In 1998,[7] VMware was founded byDiane Greene,Mendel Rosenblum, Scott Devine, Ellen Wang, andEdouard Bugnion.[8] Greene and Rosenblum were graduate students at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[9] Edouard Bugnion remained the chief architect andCTO of VMware until 2005[10] and went on to found Nuova Systems (now part ofCisco). VMware operated instealth mode for the first year, with roughly 20 employees by the end of 1998. The company was launched officially early in the second year, in February 1999, at theDEMO conference organized byChris Shipley.[11] The first product,VMware Workstation, was delivered in May 1999, and the company entered the server market in 2001 with VMware GSX Server (hosted) and VMware ESX Server (host-less).[11][12]
In 2003, VMware launched VMware Virtual Center, vMotion, and Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) technology. 64-bit support was introduced in 2004.
On January 9, 2004, under the terms of the definitive agreement announced on December 15, 2003, EMC (nowDell EMC) acquired the company with US$625 million in cash.[13][14] On August 14, 2007, EMC sold 15% of VMware to the public via aninitial public offering. Shares were priced atUS$29 per share and closed the day atUS$51.[15][16]
On July 8, 2008, after disappointing financial performance, theboard of directors fired VMware co-founder, president and CEO Diane Greene, who was replaced byPaul Maritz, a 14-yearMicrosoft veteran who was heading EMC'scloud computing business unit.[17] Greene had been CEO since the company's founding, ten years earlier.[18] On September 10, 2008, Mendel Rosenblum, the company's co-founder, chief scientist, and the husband of Diane Greene, resigned.[19]
On September 16, 2008, VMware announced a collaboration with Cisco Systems.[20] One result was the CiscoNexus 1000V, a distributed virtual software switch, an integrated option in the VMware infrastructure.[21]
In April 2011, EMC transferred control of theMozy backup service to VMware.[22]
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.[25]
In March 2013, VMware announced thecorporate spin-off ofPivotal Software, withGeneral Electric investing in the company. Most of VMware's application- and developer-oriented products, including Spring, tc Server, Cloud Foundry, RabbitMQ, GemFire, and SQLFire were transferred to this organization.[26]
In May 2013, VMware launched its ownIaaS service,vCloud Hybrid Service, at its new Palo Alto headquarters (vCloud Hybrid Service was rebrandedvCloud Air and later sold to cloud providerOVH), announcing an early access program in aLas Vegas data center. The service is designed to function as an extension of its customer's existing vSphere installations, with full compatibility with existing virtual machines virtualized with VMware software and tightly integrated networking. The service is based on vCloud Director 5.1/vSphere 5.1.[27]
In September 2013, atVMworld San Francisco, VMware announced the general availability of vCloud Hybrid Service and expansion toSterling, Virginia,Santa Clara, California,Dallas, Texas, and a service beta in the UK. It announced the acquisition of Desktone in October 2013.[28]
In January 2016, in anticipation ofDell's acquisition of EMC, VMware announced a restructuring to reduce about 800 positions, and some executives resigned.[29][30][31][32][33] The entire development team behind VMware Workstation and Fusion was disbanded and all US developers were immediately fired.[29][30][31][33] On April 24, 2016, maintenance release 12.1.1 was released. On September 8, 2016, VMware announced the release of Workstation 12.5 and Fusion 8.5 as a free upgrade supportingWindows 10 andWindows Server 2016.[34]
In April 2016, VMware president and COO Carl Eschenbach left VMware to joinSequoia Capital, andMartin Casado, VMware's general manager for its Networking and Security business, left to joinAndreessen Horowitz. Analysts commented that the cultures at Dell and EMC, and at EMC and VMware, are different, and said that they had heard that impending corporate cultural collisions and potentially radical product overlap pruning, would cause many EMC and VMware personnel to leave;[35] VMware CEOPat Gelsinger, following rumors, categorically denied that he would leave.[36][32]
In August 2016 VMware introduced the VMware Cloud Provider website.[37]
Mozy was transferred to Dell in 2016 after the merger of Dell and EMC.[38]
In April 2017, according toGlassdoor, VMware was ranked 3rd on the list of highest paying companies in the United States.[39]
In Q2 2017, VMware sold vCloud Air to French cloud service provider OVH.[40]
On January 13, 2021, VMware announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger would be leaving to step in atIntel.[41] Intel is where Gelsinger spent 30 years of his career and was Intel's first chief technology officer. CFO Zane Rowe became interim CEO while the board searched for a replacement.
