VeloCloud CEO On VMware Acquisition: 'This Isn't The Finish Line, It's A Well-Appointed Pit Stop'

Going Bigger

VMware earlier this month said it planned to acquire VeloCloud, but the partner-friendly SD-WAN startup won't be using the deal to rest on its laurels.

Fresh off the news of the deal, Sanjay Uppa,l VeloCloud's CEO and one of its three co-founders, spoke with CRN about why VMware and VeloCloud are a natural fit, how VeloCloud won't be eliminating or consolidating its services or service provider strategy, and that partners can still call his cell, anytime.

Here are five questions and answers that solution providers need to know about the new deal.

What would you say to partners and customers with concerns around an established vendor taking over a startup?

To our customers and partners, we are not going to change what we are doing with the products and services we are delivering to you. This is not going to be us stopping a product line or consolidating in any way to affect what customers and partners will be doing with us. Partners will see VeloCloud in an amplified fashion after we close, so there should be no concerns at all with an established player acquiring a startup – it's not an attempt to stop producing. If anything, it's to do more and do better with the product line we have. That was the incentive for the deal from [VMware's] point of view and from mine as well. It's early in the SD-WAN game and we want to grow faster than what we are doing now. With VMware, we can do that.

How will this acquisition help VMware go head to head with networking vendors in software-defined networking?

IT is moving to the cloud -- compute, storage and applications. With networking moving to the cloud, that means that everything from the data center and the campus network all are moving to the cloud. VMware has done an excellent job with their NSX product line in the data center and with virtualization of desktops today, and this is the next logical piece in extending that all the way out to the edge. The way that this benefits us together is that now we have a complete end-to-end story including the WAN. I think the joint solution will be a lot more powerful instead of just being a piece-part, and that will make a lot of sense to partners as well as to our end customers.

Will the VeloCloud team be joining VMware?

The whole team is staying on, including myself and my two co-founders [Ajit Mayya, vice president, engineering, and Steve Woo, vice president, products]. I want our team to not think of this as a finish line -- it’s a pit stop. It’s a very well-appointed pit stop. We are going to get a bigger engine, more gas in the tank, and a much larger team that is like-minded in the WAN space. We are committed to continuing to grow the market because SD-WAN is still in a very early stage overall. The market is growing rapidly and we wanted to partner with someone who felt the same way and had the same strategy and culture but could really help us execute in a bigger, better and faster fashion.

VMware is a cloud and virtualization company and we are cloud and SD-WAN company, and their culture very strongly aligns with ours.

How will the acquisition impact the carriers that are offering VeloCloud-powered SD-WAN solution today?

There will be no change in terms of our SD-WAN products and services that we are building and offering today, and then beyond that, VMware is very gung-ho about going after service providers. They do already have some of those partners, so going forward there are opportunities for us to integrate even closer. I think this means only positive things for our service provider customers, and I believe very strongly in service providers leading the SD-WAN space. The good news was that VMware felt exactly the same way.

What's your message to partners?

I want them to be as excited as I am. This should be taken as great news. We are a 100 percent partner-driven company and VMware knows that exceedingly well. The reason for our success is because we haven't gone out and built up a large sales force, so I really want partners to feel that this is positive for them and that we are going to continue to deliver the quality products and services we have been doing, just in a bigger fashion.

We are continuing as an entire business unit -- all of the parts will be there. We will still be the approachable VeloCloud we always have been and we encourage partners and customers to continue to reach out to us they always have -- they have my email and my cellphone number, and that will continue.