Rajiv Ramaswami: ‘It’s About Building The Next Billion At Nutanix’

Nutanix’s new President and CEO, Rajiv Ramaswami, plans to drive sales north of $2 billion while at the same time battling his former employer and Nutanix rival, VMware, in the huge and growing hybrid cloud software market for years to come.

“As I looked at Nutanix and my own background, my background is well suited for taking Nutanix into its next growth phase,” said Ramaswami in an interview with CRN. “Nutanix has done a great job going from zero to $1 billion. Now it’s about building the next billion at Nutanix. That’s where my experience in terms of operating at scale as well as my prior technology background in the development area can help Nutanix get there.”

Ramaswami was hired this week as Nutanix’s new president and CEO, a decision hailed by channel partners who said the 30-year industry superstar is the “perfect fit” to boost Nutanix’s market presence and better compete with VMware. Prior to Nutanix, Ramaswami for the past four years was chief operating officer of products and cloud services at VMware, responsible for business units developing products, cloud services and cloud operations.

In an exclusive interview with CRN, Ramaswami talks about his vision for Nutanix, leaving VMware and why channel partners can count on him. “I intend to spend a lot of my time with customers, and with channel partners together with customers as we go and drive and win those deals together,” he said.