On April 15, 2021, it was reported that Dell would spin off its remaining stake in VMware to shareholders and that the two companies would continue to operate without major changes for at least five years.[42] The spinoff was completed on November 1, 2021.[43]On May 12, 2021, VMware announced that Raghu Raghuram would take over as CEO.[44]
On May 26, 2022,Broadcom announced its intention to acquire VMware for approximately $61 billion in cash and stock in addition to assuming $8 billion of VMware's net debt, and that Broadcom Software Group would rebrand and operate as VMware.[46][47]
In November 2022, the UK'sCompetition and Markets Authority regulator announced it would investigate whether the acquisition would "result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services".[48][49]
The transaction closed on November 22, 2023,[50] after a prolonged delay in getting approval from theChinese regulator on an additional condition that VMware's server software should maintain compatibility with third-party hardware and not require the use of Broadcom's hardware products.[51][52] On completion, Broadcom reorganized the company into four divisions: VMware Cloud Foundation, Tanzu, Software-Defined Edge, and Application Networking and Security,[53] and subsequently laid off over 2,800 employees.[54] Broadcom also relocated its headquarters from North San Jose to VMware's headquarters campus in Palo Alto.[55]
On December 13, 2023, VMware ended availability for perpetually licensed products such as vSphere and Cloud Foundation, moving exclusively to subscription-based offerings. The company stated that this had been planned as an eventuality prior to the Broadcom acquisition.[56]
In February 2024 private equity firmKKR and Broadcom agreed for KKR to acquire Broadcom's End-User Computing (EUC) Division, formerly a division of VMware, for about $4 billion.[57] The EUC division, renamed toOmnissa, includes the desktop and app virtualization productOmnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon) and the device management suiteOmnissa Workspace ONE (formerly VMware Workspace ONE).
On May 14, 2024, it was announced thatVMware Workstation Pro andVMware Fusion Pro would be made free for personal use, with commercial use still requiring payment.[58] In November 2024, VMware announced that commercial use would be free too.[59]
VMware acquired the Bulgaria-based outsourcing company for an undisclosed sum.
January 2, 2008
Foedus
VMware acquired the New Hampshire (U.S.) based professional services company for an undisclosed sum.
July 2008
B-hive Networks
VMware acquired theIsrael-based start-up for an undisclosed sum. Following the acquisition VMware opened an R&D center in Israel, based initially on B-Hive's facilities and team in Israel.
Inventors of Spring Java open source, the most popular enterprise Java app framework for building web apps and microservices. The acquisition expanded VMware's education services to include SpringSource University and its authorized training partners such as Spring People in India. Spring became part of thePivotal Software spin-out, spin-in.
A highly scalable, distributed in-memory database. The Java product was included in the Pivotal spin-out and ultimately open sourced as Apache Geode. The Smalltalk product was bought by GemTalk Systems.
A startup which developed a SaaS application for building business presentations that are stored online. Through a Web-based interface, users can handle all parts of the process, from designing slides and compiling content, to reviewing documents and publishing and delivering them. VMware subsequently sold SlideRocket toClearSlide on March 5, 2013.
User Activity Monitoring startup. Its PacketSentry product was planned to be incorporated into VMware vCloud Networking and Security but then it was discontinued by the end of 2012.
A cloud management system originally spun out ofCredit Suisse. VMware rebranded products as vRealize Automation and vRealize Orchestrator, and ultimately incorporated into the vRealize Suite—now branded as VMware Aria Automation.
Cloud-native endpoint security software that is designed to detect malicious behavior and to help prevent malicious files from attacking an organization.
In March 2015, theSoftware Freedom Conservancy announced it was funding litigation by Christoph Hellwig in Hamburg, Germany against VMware for alleged violation of his copyrights in its ESXi product.[127]Hellwig's core claim is that ESXi is a derivative work of the GPLv2-licensedLinux kernel 2.4, and therefore VMware is not in compliancewith GPLv2 because it does not publish the source code to ESXi.[128] VMware publicly stated that ESXi is not a derivative of the Linux kernel,[129] denying Hellwig'score claim. VMware said it offered a way to use Linux device drivers with ESXi, and that code does use some Linux GPLv2-licensed code and so it had published the source, meeting GPLv2 requirements.[130]
The lawsuit was dismissed by the court in July 2016[131] and Hellwig announced he would file an appeal.[132] The appeal was decided February 2019 and again dismissed by German court, on the basis of not meeting "procedural requirements for the burden of proof of the plaintiff."[133][134]
In May 2023, VMware was ordered to pay $84.5 million for patent infringement on two patents belonging to Densify, a Canadian software company.[135]
VMware's most notable products are itshypervisors. VMware became well known for its first type 2 hypervisor known asVMware Workstation. This product has since evolved into two additional hypervisor product lines: VMware's type 1 hypervisors running directly on hardware (ESX/ESXi) and their discontinued hosted type 2 hypervisors (GSX).
VMware software provides a completelyvirtualized set of hardware to the guest operating system.[136] VMware software virtualizes the hardware for a video adapter, a network adapter, and hard disk adapters. The host provides pass-through drivers for guest USB, serial, and parallel devices. In this way, VMware virtual machines become highly portable between computers, because every host looks nearly identical to the guest. In practice, aSystem administrator can pause operations on a virtual machine guest, move or copy that guest to another physical computer, and there resume execution exactly at the point of suspension. Alternatively, for enterprise servers, a feature called vMotion allows the migration of operational guest virtual machines between similar but separate hardware hosts sharing the same storage[137] (or, with vMotion Storage, separate storage can be used, too). Each of these transitions is completely transparent to any users on the virtual machine at the time it is being migrated.
