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VMware history
VMware company history timeline
The VMware story begins on February 10, 1998, in sunny Palo Alto, California.
The solution worked out perfectly, and VMware acquired enormous popularity since its introduction in 1998.
VMware started operating in stealth mode in 1998 with merely 20 employees.
When the company began its journey in 1998, it consisted of only 20 employees.
In 1998, VMware was founded by Diane Greene, Mendel Rosenblum, Scott Devine, Ellen Wang and Edouard Bugnion.
1999 — First VMware product
In 1999 VMware made a beta version of its VMware software and made it available on the Web for users to try, allowing them simultaneously to run the Linux, Windows 95, and Windows NT operating systems.
By the end of 1999 the company introduced a commercial version of the software, VMware Workstation, priced at $299 for the corporate market and $99 for consumers.
VMware Workstation was the first product launched by VMware, but the company entered the server market in 2001 with VMware GSX server and VMware ESX server. It was in 1999 when the company was officially launched.
It quickly found a following, especially among the community of Linux users and software developers, who were now able to design and test different programs on one machine without having to juggle removable hard drives, each containing a different operating system. As a result, the company was cash neutral and had enough resources to open its first international office in 2000.
VMware ESX Server 1.5 was first released in 2002.
The company also received a great deal of publicity and validation in 2002 when Merrill Lynch & Co. acquired 27,000 licenses of Workstation for their traders' desktops, part of an effort to manage the risk in making the switch from Windows NT to the new Windows XP operating system.
To help market its products, VMware in 2002 forged deals with IBM and Fujitsu Siemens, who became distribution partners and resellers.
For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2003, VMware generated sales of around $31 million, all derived from licensing.
Since joining VMware in 2003, Raghuram has helped steer the company’s strategic direction and its technology evolution throughout VMware’s rich history.
In 2004, VMware organized its first conference, which was held in San Diego, California.
The VMware purchase was undoubtedly the right decision for EMC, since the VMware technology in 2004 showed great potential for future growth.
2004 marks the first year of VMworld, which will come to be the world's largest cloud computing and virtualization conference.
64-bit support was introduced in 2004.
In October 2005, VMware acquired Asset Optimization Group, specializing in capacity planning.
Moreover, it turned the corner on profitability. It was a quick transaction, announced on December 15, 2005, and closed less than a month later on January 9.
Business continued to flourish in 2005 with total revenues topping $387 million and net income soaring to $66.8 million.
In 2005, VMware establishes its first offices in Bangalore, India, and Beijing, China.
In 2006, VMware opened an office in Ireland with only five employees.
Also in 2006 VMware Infrastructure 3, the company's latest infrastructure virtualization software suite was released, as was Lab Manager to speed up enterprise software development.
Sales grew to $704 million in 2006 and net income approached $87 million in 2006.
The offering, completed on August 14, 2007, raised about $1.1 billion.
On August 14, 2007, EMC sold 15% of VMware to the public via an initial public offering.
In a 2007 interview, the founder of VMware Mendel Rosenblum discussed the need for more innovative and practical methods for storing data:
On September 10, 2008, Mendel Rosenblum, the company's co-founder, chief scientist, and the husband of Diane Greene, resigned.
On September 16, 2008, VMware announced a collaboration with Cisco Systems.
On November 26, 2008, VMware acquired Tungsten Graphics, a company with core expertise in 3D graphics driver development.
15% of the company is sold to the New York Stock Exchange IPO. In 2008, the company announced its partnership with Cisco in order to issue joint data center solutions.
On August 10, 2009, VMware announced the acquisition of SpringSource, which did enterprise and web application development and management.
The Dawn of the Virtual Desktop In 2009, VMware ushers virtualization into a new era: the age of desktop virtualization.
On May 6, 2010, VMware acquired GemStone, to be operated under VMware’s SpringSource division.
On April 12, 2011, VMware released an open source platform-as-a-service system called Cloud Foundry, as well as a hosted version of the service.
In April 2011, EMC transferred control of the Mozy backup service to VMware.
On April 26, 2011, VMware acquired SlideRocket a startup which developed a SaaS application for building business presentations that are stored online.
On July 23, 2012, Nicira, Inc. was acquired .
In August 2012, Pat Gelsinger was appointed as the new CEO of VMware, coming over from EMC. Paul Maritz went over to EMC as Head of Strategy before moving on to lead the Pivotal spin-off.
In March 2013, VMware announced the corporate spin-off of Pivotal Software, with General Electric making an investment in the company.
The SpringSource assets became part of the Pivotal joint venture in April 2013.
On October 15, 2013, Desktone was acquired .
NSX, released in 2013, allows you to create software-defined networks in virtual data centers.
On January 22, 2014, VMware acquired AirWatch for US$1.54 billion.
In January 2016, in anticipation of Dell's acquisition of EMC, VMware announced a restructuring to reduce about 800 positions, and some executives resigned.
On April 24, 2016, maintenance release 12.1.1 was released.
In April 2016, VMware president and COO Carl Eschenbach left VMware to join Sequoia Capital, and Martin Casado, VMware's general manager for its Networking and Security business, left to join Andreessen Horowitz.
The lawsuit was dismissed by the court in July 2016 and Hellwig announced he would file an appeal.
In August 2016 VMware introduced the VMware Cloud Provider website.
Mozy was transferred to Dell in 2016 after the merger of Dell and EMC.
In April 2017, according to Glassdoor, VMware was ranked 3rd on the list of highest paying companies in the United States.
VMware introduces its VMware PKS in August of 2017.
The first conference attracts 1,400 attendees—three times the expected attendance, but still a modest number compared to the more than 20,000 business people, entrepreneurs, and technologists who attended VMworld in 2017.
In Q2 2017, VMware sold vCloud Air to French cloud service provider OVH.
Happy 20th Anniversary! 2018 marks 20 years of software innovation, optimization and automation at VMware.
VMware makes a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality and 100 percent renewable energy use for global operations by 2020.
On January 13, 2021, VMware announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger would be leaving to step in at Intel.
On May 12, 2021, VMware announced that Raghu Raghuram would take over as CEO.
What Is vSAN? Understand the Generics and Specifics of vSAN, Parallels, 2021
"VMware, Inc. ." International Directory of Company Histories. . Retrieved June 23, 2022 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/vmware-inc
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VMware competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | 1911 | $62.8B | 270,000 | 2,307 |
| Citrix | 1989 | $3.2B | 9,000 | 6 |
| Sybase | 1991 | - | 3,576 | - |
| Juniper Networks | 1996 | $5.1B | 9,400 | - |
| Adobe | 1982 | $21.5B | 11,847 | 1,130 |
| Wind River | 1981 | $359.7M | 1,801 | 43 |
| HP | 1939 | $53.6B | 53,000 | 548 |
| Fortinet | 2000 | $6.0B | 9,700 | 287 |
| Intel | 1968 | $53.1B | 121,100 | 595 |
| Microsoft | 1975 | $245.1B | 182,268 | 3,124 |
VMware history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of VMware, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about VMware. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at VMware. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by VMware. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of VMware and its employees or that of Zippia.
VMware may also be known as or be related to VMWARE INC., VMware, VMware Inc, VMware, Inc, VMware, Inc., Vmware, Vmware, Inc. and Virtual Machine Software.