritz will be succeeded by Pat Gelsinger, who is currently president and chief operating officer at EMC Information Infrastructure. Paul will remain a board member of VMware and will take on a new technology strategist role at EMC. Pat will join our Board of Directors on the first of September as well.
“In Pat and Paul, we are fortunate to have two world-class leaders,” said Joe Tucci, chairman of VMware’s Board of Directors. “The strong teams that we now have in place at VMware and EMC allow me to ask Pat and Paul to take on two of the defining challenges and opportunities of the new, unfolding IT era: Cloud Infrastructure and big data. They have unique backgrounds and skills, and I look forward to continuing to work with both of them.”
We have also announced preliminary second quarter results, including record quarterly revenues, up 22% over second quarter 2011, and second quarter non-GAAP operating margins of approximately 32%. Both these numbers have exceeded our earlier guidance. You can read the full press release at vmware.com/company/news
Last week, VMware ThinApp has had a minor release, but don’t be fooled by the three-digit version number! The newly-released ThinApp 4.7.2 has some exciting features that people have been asking for, such as a mechanism for updating ThinApp packages in Horizon Application Manager; a new relink –h command to enable prior ThinApp packages for Horizon; and RemoveSandboxOnStart, a new Package.ini parameter.
The update mechanism allows you to place new versions of ThinApp packages on the Horizon ThinApp Repository, and Horizon reads a new VersionID parameter built into the package to differentiate the updated package from the prior package. Application entitlements and desktop shortcuts are preserved! Find out all about the new ThinApp release on the End-User Computing blog at blogs.vmware.com/euc
In other news, you can win a pass to VMworld 2012 by voting in the “how do you speak cloud” contest, which is in its second week now. You can play a part in naming the ultimate victor in this battle of music videos. With each vote you cast, you'll be entered in a random drawing for a $15 iTunes gift card, and there will be two drawings per day for each voting week. For the final week of voting, there will be a grand prize drawing for a full conference pass to VMworld 2012 in San Francisco. All votes cast throughout the 3 weeks will be included in the final drawing. Go to wespeakcloud.vmware.com to find out more and to vote!
If you live and work in the EMEA region, you can win $20,000 worth of VMware software and services in the Think Big For Your Business competition. If you have an idea of how virtualization and cloud computing could be used not just to cut cost, but to really transform your business, we’d like to hear about it. And if our judging panel thinks your idea is exceptionally creative and workable, you could be in with a chance of winning $20,000 of VMware software and services to turn your idea into reality. Visit thinkingbigcompetition.com for winning tips and to enter the contest.
The free on-demand training bootcamp for VMware View Mobile Secure Desktop starts on July 16th. In this ten-part bootcamp we will show you how to get started and how to successfully roll out and deploy virtual desktops and applications and infrastructure to securely support mobile users. Everyone who registers for the bootcamp will also receive a free e-book with all the presentation slides from the series. Visit communities.vmware.com and click on the orange button that says View Bootcamp on it to see the listing of all the scheduled presentations and to register.
And finally, Indianapolis VMUG is having a full-day user conference on the 26th this month. This one is the last full-day user conference until after VMworld San Francisco, with more of them taking place in the fall. Go to myvmug.com to find a VMUG conference near you and to register.
