Nutanix’s revenue rose to a record high last quarter, and it made a profit for the very first time. Nutanix is doing well, and expectations for the coming years look good. However, the success cannot be seen separated from Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. According to Rajiv Ramaswami, Nutanix’s CEO, this acquisition provides opportunities for growth in the coming years.
We spoke with Ramaswami about developments at Nutanix and its positioning in the current market. With all the developments at VMware, we were especially curious to see what effect this would have on Nutanix. At VMware, customers are uncertain about the future because the portfolio is being slashed and from now on, products will only be offered in bundles. The result is higher prices and a lot of turmoil.
Ramaswami says Nutanix will benefit from this acquisition over the next few years as VMware customers seek more certainty. However, this is process and it takes time, many people sometimes think it can go a lot faster.
Also read: Nutanix cloud vision for the next 10 years; run your workloads everywhere
VMware customers have long-term contracts
Many large VMware customers tried to create some certainty by renewing their licenses just before the acquisition was completed. Often by at least three to five years because of the higher discounts. As a result, they are less affected by all the portfolio changes and associated price increases for now, but that’s just a matter of time.
The infrastructures that VMware and Nutanix offer are at the heart of your IT stack, you can’t just replace them. That requires a well-planned migration that also takes time. Ramaswami expects many of these parties to switch fully or at least partially to Nutanix in the coming years.
According to Ramaswami, Nutanix is already in discussions with many of these organisations about the future and how they will transform their infrastructure. There are also organisations whose licenses expire sooner, which are now investing in Nutanix or scaling up their Nutanix stack to start the migration process. Ramaswami also mentioned several enterprise organisations that have frozen their VMware investment and chose to put all new projects on Nutanix.
Nutanix has promotions for VMware customers
Nutanix is currently offering organizations who want to migrate from VMware to Nutanix to do this without paying licensing fees for the time being, so they don’t have double licensing costs. Furthermore, the organization wants to work on visibility so that it becomes more apparent that Nutanix is the alternative to VMware.
Large migrations can be done within 90 days
One of the most frequently asked questions is how long it takes to replace VMware for Nutanix. Since it really involves replacing the core of your stack, there is a lot of complexity involved. It also depends on what you have running and what your infrastructure depends on. Ramaswami mentioned a good example, he stated that several U.S. hospitals had initiated a slow migration from VMware to Nutanix. When it became clear after the VMware acquisition what the new licensing costs would look like, they decided to migrate faster. In the end, these hospitals needed 90 days to migrate everything. Hospitals often have relatively complex and sometimes outdated infrastructure and software running, which makes migrations more difficult.
However, if you have a more modern organization or deal less with legacy, you can probably migrate much faster.
Cisco is a key partner, but its contribution to growth will take time
Ramaswami also wanted to touch on the partnership with Cisco. According to him, this is a very important partnership looking forward. Nutanix and Cisco have been working together for two quarters now, with Cisco also offering Nutanix solutions to its customers. This has led to some new customers, somewhat smaller customers, but it also takes some time to build up. Ramaswami sees that Cisco is very committed and expects this to grow considerably in the coming years.
Nutanix future bright
All in all, Ramaswami sees many opportunities for Nutanix in the coming years. In any case, the task now is to continue the line with higher revenue and being profitable. Marketing activities now focus on increasing Nutanix’s visibility as a VMware alternative. We are curious to see if Broadcom will respond to this and if they will still try to keep those customers on board, or if these are the customers they don’t have a focus on anyway.
We recently sat down with SoftwareOne, a major VMware partner, to hear SoftwareOne’s take on VMware developments.
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