In this episode of TFiR Let’s Talk, Swapnil Bhartiya sits down with Joshua Burgin, VP of Product and Strategy at VMware, while at VMware Explore to discuss VMware Tanzu and how it is helping solve the complexity problem with Kubernetes. He takes us through how VMware Tanzu supports container technology and how it is helping companies and also shares some customer success stories.

Key highlights from this video interview are:

• Burgin shares his insight into the atmosphere at VMware Explore, his first in-person conference since the pandemic began. He remarks the energy is incredible with lots of announcements and they are receiving a lot of good feedback.
• Burgin was one of Amazon’s first 100 employees in the 1990s, writing software for the website which he explains would now be called Devops. He discusses his work history and what motivated him to join VMware.
• Amongst the many announcements at VMware Explore, Tanzu Application Platform 1.3 was one that Burgin is particularly excited about, as well as, the new features for the Tanzu Mission Control (TMC). He explains the key topics being discussed and some of Tanzu’s key announcements.
• Burgin discusses his three areas of focus at VMware: understanding their customers’ needs and making sure that the company’s product portfolio and roadmaps reflect what customers need, working with the peers in other business units to work out what they can do to work better, and building the operating system for the organization.
• 70% of companies have implemented, at least to a small degree, container technology, with around half of them saying they will be going big on containers in the future. Burgin explains the support they have for containers with Tanzu Mission Control and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG), and how they are paving the way for the future.
• Burgin does not have any concerns about the Broadcom acquisition saying they are still laser focused on what their customers are asking them to do and with technology innovation. He goes on to discuss the company’s history of integration with the open source communities.
• Complexity is a major challenge with Kubernetes and one of VMware’s missions is to solve the complexity problem, making it more open and modular. Burgin says that OVHcloud, one of their customers of TAP, have found that their junior developers are now five times more productive at deploying applications, with more security and a higher quality. He goes on to discuss other customers, Discovery Holdings and S&P Global and their experiences with VMware products.
• Burgin shares the two factors that attracted him to VMware, a large portion of companies spending being on premises whose applications need to be modernized, and the opportunity in VMware Tanzu.

Connect with Joshua Burgin (LinkedIn, Twitter)
Learn more about VMware (Twitter)

The summary of the show is written by Emily Nicholls.