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VMware sprawls across the data centre to post 'solid' Q2 results

$1.6 BEELLION revenue, 2,000 VSANs now in production but no mention of EVO:RAIL

VMware has posted what CEO Pat Gelsinger described as “solid” second quarter results that exceeded analysts expectations on earnings-per-share and fell over the line on the revenue growth front.

The former metric was 93 cents a share, two cents higher than expected. The latter was $1.6bn, a four per cent improvement that scraped past the mark analysts thought could be possible.

More interesting numbers got an airing in the company's results call, namely the 2,000 VSAN customers VMware now counts (up from 1,0000 six months ago) and the 700 paying NSX network virtualisation customers that the company reckons makes it the most-deployed software-defined networking vendor.

VMware was most pleased with both of those numbers, declaring that VSAN and NSX are now letting impressive traction as they, and customers' comprehension of their roles, mature. The company also touted an increasing rate of sales that span its product portfolio.

AirWatch was deemed to be a CIO-door-opener par excellence, sales team integration between VMware and its mobile management prey is said to be resulting in more portfolio sales. Those renewing enterprise licences are said to be happy to buy more VMware stuff than just vSphere.

Indeed, chief financial officer Jonathan Chadwick sounded chuffed when revealing that “license bookings beyond standalone vSphere were greater than 60% of total license bookings.”

Tones were a little more muted when he stated “revenues from our hybrid cloud and SaaS offerings were greater than 6 per cent of our Q2 non-GAAP total revenue”.

Perkier delivery returned when he mentioned 80 per cent growth year-on-year, notwithstanding the fact that some of the surge can be put down to AirWatch's SaaS offerings rather than a stampede towards vCloud Air.

That service is said to be growing nicely, but may have had its wings clipped by VMware's $75m settlement for alleged price-fudging in the US government. That payment was one reason cited for a $50m trim to capital expenditure, now expected to come in at $350m for the year.

Coughing up to the Feds doesn't seem to be hurting VMware's US government business, which went well in this quarter and is expected to do better in the next thanks to the end of the US government's financial year.

President Carl Eschenbach also mentioned that the US government on Tuesday issued a new “virtualisation RFI ... which is very heavily driven towards a VMware solution set”.

The arrival of that RFI is important because VMware has long chased a big US government deal said to be worth about $1.6bn. That opportunity fell through after rival companies objected to being excluded, a factor VMware feels won't be an issue this time around as the new RFI is apparently a little looser.

Also on the call, Gelsinger dropped a hint about at least one VMworld reveal: he said we'll hear more about the company's “containers without compromise” plans at the August conference.

The EVO:RAIL hyperconverged server/SAN template didn't get a mention.

The Reg's virtualisation desk has heard mixed messages about its prospects. The decision to allow licence-holders to bring existing VMware licences to the product has, we're told, addressed a frequent complaint about price and made for a better-looking pipeline.

We've learned that EMC sold 80 EVO:RAIL in one deal, but may not previously have sold the same quantity to other customers.

But we digress: VMware and financial analysts declared themselves quietly satisfied with this quarter and projected nine to eleven per cent growth for the full year, which would mean between $6.5bn and $6.6bn of revenue. Were it not for currency fluctuations, that would be 12 to 14 per cent year-on-year growth. All at the pleasing non-GAAP operating of approximately 31.5 per cent.

Virtzilla goes stomping on! ®

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