VMware's products predate thevirtualization extensions to the x86 instruction set, and do not require virtualization-enabled processors. On newer processors, the hypervisor is now designed to take advantage of the extensions. However, unlike many other hypervisors, VMware still supports older processors. In such cases, it uses the CPU to run code directly whenever possible (as, for example, when runninguser-mode andvirtual 8086 mode code on x86). When direct execution cannot operate, such as with kernel-level andreal-mode code, VMware products usebinary translation (BT) to re-write the code dynamically. The translated code gets stored in spare memory, typically at the end of theaddress space, whichsegmentation mechanisms can protect and make invisible. For these reasons, VMware operates dramatically faster than emulators, running at more than 80% of the speed that the virtual guest operating system would run directly on the same hardware. In one study VMware claims a slowdown over native ranging from 0–6 percent for the VMware ESX Server.[138]
VMware Workstation, introduced in 1999, was the first product launched by VMware. This software suite allows users to run multiple instances ofx86 orx86-64-compatible operating systems on a single physicalpersonal computer. Version 17.0 was released on November 17, 2022. Originally acommercial app, VMware Workstation has becomefreeware in December 2024.
VMware Fusion provides similar functionality for users of theIntel Mac platform, theApple Silicon platform built onARM, along with full compatibility with virtual machines created by other VMware products. Originally acommercial app, VMware Fusion has becomefreeware in December 2024.
VMware ESXi,[139] anenterprise software product, can deliver greater performance than the freeware VMware Server, due to lower systemcomputational overhead. VMware ESXi, as a "bare-metal" product, runs directly on the server hardware, allowing virtual servers to also use hardware more or less directly. In addition, VMware ESXi integrates intoVMware vCenter, which offers extra services.
VMware vRealize Suite – a cloud management platform purpose-built for a hybrid cloud. VMware vRealize Hyperic was acquired fromSpringSource[140] and subsequently discontinued in 2020.[141]
VMware Go is a web-based service to guide users of any expertise level through the installation and configuration of VMware vSphere Hypervisor.[142]
VMware Cloud Foundation – Cloud Foundation provides an easy way to deploy and operate a private cloud on an integrated SDDC system.
vSphere+ and vSAN+ – activates add-on hybrid cloud services for business-critical applications running on-premises, includingIT disaster recovery andransomware protection[143]
VMware's storage and availability products are composed of two primary offerings:
VMware vSAN (previously called VMware Virtual SAN) issoftware-defined storage that is embedded in VMware'sESXi hypervisor.[145][146] The vSphere and vSAN software runs on industry-standardx86 servers to form ahyper-converged infrastructure (or HCI). However, network operators need to have servers from HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) to put one into production.[147] The first release, version 5.5, was released in March 2014.[148][149] The 6th generation, version 6.6, was released in April 2017.[150][151] New features available in VMware vSAN 6.6 include nativedata at rest encryption, local protection for stretched clusters, analytics, and optimizedsolid-state drive performance.[152] The VMWare 6.7 version was released in April 2018.
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) automates the failover and failback ofvirtual machines to and from a secondary site using policy-based management.[153][154]
VMware NSX is VMware's network virtualization product marketed using the termsoftware-defined data center (SDDC).[155][156] The technology included some acquired from the 2012 purchase of Nicira.[85][86] Software Defined Networking (SDN) allows the same policies that govern Identity and Access Management (IAM) to dictate levels of access to applications and data through a totally converged infrastructure not possible with legacy network and system access methods.
The VIX (Virtual Infrastructure eXtension)[157]API allows automated or scripted management of a computervirtualized using either VMware's vSphere, Workstation, Player, or Fusion products. VIX provides bindings for the programming languagesC,Perl,Visual Basic,VBScript andC#.[158][159]
VMware Workstation Player (discontinued)[162] was freeware for non-commercial use, without requiring a license, and available for commercial use with permission. It is similar to VMware Workstation, with some features not available, including support for UEFI Secure Boot, snapshots, encrypted virtual machines, and some advanced features.[163]
Beginning in January 2022, hackers infiltrated servers using theLog4Shellvulnerability at organizations who failed to implement available patches released by VMware according toPCMag.[165]ZDNET reported in March 2022 that hackers utilized Log4Shell on some customers' VMware servers to installbackdoors and forcryptocurrency mining.[166] In May 2022,Bleeping Computer reported that theLazarus Groupcybercrime group, which is possibly linked toNorth Korea, was actively using Log4Shell "to inject backdoors that fetch information-stealing payloads on VMware Horizon servers", includingVMware Horizon.[167]
^Lashinksky, Adam (October 2, 2007)."50 Most Powerful Women in Business — Full speed ahead".CNN.Archived from the original on August 10, 2020. RetrievedAugust 3, 2020.In 1988 she picked up a second master's, in computer science, at the University of California at Berkeley, where she met Rosenblum
^"Desktop Hypervisor".vmware.com.Broadcom. RetrievedJanuary 18, 2025.As of April 30th, 2024 Workstation Player and Fusion Player are considered EOS (End of Sale) and are unavailable for purchase going forward. Customers with active contracts will continue to be supported for the duration of their contract. This means products will receive regular updates, and support tickets can be filed.
US$13.4 billion (2023)
US$2.0 billion (2023)
